Journals of a Lifetime

Chapter One - Pink Leather 11

February 23, 2010
This is the day before Simon turns Twelve!
Twelve years ago today, I had told my employer that I was ready to start working ½ days, but instead I went into labor that very evening. Simon was born at 10:45 am on February 24, 1998. He was the happiest little guy an easy baby and still, an amazing kid, a wonderful and interesting, delightful person.
Now I am twice divorced and Simon has a sister who lives in Charlotte, NC with her daddy. Instead of working at Kinko's with a degree in graphic design, I am now working as a hairstylist (with a degree in graphic design!). I am also in therapy dealing with my past, finding out 'who I am' and I haven't had a drink or substance to feel different in over 3 years. I have to work on my issues so that I can make better decisions. Sigh.
My horoscope says that this is one of the best years of my entire life. That I haven't had a year so full of luck, good fortune and love for 12 years. So I believe this is the beginning of a very exciting cycle. And Simon is a Pisces like me! It won't matter what I do, as long as I continue to prosper and my life is filled with Love and much time with both of my kids.
The horoscope also says that the full moon on the weekend of MY birthday is especially "Magic" for going for my fondest wish...I wish that Simon and Emily both live with me. I wish for a large sum of money to just fall in my lap. I wish for my debts to be all gone. I wish to own/purchase the home I live in. I wish for a lucrative, exciting, fun career complete with travel, massage, spiritual retreats and romance.
Now really, is that too much to ask for on my birthday? :)

Letter to God dated February 13, 2010, @ McDonald's indoor play place in Charlotte, NC
Dear God,
I am writing to you a letter because I have a hard time staying focused when I pray. My mind wanders and I wind up in self pity and/or revenge fantasies. It's so difficult to stay in 'Right Now' and 'Gratitude'.
My dream last night reminded me of how much rage, bitterness and unfairness I still have. I dreamed I was still married to and living with Joe. But there was another woman in our home, pregnant with his baby and I was so FURIOUS. It's like a part of me wants to have a normal love relationship, but another part just knows I'm incapable. I look back at my life, my whole life, my childhood and all I see is the sickness for as far back as I can remember. I don't recall a time, ever, that males were just regular people. I cannot recall ever being relaxed or comfortable as just me. I never understood that my behaviors and obsessions were a natural result of what was done to me and not my fault. And now that I do understand that intellectually, I cannot seem to alter how I feel. I feel defeated, rage at how my life turned out. I feel powerless to change what happened and these ugly consequences I must now deal with.
I do feel that I have changed. I do not indulge in most of my old behaviors. I'm not getting sucked into relationships anymore. But God, what will happen (or what should I do) if I ever find myself attracted to someone again? I am afraid of sexual desire and have no idea how to just BE with someone and be happy.
I need help with Simon. I need your help dealing with my fury at Joe. I need help maintaining a close relationship with Emily. I need to feel your guidance and some conviction that I am on the right path. Please God, all these needs and fears I have get so overwhelming and I feel so inadequate. Please show me what you want me to do and give me the power to pull it off.
Thanks, Kate

March 10, 2010
On March 3rd, John F. mustered up the courage to ask me out to dinner. Saturday, the 6th he picked me up after work and we drove across town talking mostly about AA. The topic was easy since it's how we know each other. That and someone who painted my house recommended I hang wallpaper for him.
What a pleasant time I had. A little awkward being on a real date, but just what I wanted: a sober attractive gentleman. We ate Indian food, had a coffee and more pleasant conversation at Starbucks, and then went to an 8 o'clock AA meeting.
I am nervous about dating and how to apply it to my healing from childhood sexual abuse. Dr. R says I ought to start the exercises and reading my "Courage to Heal". I've put it off a too many times while putting out the emotional fires of the bitter divorce, losing my kids and then fighting to keep them living in Florida. It really is just time, I guess.
I know that John is smitten, which is nice. I am happy and wary. Not wanting to be culled from the herd and letting my old ways and my body betray me. He said in an email that he felt like he was 47 going on 15.
