Road Trips, Family, Blogs, Disclosure, and Domestic Violence...

I have three minutes, and these are the topics I would like to cover this morning. What are the odds? Well, I could limit myself to three minutes.... well, we are now down to 2... and get maybe the road trip covered. Or, I could make it 10 and see what we can cover. It is probably too much anyway, because I don't feel particularly great. And I fished around blogs this morning and ended up with a pounding heart. Not a good way to start a day.

My brother called on Monday night. Seems he and my sister-in-law were in the State visiting their son, my nephew, and his family. They wanted me to come down to visit some night this week. My first response was - 6 hours of driving for a dinner and 2 hour visit? Are you kidding me? How long have you known you were coming? And you are just letting me know now? And then the voice of something other came in and said - just go - it has been a couple of years since I have seen my brother, he is 72 years old, and this is no time to pick fights. I can drive. I got my daughter to go with me and we made it a mini-road trip.

It was so nice to see my family and sit around a big table laughing and eating. Unlike earlier times, there was no booze at the table, which was wonderful for more than one of us. We had a wonderful time. My niece's fiance was there from another town in another state for a minute, and I got to "meet" him. But he said he already knew me. Eeeesh. He remembers me from when he was a teenager and I was a young drunken scandalous woman in a small town. Those are uncomfortable moments I seldom face anymore. But it was long ago, and I just smiled and shook his hand. He is a nice man and I hope I will have years to show him the "new" me.

Mary in Africa wrote about the insane amount of disclosure that is on some blogs. I fear mine has been one of those. I have had to really dial it back. I hate that. I loved it when my blog was new and no one knew who I was. I was just an anonymous blogger. I could talk about "someone in a meeting" with gay abandon. Or "my daughter" or "my sister." Now I can talk about no one. I can't say anything. I can talk in vague generalities. There is a huge issue going on in my life that is effecting me profoundly that I cannot even mention here because someone I cannot trust reads my blog. If it were just me, I would talk about it, but it involves another person and I do not have the right to disclose anything about the other person. DAMMIT! I feel l like I have lost the blog because of this one reader and it really pisses me off!

OK, I have been at it for 12 minutes and the most powder keg issue is still at hand. Mr. Syd wrote a nice (would he ever do otherwise?) piece about domestic violence last night. The comments had my blood boiling. It is probably me, but they all seemed to do the typical "blame the victim" thing. "Well, we called the police, but SHE just went back... bla bla bla...." Let me just say, having been the victim of DV for a brief and astonishing period of my life, do not judge unless you have ever been on the receiving end of this deal. I never understood until I lived it. And I would never judge now. Never.

It is funny, when I recall being married to this man, a slightly effeminate man with a british accent, and a pear shaped body - the last person on earth you would ever suspect of being violent - or dangerous - it makes me frightened. And I don't blame him so much. I believe he was doing the best he could with what he had. It was woefully inadequate. WOEFULLY. And I had to leave. There was absolutely no choice in the matter.

But there was an entire social system in AA who knew what was going on and kept their mouths shut and acted like he was a nice guy and I was slightly nuts. And believe me, if you are being beaten, and having your bones broken, by the man you love, you will go at least slightly nuts. If you are a sociopath and doing this beating, you may still be a charming, funny guy who can crack up a whole room at an AA meeting, and therefore be liked. While your wife is sitting in the corner with a cast on her arm looking at little bit wacky.

Oh, yeah, I think I still have a few "issues" about this.

I don't think I needed to go here this morning.

I will try to get my mind to go somewhere else while I take a bath this morning.

God was able to keep me sober through that and I imagine he will be able to keep me sober today. Thank you God.