Clarity, Calmness, and Love

On the drive into work this morning, I noticed the sun was playing peek-a-boo with me through the trees. When I least expected it, it would kiss my face full force, and then shyly disappear. I love morning. The hum of expectation hangs in the air. I was listening to some beautiful music and listening to it loud since there weren't three critics in the car demanding I turn my "not so cool" music down. When a thought and a feeling both struck me at once. I love my husband! I really truly love him! I know we've been married for almost 17 years but this time I felt it, and felt it entirely. You can utter those words a thousand times, but to feel it makes all the difference. Not to mention my marriage has suffered the most. There was a brief time in our dating when the two of us only existed. But like I said it was brief. You don't realize that when your self esteem is so eroded you can't give love but even worse you can't receive love. I made horrible choices before I met my husband. Dated people that took and did very little giving back, so by the time I got married I had no clue of who I was. What I stood for. I just felt angry. I have kept the best part of myself very far away from my husband. Alcohol was my partner because it didn't demand anything of me. I didn't have to give a damn and neither did the bottle. How sad when you put a higher price on the bottle than a loved one. Sometimes looking at my husband, I see a battlefield and we are the only two standing in the smoke and destruction. How do you fix this? where do you begin to close the gaping abyss that is your marriage. I never felt I was worthy of love. It's starting to sink in that I am. People at meetings extend themselves out and say,"let us take care of you". Better them than me since look at the bang up job I've done. I hear my HP saying,"let's do this one day at a time. Let the trust build, let your husband see the change.....let it set its own course". In the book "Moments of Clarity" Jamie Lee Curtis shares her story. She was first addicted to alcohol then she gave up alcohol and started Vicodin. In the end she was back to both. She says finally she was,"sick and tired of being sick and tired", but it took her another 6 weeks to get help. I was "sick and tired" last August and it took me another 6 months before I walked into AA. She also pointed out that hoplessness is without change, because to change brings hope. I love that. Change, something we resist so hard! The very word conjures up fear, but change is a necessity. It's hitting me left and right everyday. Normally I would be going crazy with all these emotions popping up every few seconds but I have a surpising calm. When you are in the moment, in just that 24 hours you are buffered from the past and the future. Carl Jung says it best :"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order". Thank God for God, and AA, and a program that can help me find me. I deserve to love, and love deeply, and even more I deserve to be loved deeply.......