I'm glad he used that analogy since I have been trying to figure out how to handle the physical/sexual advances that are inevitable if we keep dating. It has occurred to me that in order for me to feel safe and respected I need for someone to imagine they have a 15 year old daughter and then imagine what he would want, expect, DEMAND for his baby girl and then treat ME that way. I need to give that to myself since no one did while I was growing up. It's my job now to parent the little girl who was wounded.
At the AA meeting I was asked to speak at the birthday meeting at the end of the month, so I began writing my story. It just poured out and I am prepared to say out loud, without blame, the circumstances of the abuse and how it applies to my alcoholism. Not that I intend for it to be the focus, but it is an integral part of my story. It is who I am: a survivor and an alcoholic.

March 11, 2010
My name is Kate and I am a grateful alcoholic in recovery. My sobriety date is November 15, 2006. I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and this is my story, hopefully within the context of sharing my experience, my strength and hope.
I am the youngest of 4 children. I have two brothers and a sister, none of whom have the disease of alcoholism. My parents divorced when I was an infant in 1965, so I have no memories of my father ever living with us. He did live close enough, here in Panama City for us to see him on occasion. My earliest memory of my father is the time he and I were taking a late afternoon nap at his home, a single wide trailer near the airport. He used the opportunity to rub his hands all over me and give me sexual pleasure. I was about 4 years old and I believe it began for me a pattern of associating pleasure as something one took without asking.
It did not occur to me to tell anyone what happened and I don't know if it ever happened again. I don't believe he ever did anything brutal or painful. In fact, for a long time, from my teenage years through young adulthood, I was under the false belief that he had done me a favor by giving me the gift of being open-minded, sexually uninhibited, liberated and promiscuous.
I spent the first 7 years of my life living one block from Lisenby hospital where I was born. My mother worked to support us so I spent a lot of time unsupervised by an adult. Our next door neighbors were a family that had both a mommy, a daddy and two little girls about my age who attended Panama City Christian School. We were allowed to play together in their backyard; never inside. That is probably due to the time I was invited over to eat and stuck bread in my nose to make a funny beard. It went over like a lead balloon.
I was needy and I longed for my father's attention which I almost never got. He was always more interested in my older brother and sister. I learned to read and comprehend what I was reading at about the same age as when my father molested me. This ability was a great source of approval from teachers and other adults but what mattered most to me: my daddy was very impressed. It was the one thing that got me noticed. My new trick did not set me up to be an excellent student. What it did was imply to me that I was intellectually superior. Something my father perpetuated, since he was the younger brother of a genius who attended college as a child. This was not a good message for me. I was an extrovert, talkative and highly creative with no positive outlet or direction. I learned the meaning of isolation at a very early age while having to spend many lunch periods eating by myself as punishment for my lack of self control.
My first impression of God and organized religion would have come from the two Baptist girls next door. One summer I was invited to attend a program for kids called, "Bible Time Boosters". I remember the assembly where they had us all bow our heads and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to come into our hearts and save us from our sins so we could go to heaven when we died. The deal was, when you felt the Lord in your heart you were to raise your hand so someone could take you off to a private little room and complete the process of saving you. Not feeling anything different, but not wanting to miss out on the climax either, I raised my hand and got prayed over. I lied to please them and still got nothing. It was around that time that the Godly life seemed to be pretty boring and I just knew I wasn't cut out to be one of those goody goody little girls in pink dresses and shiny shoes. They also told me not to come back dressed in a halter top and shorts. I was probably about 6 or 7 years old.
My mother remarried when I was between the 3rd and 4th grades. Her marrying him was a big step up in our financial and living situations. We moved over the bridge to a ranch style 4 bedroom house near Snake-a-Torium, what is now called Zoo World, and it meant changing schools for me. It was in the 4th grade at Beach Elementary where I made the friends with whom I would eventually experiment with cigarettes, sex, drugs and rock and roll. All of that did not happen all at once, other things like shoplifting and lying came first.
