#MLrecovery

[measuringlife]

Measuring Monday: Animal Lover

Inspired by all my pet sitting, here is my free-write about being an animal lover

I just passed my 6-month mark of my pet sitting side hustle. I sit through Rover and now also independently due to repeat clients and referrals. My friend AY(I really have a lot of friends with A names) I think first mentioned Rover to me because she asked me to watch her senior pup and said something about “usual Rover sitter” or something. So back in the fall I checked in on her little girl, taking her for walks, making sure she had food and water, and also gave her some attention. From there I decided to look into Rover, then set up an account, had some pet owner friends write some references/recommendations for me and then I was off. I think I had the profile up for like a week or so before I got my first request. I set up a meet and greet with the owner and pets and then I was off to the races! I have to say I have bonded with 90% of clients and genuinely get sad to say goodbye to them. Thankfully most of my clients are repeat clients so I get to build a great relationship with these pets. I sit mostly for dogs or dog owners who also have a cat, however lately I’ve had a few cat only clients and they’ve all been great too.

Pet sitting has proven to be a lucrative side hustle. As a high strung dog mom I get it, Freddie is old, extremely particular, and is now on 4 different pills a day taken at 3 different intervals. The whole pet market has exploded thanks to Millenials who are opting for pets over children like me. People want the best for their family and Freddie is my family and 90% of the pets I sit for rule the roost much like Fred. I get satisfaction both in spending the time with the animals, but also knowing that I am giving comfort and peace of mind to the owner.

I do have to say I’m still surprised that I am such a good dog mom/pet lover because I certainly grew up in a home where pets were things, not family members. I won’t say the animals in my home were neglected, but they were not given a life that I would want any animal I own to have. They were often in crates or tied up, not groomed often, or taken to the vet regularly. I remember as a child feeling very torn about how to treat the animals. I wanted nothing more than to have a dog sleep in my bed, but my mother wouldn’t have it. I wanted to take the dogs out for walks, but my mom didn’t want me outside by myself with them. So when it came down to it, at the time the pets weren’t worth causing drama with my mom.

I’ve had my childhood pets on my mind and in my heart lately, especially when I see how I am so capable of loving all dogs and cats - as much as Freddie is the chosen one, I also sort of thought maybe I only loved him so hard because I got him when I was so young and so soon after my dad died, but I see how I am capable of loving animals period. In my Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) meeting last week, during my share I had planned to talk about what I just wrote, but in that moment I also made the connection that as a child I could recognize the poor care or lack of care our pets got, especially our two little girl dogs, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that our two girl dogs were living a parallel life to my sister and me. As a child I saw the dogs weren’t cared for properly, but I wasn’t able to recognize that my sister and I weren’t cared for properly either. That was a huge A-HA moment and will hopefully help me push through continued denial or minimizing of how I grew up.

My sister and I at least got out of my mom’s house unlike those pets who all lived extremely long lives. Skippy, a miniature poodle, my parents got before I was born and he died when I was in 3rd grade lived to be 17.  Our cat, Amber, who we got a year or so after Skippy died lived to be like 21. When I got a little older we got two Maltese, Molly and a year later we got Beeper. They lived to be ~16 and ~13 respectively. I gotta tell you if nothing else, growing up like we all did in that house did anything for us,  it made us resilient AF. These pets also learned to thrive in adversity. I hope to see these childhood pets across the rainbow bridge one day and we can have a good hug and cry together. Until then I will love and cherish any and all animals in my care.

[measuringlife]

Setting firm boundaries has been the single best thing I’ve done for myself. Boundaries around my time, my phone, my work, my mom, just to name a few.

[measuringlife]

Measuring Monday: Journaling

If memory serves me correctly I started my first journal in January 1997. I was gifted one for Christmas 1996 and started it on January 1, 1997. 1997 was a big year. It was the year I was graduated from grammar/elementary school where I spent grades 1-8. The year started at an all-girls high school. It was the year we got a home computer and AOL. It was also the last year my family all lived together in one house.

I remember writing nightly for a number of years. I think around senior year of high school (2000-2001) my writing waned and I didn’t start writing again until the beginning of my second year of college (2002). I wrote often and kept up with it for YEARS. Books and books and books of journals filled with my horrendous chicken scratch handwriting. I also notoriously wrote the names of the boys (celebrity and real life) that I had crushes on in the inside covers of my journals. I also have made it a happen to write a closing diary entry on the last page of the journal thanking the book for being there and for listening.

