2019 Day 1

Best Friends Forevvuh. 42 years of sisterhood. Total traveling pants. Bringing in the New Year with Favorite and her family was a win.  Tastiest foods, ????? from as soon as you are hungry all the way until you pop or surrender. Games and /or space for all.  Laughing together at nothing and everything and nobody and everyone.  The belonging-ness is pure magic. ?How does this happen?  I never feel as if I am a guest or extra.  Nobody does. I cannot help but marvel.  This is how we are meant to live and love.  2019, here I come. Looking forward to tonight, with Sweet Greg and our boys.

I have been reading a ton lately, in addition to my Recovery Literature. Today’s meeting reflected my 2019 intentions. From Paths to Recovery pps14-15 “Even though I was completely convinced that I hadn’t caused his inappropriate behavior, I still had an overwhelming desire to control or cure what was happening.  Once again, I had to sit and feel the discomfort of letting go.”  Letting go, is a less familiar type of discomfort, than my standard white knuckle, claw marking, hanging on. I will have to choose to let go one million times per day. Life gets better when I do and less better when I do not. “Let go or be dragged. ” Right?

I have enjoyed some lighter reads which have brought as much laughter and joy as they have direction, to my life: -The Happiness Project by Gretchen Ruben -By Jen Hatmaker: -For the Love and -Of Mess and Moxie (listening to her on Audible is a great time. Like spending time with a friend). I cannot recommend each of these strongly enough. Also, By Bob Goff -Everybody Always and -Love Does How is it possible for these deeply religious, Jesus loving people, to whom I cannot fully relate, touch me so deeply and allow me to believe in something far better than I have ever known. I am definitely a lover of Jesus Lovers(the good humble ones–not the arrogant psychos)(obvi).

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo provided much needed language for processing a lifelong dynamic, which I have experienced as unmanageable. There are some serious fragility (ego and entitlement) issues involved. Both humbled and empowered by having glimpsed a more informed examination of the practices of exclusion. Becoming informed and gaining the language necessary to discuss, are essential to my healing and moving on. So, while I will not fixate on IT/them, I will be referencing them.

Becoming by Michelle Obama left me nearly intoxicated–her unyielding grit and grace, two admirable qualities which strive to know and practice– here(WBA), I refer to those traits as badass (not giving up on truth and goodness, while learning when to walk away because there is none to be had) and wholesome (purity of purpose).

Not that Bad by Roxane Gay , clarifies how ” NOT THAT BAD ” is NO WHERE NEAR good enough.  Being maltreated, silenced, diminished– is 100% unacceptable for any single individual or group of people.  Suggestion and insistence otherwise, offering ease to bullying, rape, molestation, physical and verbal abuse.  The definitions for rape, bullying, and abuse are so ridiculously narrow which makes it easy and expected for people to give it a blind eye and a shut mouth. One of the dispatches details an erotic rape scene (as if those words should ever go together), which led me to The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand- The novel champions the individualism of a young architect, Howard Roarke, who unflinchingly defies the tyranny of conventional public opinion. His struggle for personal integrity in a world that values conformity above truth, independence, and creativity, spoke straight to my heart. I have not yet reached the love rape scene, and am curious to see how it is possible and true that many stories and movies can disqualify some sex from being rape, because of a sexyness or hotness about it. Any touching that is not wanted, is rape. Anyone who engages or allows it, is a participant, condoning and perpetuating rape culture. I intend to raise two informed and mindful sexual citizens who learn to hear and say NO, with grace. Or even without, but still recognizing, that if it is not a YES, it is a NO, with regards to touching.