My stepfather was the manager at the Breakers where my mother had worked as a cocktail waitress. Now she was a stay at home mom. I had my own room, nicer clothes and even fancier food. My oldest brother was about 17 or 18 by then and had taken the opportunity to move out on his own. My sister, the good girl, was now in high school diligently preparing for college. The thought never occurred to me as an option, even though I believed myself to be so smart. My talents, wit and charm were obviously going to be my ticket to success. My other brother was in middle school already paving his way by moving in the popular circles.
That was not to be my path. I mistrusted people who followed the rules and enjoyed just being normal. I am not sure why. I preferred my juvenile delinquent friends that bucked the system. Maybe it was due in part to the reaction my stepfather had in response to my getting caught shoplifting at Alvin's Island. I must have been about 10 years old.
He was furious and embarrassed because he knew the owners of the store. He spanked me with my pants down and lectured my mother, "I may not be able to change the other two, but just wait and see how Kate turns out!" My stepfather was gruff, unaffectionate to us kids, unless he had a few drinks in him, that is, and a stern disciplinarian. Billy and I were always on restriction it seemed. He made it very clear that we were wild brats who needed to be whipped into shape, broken to yield to his will and he attempted that through intimidation, yelling and humiliation.
His treatment of me only set me up to use my brains, talents and creativity to be even sneakier, better at lying and not getting caught as I pursued my ideas of fun. One particular memory I have of him is the time I climbed up into his lap for some snuggling. He pushed me away accusing me of trying to get something from him, "What do YOU want?"
Their marriage lasted only about 3 years and he left my mother for another woman, one without children. Imagine that.
For awhile it was like a death in our home. My room was right next to theirs and I could hear my mother crying many nights. I did not have the power to console her, but I was relieved that he was not around to yell at me and my brother and sister. Ironically, years later Billy, Elizabeth and I all worked at the Breakers where Eddie was still the manager and therefore, our boss. As a young adult, I came to like him and was able to see that beyond the gruff exterior was a pretty nice guy. I am sure that he did the best he could with what he had to work with when we were children.
It was while I lived under his roof that I first drank alcohol. My friend Kristi and I decided to drink vodka and orange juice before walking to a football game at Pete Edward's Field. The vodka was my stepfather's and Kristi got smashed. I did not. We walked until she fell down in front of the Playhouse Lounge where she vomited and laid there writhing until the police came. I am pretty sure I skated out of that one by just walking home. I abandoned her and she never faulted me for it.
The first time I got drunk I was probably about 12 years old. About the same age as the first joint I smoked, both with the same girl, Cathy. Cathy was the lead instigator of the pack and she distracted the clerk at Alvin's Island while I stole a bottle of Boone's Farm strawberry wine. We both drank the wine in an abandoned house that had an unlocked window. Cathy didn't get as intoxicated as I did, since she spent a lot of energy later making fun of me for the stupid things I did. Her favorite humiliation was that I peed in the middle of her back yard in broad daylight. She delighted in showing me the wad of toilet paper still nestled in the grass right out in plain sight.
Since Cathy lived farther out on the beach in Open Sands, we spent a lot of afternoons, weekends and long summer days and nights hanging out at an arcade called Funland. As middle schoolers we learned quickly about the joys of getting into cars with boys old enough to drive. We smoked, drank, 'partied' and we told many lies.
We skipped school quite often, hitchhiked when we couldn't find a ride and several times I snuck out of the house after bedtime to drive my mother's car around, but not everything I did was juvenile and delinquent. I had talents beyond reading and writing: I also had artistic abilities and was awarded 'Best Art Student" in the 7th grade by a kind teacher who probably hoped some positive recognition might help steer me in a better direction. I was a grade school cheerleader briefly and I pursued acting at the local community theatre. It was a healthy outlet for me and I made good grades for a little while.