As I mentioned here in 2006 I started blogging, however, from 2006-2010 my blogging was secondary to my journaling. However in 2010 when I started my Measuring Life tumblr my journal became secondary to my tumblr.  

Over the years I found that I was really only writing in my journal for the high highs and low lows. After a string of lows during mid-2017 I was done with journaling. A place I once found sacred only triggered me.  I was only about 2/3s through the journal, but I knew that there was too much negativity in there, too many memories of sobbing as I wrote. I wanted to get back to writing, but I wasn’t sure if I could commit to it. I thought about it again around the start of 2018, but I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until Lent rolled around that I decided I could commit for the 40 days of Lent to journal. In recent years I’ve used Lent as a season to add positive habits into myself as opposed to sacrifice - I’m pretty sure Jesus is cool with it either way. Anyway, in 2018, Lent started on Valentines Day and I wrote my old journal despite it only being ⅔ used a traditional thank you entry. From there I closed out that journal that was filled with things I’d rather not read anytime soon. I cracked open a new journal and committed to writing a single page every day. One page felt manageable. Each day I wrote and each day I remembered how special this practice is for me. After successfully writing daily for those 40 days I loosened up because I felt like habit was back.

These days I aim to write about 2 times a week, sometimes I write more often, sometimes less often. I’m actually already on journal number two of the reset. I actually made it a point to buy journals with fewer pages so I could close out chapters a bit more quickly. I was so pleased when a year of journaling regularly passed. I feel like I’ve kept a good balance between what I journal, what I post on instagram regularly and what I save for these Measuring Monday posts.

As I’ve also mentioned I’ve been using a Passion Planner for 2019 and there are prompts to reflect each month and each quarter of the year, in addition to all the goal setting pages at the start of the year and another goal setting check in mid-year. Even the WW (formerly Weight Watchers) books now have space for reflective writing, I love it. I’m excited to see how I end up using these 22+ years of writing to help cohesively tell my story. I generally enjoyed the fragmented nature of microblogging, perhaps because it feels safer and I feel less vulnerable. However over these last 9 months or so I’ve really pushed myself to put it all out there and it’s been scary and rewarding as hell! I look forward to continuing to own my story and hopefully inspire others!

[measuringlife]

My grandma passed away yesterday at age 90 after quite a few years of failing health. This picture is from my grad school graduation in 2007.

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We weren’t particularly close, but she was smart, very educated, belly danced as a hobby (even into her 60s), and taught me to curse in Slovak. But she was a very broken person for reasons she never shared or maybe fully explored, but it manifested itself in many ways. She never said please or thank you, instead she barked orders. She also was one to always remind people that they could lose some weight or had put on a few pounds. She was very critical of how her family did in school and was never satisfied with anything less than an A.

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However she was my last surviving grandparent. My dad’s dad died when I was a baby and his mom died in 2001. My mom’s dad died in 1995. She was my mom’s mom and the long reigning family “matriarch.” She was the oldest of 4 sisters and lived longer than all of them. She has 2 daughters and each of her daughters has 2 daughters. However there’s also a long history of emotionally abusive mother daughter relationships which has lead to a very splintered and dysfunctional sorority of sorts.

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My fiancé and I are heading up to New York for services which is going to be explosive I’m sure. I’m using this long car ride to prepare mentally. I hope I can get through the weekend relatively unscathed, but I don’t think I’m that lucky. I’m thankful for all the work I’ve done on myself the past 18 months particularly around my mom’s alcoholism and I have the supports to help me process things after this weekend. Thoughts are appreciated.

[measuringlife]

I’ve done a lot of thinking and reflecting about fear this past year. Both how crippling it can be and yet how truly irrational most fears are. . FEAR can mean 1 of 2 things: Face Everything And Rise or Fear Everything And Run . I’m so glad I took 2018 to rise up. 2019 is going to be all about no regrets. A key part of my journey this year was to face my fears head on. What will 2019 hold for you?

