TheBanyanTree: Changes

[Pam North]

I decided, within the last few weeks, that I had to start doing something,
*many* things, differently.  My life needed changing, because if it stayed
on the same course, I'd forever be alone, drunk, or dead.  I needed to stop
any drinking - forever, or for awhile - just to get a glimpse of who was
actually under there hiding from the world.  Since I was already changing my
life and selling the house, it seemed like a great opportunity to change
even more, and hey!, since a new year was coming, I'd make that the 'start'
date.  (Please note, although I didn't drink *all* the time, I *did* use it
as my crutch to block out all the painful feelings and thoughts.)

Those last few days of the year, I was working to get my mind around the
changes that were coming.  It wasn't so much an 'at midnight, everything
changes', so much as it was, 'this will be a good place to start'.  And just
to *prove* I wasn't all wrapped around the first new day of a new year, I
went walking on the last day of last year!  In my mind, that sort of made it
less of a 'resolution' and more of a timely decision.

And, I must add, weekends are typically the 'lonliest', most wasted times
for me.  So, my timing *purposefully* made me 'start' during a weekend.

Can I just tell you that it almost seems like some thing is at work here
besides me...  It seems like almost at that exact stroke of midnight,
changes were thrown in my lap!   While I was out that evening,
*three* different people, that I hadn't spoken with for varying amounts of
time, spoke to me!  Most memorable, was Sue, who had stopped talking to me
over ten years ago!  But there was a fourth person there, Donna, that *I*
hadn't been speaking to, and still didn't.

And it's been weighing heavy on my mind ever since.  Having Sue turn and
speak to me, out of the blue, after so many years, and to be so kind... it
was mind boggling, I kid you not!!  I still can't believe it!  Since then,
we've been emailing back and forth.  She was trying to explain to me why she
reacted the way she did all those years ago, or whether or not she even
could, or should try, and then she wrote:  "i can tell you where i am now
and how i have decided being at odds with people is not where i want to be".


I have actually printed that out and taped it to my monitor!  They were such
*powerful* words to me!!!!

*I* am not where *I* want to be, at odds with so many people.  I realize
that it is taking TOO much of my energy to maintain.  It is eating at me as
I feed this anger and resentment, and *that* is not where I want to be with
these changes I'm making in my life!  In my heart.  In my mind!!

My friend Maria tells me that I've built this invisible barrier around
myself, and I believe she's probably right.  A very tall wall protecting
myself.  And it's great and all, but, unfortunately, nobody can get in, and
I can't get out.

So, I'm cleaning to fill my time.  Cleaning out closets and drawers,
cleaning floors, chopping dead branches, cleaning out my head and heart and
emptying them of the ugly stuff.  I'm streamlining my life all the way
around!  I don't have room for any of the crap!

And then this morning, I emailed Donna.  Basically telling her all of the
above.  Sort of.  Paraphrasing.  I don't know what will happen, but I have
opened the door for communication, and that makes me feel better about
myself.

Pam