It was after Mama and Eddie divorced that all these improvements began for me. I am not blaming my stepfather for my errant behavior; it's just the way things happened. We had moved across town to Lynn Haven to live in a two story house across from the ballpark that sat on the bay. It was a fine old house with a parlor attached to the small living room, a real fireplace, glass front cabinets in the old fashioned kitchen and a wrap around porch that always caught a breeze. My sister was off to college by then so it was just Billy and I who occupied the two spacious rooms upstairs. I absolutely LOVED my room and my creative expression as an artist was just beginning to blossom. I painted a mural of bubbles on my bathroom door, clouds, raindrops and a stick figure character in a top hat, floating with a rainbow umbrella on the low slanted ceiling/walls.
I was 13, just about to turn 14, painting, making good grades, rehearsing for a major supporting role and feeling pretty good about myself when on a cold night in January my mother's dream house caught fire. It was devastating, and not really thinking how awful it might be, she moved us into the ugly, orange shag carpet, cat pee smelling, not even a closet in my room, DUMP of a rental house right next door.
While the charred framework of our home was being dismantled we were assaulted with the sight and smell of our loss on a daily basis. To this day, the after smell of a house fire brings up very desolate feelings for me.
The guy she hired to do the job took it upon himself to steal pieces of our furniture, some of them irreplaceable family heirlooms, like my mother's cedar chest. We found this out much later when the one small cabinet my uncle had made for her when she was a child was discovered refurbished in a local antiques shop. The same man also violated me while out on a 'date'. Of course I never told my mother I went out with him because she wouldn't have wanted me to go. He was a grown man, 30, maybe. It was just one of many incidents I dismissed or minimized as not being so bad, since I was on a fast track to grow up and I didn't have time to dwell on things that made me feel bad.
After the fire I believe I was depressed. I didn't know it at the time, but looking back now it seems very obvious. I was incredibly bored, hated living in Lynn Haven and going to Mowat Middle School while all my friends were at Jinks. I found every opportunity to get with my friends, usually at the beach, to get high, get drunk...whatever it took as long as it passed for 'partying'. Eventually I hooked up with a boy from my neighborhood that was even more neglected and sick than I was. He became my first real boyfriend at the age of 14, almost 15. He got into some trouble, spent a little time in a boy's detention center; before long, I dropped out of school and we both moved to Texas.
Houston, Texas is where my oldest brother David lived and since my mama knew she could never stop me when my mind was made up, at least she would have my big brother to keep an eye on me.
The rest of this story involves crazy risks, losses and a few gains. Most of it includes drug abuse, but alcohol spreads it's sickness throughout all of it. There was the hot, summer night I had just moved into my own tiny furnished efficiency apartment. My current boyfriend lived in Austin, so I was alone when a strange man came to my door to ask me the time. He was Mexican, sweaty and seemed nervous. He said he had a gun and kept asking if anyone was coming home, but he brandished a knife and within a space of approximately 5 minutes, he raped and attempted to rob me; my wallet was almost always empty of any cash.
It happened so quickly and I was left physically unscathed; everything became surreal. I know now that I had instinctively employed a survival mechanism that has a name: dissociation. It was like I left my body; I just wasn't there for that event. Exit, stage left.
The first person I called to come to my aid was the boyfriend in Austin, but he wasn't home, so I left a message. Then I called a young woman I used to party with who lived in my brother's apartment complex. She came right over with another girl and a six pack of beer then had me call the police to file a report, in case the guy was still lurking around. Her reasoning was at least he would see that the cops had gotten involved. The officer arrived to find me laughing with friends and sipping on a brew. There were no signs of a rape since I had taken a shower and dumped clean laundry on my bed while the women were with me.
I lost all credibility at work from that incident. At the insistence of my out of town boyfriend, I stayed the night with a friend of his who lived across town and so had no ride to work the next day. This happened on a Thursday night and my boss was convinced that I had made the whole story up to get a 3 day weekend to 'party' especially after she spoke with the detective who came to investigate.
Needless to say, I was fired from that job very shortly thereafter. By that time I was involved with my boss's oldest son, the one who soon taught me how to binge on cocaine and drink copious amounts of beer at the same time. He was 26 years old and I was 17.