[measuringlife]

The John Mayer song 1983 has always been a favorite, however, if I were to write a song that was an ode to a year (and one day I just might since one of my not-so-secret dreams is to write a Broadway musical) it would be a song titled 1997. For me, 1997 was a big year of changes. It was the year I transitioned from the same private Catholic school I was at for grades 1-8 to an all-girls Catholic high school. It was the year we got a desktop Hewlett-Packard computer and AOL at home. It was a year when I was getting really into music, both the pop music of Hanson (who I still love) and the rock tunes of Eve6 and Bush. Rushing home to watch my beloved Carson Daly on MTV or listening to Z100 on my new cd-player boom box. 1997 was also the last year that my home wasn't "broken." Well, in all honestly my home was always broken, but after 1997 it became broken to the outside world. My parents separated and my Dad moved out in June 1998 right as my freshman year of high school ended leaving my sister and me to be primarily "cared" for our mentally unstable alcoholic mother. For both my sister and I, 1997 is a crystal clear frozen moment in time, it was the end of our innocence. I think that is the main reason why I love all the 1990s nostalgia, particularly the music. Over the last few weeks I've attended some fantastic concerts - Incubus, Hanson, and Darius Rucker especially when he's singing Hootie tunes (fun fact Cracked Rear View was one of the first CDs I ever owned, the first was the Clueless soundtrack). For me, music is so cathartic. It's painful and healing all at the same time. Going to concerts is one of my absolute favorite things to do in the world. I'd like to think I go to more concerts than your average 35-year-old, but for me, concerts are a combination of church and therapy. One of my mantra's on my recovery and healing journal has become you have to feel it to heal it. Music lets me feel and heal in a way that makes me feel safe. #recoveryjourney #healingjourney #selfcare #selflove #nostalgia #abandonment_issues #brokenhome #childofdivorce #adultchildrenofalcoholics

[measuringlife]

Wellness needs to be an inside out approach. I have found the more I invest in my emotional and mental well-being the easier the improved physical well-being comes about… .

[measuringlife]

Fight Club is one of my top 10 favorite movies. There are so many great quotes and life lessons to ponder. This quote has been resonating with me a lot lately. I’ve been on a quest for freedom which I think is the ultimate form of currency in this society.

[measuringlife]

This month has been an absolute rollercoaster in every way imaginable from great to terrible and it’s reflected on the scale. I learned that binging is a bigger issue in my life that I thought when I’m feel stressed or out of control. I binge on work and food - sometimes together, but not always. I often “punish” myself - I’ve learned that my workaholism that I’m in recovery for is a way that I “punish” myself for not accomplishing as much as I wanted to in a day (it especially have reared it’s ugly head when my team is understaffed and I try to overcompensate and overfunction to try and make up for being understaffed. With food when I’m feeling out of control then I really act out and “punish” myself through binge eating. If I feel a little bit broken I tend to “self harm” through workaholism or food until I’m truly shattered. Over the last year through ACA and therapy I’ve become more away of my workaholism and need to set boundaries. I am only now recognizing this pattern through food. Recognizing there pattern is half the battle, but there is still work to be done. I’m excited as of this week be in my “quiet” season at work, but I plan to continue to do the work I myself because I don’t want another peak season of work or life to happen and derail me.

[measuringlife]

This personal development journey has really been something else, something extraordinary. To read something on a page (or hear it on a podcast) and to think YES! THAT, EXACTLY THAT! It’s both comforting and humbling and upsetting. . We are society of broken people putting on a happy face at all cost. I’m tired of paying that cost, I’d rather spend that energy healing and filling my cracks. . Book: The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller

[measuringlife]

Finally ready to work the 12 steps after 14 months in ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics). I’m going to participate in my first step study meeting after our regular meeting tonight. .

[measuringlife]

Growing up with an alcoholic mother in a dysfunctional household I took on the role of “hero child.” This is a role my inner child has continued to carry with me. In the last 5 years due to neglectful/disinterested bosses and authority figures my inner child manifested as a workaholic. Things hit an all time low last summer due to insurmountable work stress and lack of staff/structure/support. It took hitting rock bottom to seek out the therapy and support in #ACA that I needed to begin this recovery journey. As I approach my peak season at work this year I hope I can maintain the boundaries I’ve set and maintain my emotional sobriety. #adultchildrenofalcoholics #selfcare #aca #acoa #recoveryjourney

[measuringlife]

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

So I realized I don't think I mentioned here that ~2 weeks ago my boss told me he is leaving for a new opportunity elsewhere. It took all my self-control to not be like GOOD RIDDANCE. That’s half true, he is a very nice man, but he never made any real effort to understand or support my work. He didn’t intentionally harm me, but there were so many opportunities where he could have offered help or suggestions when I was a 1 person office and he never did. Clearly he’s been “done” for some time and that shows up in his lack of interest in investing in me or my work. 

