Looking forward

In this photo, the foreground is brand new green leaves on a new aspen tree that just popped up last year.  The background is a crabapple tree of the neighbors.  It is a riot of color out there.  And tomorrow it is supposed to snow.  I just hope it doesn't get cold enough to kill all of the little new things that got tricked by warm weather to burst forth.

Tomorrow I shall return to work.  I worked for a couple of hours this afternoon.  I have some fear about making my deadlines this week.  I have had such a hard time for the last two months.  Theoretically, it should be easier every month - but that is only if everything doesn't change and my people keep changing things so I am constantly redesigning.

I remember as a child the "Sunday night feeling."  It was a horrible feeling of impending doom.  I wonder if kids still feel that way.  It wasn't a simple feeling of "I don't want to go to school tomorrow," it was sheer terror of my inadequacies and what new trauma that would bring.  Probably if I were a kid today I would be diagnosed with a learning disability of some sort.  But it was the 50s and 60s and the priests came and told me it was a sin to waste my God given intelligence.  Somehow they knew I was intelligent but couldn't teach me?  So I not only felt inadequate but guilty about it.

When I was graduating from high school the last thing on earth I wanted to do was go to more school, so I didn't.

Imagine my surprise to be 10 years sober, 43 years old, and find that I was an honors student at a real university!   And seven years later, I was the proud recipient of a master's degree.  I am still amazed by that.

So, back to tonight, I don't have dread or the feeling of impending doom.  But I am a bit nervous about getting my work done this week.  I don't believe I have ever had a job with so many hard deadlines.

This morning my daughter and I went to my homegroup.  She knows a bunch of people there too.  People who know us separately look at us and get a shocked look on their faces.  That's your daughter! Yep.  She sure is.  And luckily for me, there are people in that group who have known me for long enough to tell her that they remember me when I was her age and I was just as nutty.

A bunch of people I would normally not "mix" with asked us to breakfast - and I hate to admit that I would have declined if not for daughtie.  So, I went out for breakfast with a bunch of people which was fun.  I got to have a really interesting conversation with a man approximately my age, who has been sober for about as long as I have - I don't recall ever meeting him before.  All the young pups went out to smoke and he and I discussed our kids.  His oldest committed suicide last year.  His middle child has her own problems.  And so does his youngest.  We talked about how much we love our kids and how young they were when we got sober and how we had hoped that we wouldn't have caused so much damage.  Oh well.  We can wish all we want, but we do some major damage when we warp a home out of any semblance of sanity with our alcoholism.  And we both agreed that our early years of sobriety were the hardest on the family.

We both bought into AA being a "selfish program,"  and both of us could agree that we neglected our families.  Regrets.  You can never get that time back with your kids.

I guess I could sit here and write for hours more, but I need to get myself ready for another work week. I am grateful for that.  And everything else too.

Thank you God.