He had heard the rape story from his mother. While under the influence of cocaine and alcohol he would badger me for hours, days even, to recount the incident over and over again, pouncing on every detail that was left out, slightly altered or not fully remembered. I finally succumbed and gave him what he wanted: a 'confession' that it had never happened. That I had made it all up just so I could miss work. I did that for him because I wanted him to stop making me relive it, but especially so he would forgive me for 'lying' and love me again.
I didn't believe that my being raped was truly horrible and not my fault. Other than the fact that I was 17 years old, living in the seedy underbelly of a big, dirty city when I should have been in high school living with my mama! I had a much distorted sense of my own self-worth. Deep down, I believed I deserved to be exploited and used. It wasn't hard to admit to lying about the truth, when I had been a liar for as long as I could remember anyway.
I tell these stories now not out of rage and self pity or self loathing, like I used to, but from a place of determined detachment, somewhat, so that I can examine what happened, come to a better understanding of who I am and how to create a better past, a better now, from this vantage point. The man who introduced me to cocaine and alcohol bingeing may have intentionally saved me from an even worse path. When he discovered that I had used cocaine intravenously with one of his younger brothers, the budding phlebotomist, he was deeply concerned for my well being. I will always remember him carefully explaining to me in no uncertain terms: every time you stick a needle in your arm, you are taking a chance that you will die. I honestly had no idea and was firmly convinced that the high from that method was not worth the risk. I was not addicted to cocaine. Not yet.
That was the beginning or at least the introduction to the cocaine abuse chapters in my story. It was a long drawn out affair that included much alcohol and ended in getting arrested for smoking crack in my car in the middle of the night in Daytona Beach. I was 27 years old and it was due to grabbing onto the lifeline I was offered as a 'first time offender' that I never used cocaine in any form ever again. It was also the time in my life that I was first introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous.
I did not go to those first AA meetings believing that I was an alcoholic although I did stop drinking for the time period needed to get my paper signed for attending and to pee in a cup regularly. I don't know if Narcotics Anonymous meetings were offered to me or even available, but I may have chosen AA because my current boyfriend's mother was an active member of AA and she probably wisely suggested it.
During the time I was saved from the abyss of crack cocaine addiction, I was also finishing up my last semester of a two year course in Graphic Design at the local community college. My current relationship was shot because I was completely untrustworthy after my escapades of drug abuse and the circumstances we met under were not conducive for building a healthy relationship, either. So when I met husband #1 at the No Name Lounge in Panama City while visiting home, I promptly ditched the boyfriend and pursued my next knight in shining armor, or next abuser or next victim. Soon I made my geographical cure. The only problem I could not see was that I was bringing the problem with me wherever I went.
I had never honestly faced that the problem was me and I certainly didn't want to give up the ease and comfort that came with drinking alcohol. Alcohol was socially acceptable and I felt pretty smug about ditching my obsession for cocaine. I deserved to throw back a few beers, right? So what if every now and then I drank too much had blackouts and the occasional hangover? At least I wasn't riding around town searching for drugs in the middle of the night in the most god awful parts of town.
I now had a job as a graphic artist in a new city and a respectable insurance salesman live in boyfriend to take care of me. I had it made, or so I thought. I had spent my entire life trying to make men, boys even, replace my warped perception of daddy. I thought I could make someone love me if I behaved the way I thought they expected me to, and vice versa. They failed me every time and I, them. Some of the men I chose were very sick individuals incapable of having a normal healthy relationship. Husband #1 was actually a pretty decent guy, but with all my issues, it didn't take long for me to set him up to abandon me emotionally and sexually.
I played the victim role to the hilt when I discovered him having an affair while we planned a wedding he never wanted but didn't have the courage to tell me. I was pregnant when he told me he never loved me, but we didn't divorce until our son was about 5 months old.