With that being said the whole University and my division are going through strategic planning processes. I am no stranger to these and have been a part of them at previous institutions. I know this is a time to give ideas and be heard. With this has also been re-org talk which in the case of my work makes SO MUCH SENSE. I’ve been thinking about where in the org chart I am, and where my team belongs. 

Late last week I heard an interim person was going to be tapped when my boss leaves which is normal (spoiler alert it’s not me, nor would I expect/want it). However yesterday I’m in a meeting and my VP (aka my boss’s boss calls me). I was near her office so when I got out of my meeting I popped by and we were able to chat. She told me about who she named as interim and how they are going to lead that team, however, she said that she’d like ME to report to her in the interim because: 1. I don’t make sense on the team I’m on and 2. she wants to get a deeper understanding of my work and the needs of my area to be best supported. 

DUDE! I feel great. She NOTICES ME and VALUES ME! I am excited to see how I can leverage this opportunity and see where it takes me!

[measuringlife]

This is already a hard time of year and having your alcoholic mother leaving you mentally and emotionally abusive voicemails while drunk is not helping... This is the version of the Serenity Prayer we say at my ACA meetings and I've found a lot of comfort in it.

[measuringlife]

Parallel Lives

So as I’ve mentioned here this summer I came to terms with my identity of being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACA). I started learning more about this identity last January after a particularly traumatizing Christmas at my mom’s. 

It’s unbelievable how much my mother’s addiction has shaped me. The more I read and talk with my counselor and ACA group the more I learn about myself, how to cope, and how to choose myself despite being manipulated by an addict. I was taught that anything my mom didn’t essentially like/approve of/suit her was “bad.” And more than anything I have this overwhelming desire to be a “good girl.” 

I get guilted for not living in New York or jumping at her every need. She’s 66 (today actually is her birthday which led to a stressful call) and physically healthy. Heck she’s intelligent and funny too. Nothing I do/could do (even again my better sense) is going to help her. She needs to change for herself PERIOD.

This summer I came across this blog and holy hell it’s like I WROTE it. The weirdest part is that she starting writing the day I went to my first ACA meeting. There’s some amazing honestly, sadness, but also humor here too. If you love someone struggling with addiction or just a fan of good writing check it out

http://grumpysunshine.com/

[measuringlife]

Counseling

Through my job’s Employee Assistance Program I’m able to have 6 free sessions with a counselor. I just had my 3rd session this morning. I actually took it upon myself in late June to inquire about setting up an appointment and around that time when getting coffee with a trusted colleague (and having a complete breakdown) he also suggested I meet with her. I’m glad I have. 

I haven’t gone to much counseling the last 10 years or so. I saw 1 or 2 therapists in high school around the time my parents separated and my Dad moved out. I also saw a school counselor in high school when I was going through some friend drama and after a car accident I was in as a new driver.  

In college, I didn’t see anyone and really didn’t feel like I needed to. In grad school I had a faculty member who was a “confidant” of sorts and given her sociology background I would argue she was a pseudo-counselor. We mostly talked about me grappling with the fact that my Dad quietly came out of the closet as a gay man (have I ever shared that here before? I’m not sure - it’s still something I struggle to talk about since he died before I could fully embrace and understand) and how he was not out to my Mom and many other people back in NY (at this time he was living in Florida). 

6 months after grad school my Dad unexpectedly died of complications of gastric bypass surgery. I had just started a new job in Texas only 2.5 hours from my Dad who was also now in Texas. So I went back to counseling for about 6 months before I moved to Alabama, that was 2008.

I’ve had loving and wonderful friendships and found community here, but since 2008 I haven’t sought professional help. This summer was a wake up call for self-care and not letting negative patterns repeat themselves. So my plan is to meet monthly with the work counselor for the remainder of the year and then I’ll likely find a counselor to see outside of this short-term work benefit. I am also planning to continue my ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) meetings every other week. These meetings conflict with my FAVORITE Body Pump class and going to this class will also bring me joy, so the plan is to rotate between the two every week.

My lesson from today’s counseling session is: I’m ENOUGH