I remember how much rage I felt about not being able to get rip roaring drunk over his confession of not loving me the way I deserved. I was pregnant and thoroughly pissed off that I could not drink the way I wanted to. I am not proud to say this: although I did not get as drunk as I wanted, I did allow myself to drink one night while I was pregnant with my first child.
After Simon was born, I began to drink nearly every single night, mostly after I had put him to sleep. I lost a good job during that time. I wasn't drinking during the day, yet, but I sure sucked at performing my duties and must have reeked of alcohol each day.
I found husband #2 in Panama City after my failed marriage and getting fired sent me crawling home to family for support. By now I wasn't the insanely jealous wounded who drank daily to ease her pain. Now I drank almost daily because it was habit and I liked it. Husband #2 was an almost total non-drinker, a perfectionist and a very controlling person. Soon I learned he hated alcoholics, chaos, loud noises and that his first stepmother had died drunk.
We married too quickly and I produced a child right away. I had my daughter when I was 38. It was during this marriage that we brought out the absolute worst in each other. Thank God, since I might still be drinking or dead or permanently in prison if things didn't go the way they did. I could no longer hide or control my drinking, though I tried. I ruined Christmases, New Years Eve, you name it, I drank through it. I hid liquor and wine, but he always knew and it made him hate me. My son was a regular target of his rage, but truly I was the problem.
When my first ex-husband was murdered the same year my daughter was born, I promptly went off the deep end of self pity with my drinking. I simply could not stop. I went to AA, I drank at meetings and I lied about my sobriety date. Once I actually pulled together 6 months without a drink, but a trip to Italy in the spring of 2006 with my mother and sister was way too much temptation for me. I drank and not successfully, either. They knew, but did not confront me, just kept a real close eye on me for the rest of the trip.
Finally, in 2006, November 14th I had the brilliant idea that I could drink just one! Not just one drink, but just one regular sized bottle of wine. That evening when that bottle was empty I decided I needed cough drops and drove to the Winn Dixie to purchase a JUG of wine that I 'hid' in the closet. I don't remember much of that evening, but the next morning my husband confronted me in our bathroom. He shattered my glass on the tile floor that he pulled from my hiding place and ordered me to clean it up, which I did, but not until after I had drawn a few swigs of hot wine from my big JUG o'wine. I got dressed for a job interview, put my son on the school bus and then drove my 3 year old to daycare.
The next thing I remember is having handcuffs on me in the back of a police car. It was 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon. My sponsor told me later that I had called her from the Publix parking lot, slurring words and going on and on about how great I looked. I never made it to that interview. I was in jail when it was time to pick my baby up from daycare. My husband was unreachable in a meeting so she stayed with the janitor until sometime after 5 when her daddy got there. My son wandered around the neighborhood for awhile until he got the great idea to hang out at a next door neighbor's house.
Later in the evening my mother picked me up from jail and I spent a miserable sleepless night at her house. The next day my husband delivered a few of my things and a checkbook with a $1,000 to start my life over. He told me I could not come home. I went to the Wednesday night Lynn Haven Group meeting and picked up my last surrender chip. That was November 15, 2006 and on the 16th I went to 12 Oaks in Navarre where I just cried and cried for 28 days. I even took up smoking briefly, but what sticks with me the most is that finally I was broken and there was no one to blame but me for the mess I'd made of my life.
All I had left was AA and the people in the program stayed by me. They held me, supported me and loved me when I could not love myself. The listened to me when I began to think I had some sense and tried to blame all my problems on my soon to be ex husband. I say 'listened to', not 'agreed with' me.
It was in the presence of some very strong AA women that I learned to keep my mouth shut during and between meetings. They never hesitated to point out the naked truth about my arrogance and selfish behavior. I spent about 18 months hell-bent on revenge in the bitter divorce. About that time I found that I was completely miserable and asked Doris to be my sponsor. I had heard her speak at meetings and heard the similarities, but most especially I wanted to find the joy in being sober that she radiated.
It was with Doris and her sponsor that I truly worked the steps to the best of my ability and FINALLY did an honest appraisal of myself during my 4th and 5th steps. I got some relief from all that anger and suffering. I came to understand something very important about forgiveness: that if I could have done better throughout my life, I would have. Then I was able to see how that was true of every human being who had actually harmed me as well. I saw that most of my suffering came from the choices I made. How I had set people up to retaliate for the harms I had done. I also saw that I just plain put myself in stupid, risky, selfish places.
Most importantly, I saw that it just was what it was. It just happened and it was over if I just let go of it! I gained the freedom to really begin to change. This program is about change and if I want my life to get better, then I must be willing to take direction from those who've made these same simple, but sometimes difficult, changes before me.
Today I am extremely grateful that I did not get what I thought I wanted just 3 years ago. Even after the compulsion to drink had vanished, I still had a lot of growing up to do and I still revert to some of my old ego driven, selfish, victim mentality. Like Jodi says, "It's hell being human, ain't it honey?" Thanks to this program and some very decent people, I now have a deeper relationship with a higher power, who I now know loves me and is the only father I will ever need. My god was with me all along and it took what it took for me to finally realize that.

April 25, 2010
Well, John and I are falling in love nicely. The only red flag I've seen is the one he sent as an attachment in a recent email as a joke.
His kind and tolerant of other people. We talk on the phone often and email all the time. He pops in at my work oh so briefly in order to just say hi and to see me. He usually comes bearing gifts of a food or drink nature. I thoroughly enjoy his company because I feel at ease and comfortable in his presence. I feel even more than 'at ease'. I feel genuinely loved, appreciated and respected. All good things.
Yesterday he took Simon, me and his sister Denise from Cleveland to swim with the dolphins at Gulf World. It was an incredible experience. Simon had a wonderful time.

Committed, by Elizabeth Gilbert pp 109, 116, 118, 129, 211, 263, and 264
I've been reading the book by Elizabeth Gilbert and want to remember which pages have things with meaning for me.
June 23, 2010
Dear Heavenly Father,
May you guide my thoughts and actions today that I may be an example to others of how you work in mysterious wonderful ways. I pray that the person I have the most difficulty dealing with be at peace, feel love and know your guiding presence. Amen

June 24, 2010
Dear Heavenly Daddy,
I ask for your guidance, just for today. I need help to stay focused on the higher path to become more of the person you want me to be. Keep my loved ones safe and happy. Give me the ability to be grateful for my teachers-my difficult people. Please bestow upon those folks I find hard and distasteful all the blessings I ask for me and my pleasant ones: Love, Joy, Prosperity, Serenity and a relationship with their own divine higher self. Amen
John wants to marry me and Granny intends to leave – move, in September. I love John and Simon thinks he's great. I just feel strongly about waiting awhile before Simon and I jump into living with John. He wants to give me a ring at Christmas and for us get married in the Spring. It would be a great help to me financially and relieve a lot of worries and I'd probably only have to move once. However, if we set a date for the Fall or even Thanksgiving then I'd probably have to move when Granny moves, struggle (possibly) then move again at marriage time.
On the other hand I am dreading confrontation even though John and I have not had anything even remotely resembling confrontation! It's ME, its my old fears of hurting or displeasing someone. I am not afraid that he'll stop loving me or leave me. I am afraid he will try to talk me into getting married sooner than I feel I am ready for. I feel like I need the time of standing on my own two feet for awhile. Just me and Simon and sometimes Emily. I also want us to partake of marriage counseling. I know John thinks we'll be okay as long as both of us put 'NEVER TAKING A DRINK EVER' first and our love and good intentions. But sometimes love is not enough and alcohol is just a symptom of deeper issues. I would like to be engaged, live apart for a year more and work on our marriage before it even begins. I hope that John will not be too disappointed. In fact, I hope that he will understand and eventually agree and be glad and be grateful.

June 27, 2010
Dear Father Mother God,
I prayed for guidance the last 2 days and Thank You, I got it! John and I spoke.. He was not happy and he felt left out, like I was making big decisions without him. We talked on Saturday after I got off work. Then later I came over and we made love first, then had dinner, a movie and a good night's sleep. Today, this morning, we came to a better understanding and deeper closeness. I expressed how AFRAID I am of marriage and he expressed that he felt like I was putting him on an extended evaluation plan. He will go to counseling with me and we will go very soon. He knows I am very afraid of how this could effect Simon. Especially Simon. We talked a lot about Simon. I feel better and I am still nervous, but I am much more comfortable with moving in and marrying in the Spring. God, I'm counting on you for guidance. Please give me knowledge of whether or not this marriage will work! Amen and Love, Kate

July 2, 2010 Page 55
The Resentment Prayer
If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or thing you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness and you will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, GO AHEAD and DO IT ANYWAY.
Do it everyday for 2 weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and Love.

Chapter Two – Red Suede Insanity

April 8, 2006 The reality of coming home
The things that upset me, bother me the most are your rage and extreme fury, your reaction to what you perceive as unacceptable behavior by me and Simon.
I understand that you spent 2 very peaceful weeks playing with and training our 2 year old daughter. I know that you weren't looking forward to mine and Simon's homecoming because we might revert to the old behaviors that are responsible for disharmony in our home. But guess what? We are NOT responsible for your behavior, wrath, fury and rage. YOU ARE. Your rage and what I consider overreaction, ie, calling me a cunt when I don't agree with you, or balk against you telling me what to do, using foul language at our son when he does things that may need corrections is what I am more concerned about. Your reaction to us was as if we'd deliberately shot your cat or vandalized something you highly valued. Even then, is that how your treat people you love? There is no excuse for you to lose your temper over Simon requesting ice, water on the floor, 3 little cars on the coffee table, a messy child's room or your wife disagreeing with you.
You are a bully when you do that and it only accomplishes FEAR from me, Simon and Emily when she has to witness it. You must learn to control yourself. What's next, physical abuse when we don't bend to your will?
Just because you've trained a two year old some appealing tricks doesn't make your a perfect parent or a decent person. What happens as she grows and begins to defy you or express an opinion that differs from yours? Do you intend to treat her the way you treat me and Simon when we do? It hurts the family for us to experience the wrath of Daddy.

Note from the future, May 15, 2011
At that time, there had been much drinking by me and my scary sick blackouts that Joe had had to endure in our very short marriage. At the time I wrote the above I had been able to postpone drinking alcohol for several months before the trip to Italy, but slipped while I was there. He did not know that, my sister and mother did, but chose not to confront me, so I thought I had gotten away with it. Ha!
Joe's fury and rage on our coming home after 2 weeks, was that he had long ago come to hate me and dislike Simon intensely. It was increasingly difficult for him to pretend that he loved us. The minor things Simon did, combined with my standing up for the child set him into a rage. I was completely unable, at the time, to see my part in this.

September 20, 2006
this is day 11. had to start all over again. lucky I didn't lose everything. just had to face being honest to myself and others in the program. I did scare the shit out of my mom. again. now she's helping me get 90 meetings in 90 days. she helps by keeping Emily at noon when needed.
I'm supposed to work on Step 1. “Admit that I am powerless over alcohol and that my life is unmanageable.” I have had countless occasions where I had intended to drink just a few and wound up staying for the duration, that being a long night drinking. Blackouts have been commonplace for me. I have said and done many things I would never have done sober. I have not lived a life that did not include alcohol since I was a child. I drank and smoked pot, tried drugs just as fast as I could get my hands on them. To me it meant growing up, being mature. To be loose and wild was because I was a free spirit, I thought. It never occurred to me that drugs and alcohol were responsible for the bad choices, people and places I put myself in. I just liked to get drunk.
I remember how I didn't want to drink on a full stomach. I remember waking up once to my roommate telling me my car was totaled and I still don't remember it actually happening.
I have hid bottles almost everywhere. I have endangered my kids. My drinking is not something I have ever controlled. It wreaks havoc.