Hope Deferred

I saw this verse on another blog and appreciated the message. Thinking about Christmas led me to draw the tree with the star. I was thinking about my daughter who I did not get to see over the holidays, and feeling that this brings a little pain like a hope deferred.

Happy Holidays

Christmas is over already, I had a laugh with someone a few days ago when we expressed our viewpoints regarding the holiday. We both said "I'm glad it is almost over." Apparently no matter how old you get if early Christmas' were bad, that feeling hangs around as you age. Maybe not for everyone, but for me, it is a time of stress and turmoil. Not always, but often enough to wish for a quick holiday season. Maybe everyone feels this way to a degree.
I quit drinking almost twenty-five years ago. New years eve will be my anniversary. Something about this period makes me a little jittery every year. I grew up in a home where alcohol was a frightening thing. It meant that there was trouble ahead. My Dad was an alcoholic.
And so was I . I started drinking as a teenager. Today I had a memory of getting drunk and being hungover and my Dad giving me a raw egg with milk. I was in my early teens at the time. I am not sure why I remember this. I know that I remember the memory as being a good one. Why, I really can't say. Why would someone remember being hungover as a positive event? Alcohol is funny like that. A hangover can be completely forgotten as one goes back to have another drink.
I'm not sure what I was thinking about as I was remembering Christmas and my alcohol experiences. Once I was given a toy gun for Christmas that shot little projectiles. It was called a " monkey gun" and I was really happy that I got it. My Dad and a friend of his took the gun and started shooting all the ornaments off the Christmas tree. My Mom started crying. That is all I remember about that Christmas. Flash-forward a few years to my first Christmas with my family visiting for the holidays. My sister's boyfriend got drunk and fell over and knocked the Christmas tree over. I never had my family over for another holiday get-together. Anyway, what is my point? There must be one. I heard another person say that they were going to enjoy the holiday spirits. And it made me cringe. I know that this is all pretty disjointed. I am sitting here wondering about where this is going. Maybe just being grateful for an alcohol-free Christmas. I hope that someone will not have to live through holidays that make them cry because someone is drinking too much. That would be my Christmas wish for everyone. Happy Holidays. Have a safe, joyful holiday season.

Getting it Right

I wonder sometimes what my strengths are. What is it I do well? The reason I ask this is I have so little going on in my life with my disability. Illness is my job. Disability is my life. I don't like this reality but there it is, my life is about illness. I have been disabled for fifteen years. I have diabetes, asthma, depression and heart disease. Sometimes I wonder if there is hope that I can get my health back in some kind of working order. The heart disease is a recent thing. It probably scares me the most. I know that diabetes and heart disease are not a good combination. I worry about dying a lot. Anyway, what strengths do I bring into this warfare? What am I good at? What do I have inside me that can take on chronic illness? Twenty-four years ago I quit drinking. About the same time I quit smoking. My father was an alcoholic and I was walking the same path. So I quit. I had asthma so I quit smoking. So far I have not had a strong desire to take up these substances. So I know that in me there is the desire to succeed.
I like words. Always have. I like to write. If you ever get into recovery from an addiction of some sort there is a lot of writing involved. At least there was for me. It seems in order to take a good look at your life there has to be a lot of reflection. What brought me to this point? How did my life get so out of control? Writing about yourself is a good way to be introspective. Writing helps you to see yourself in a positive light after lots of internal sizing yourself up.
Getting it right. How do I learn from the past? How do I learn from my old addictions? How do I get healthy from a few chronic illnesses that want to kill me like alcohol and tobacco once did? How do I develop the willingness to fight back and get healthy again?

Priorities

I saw a comic in the "New Yorker" today. The picture showed a young man on the couch spread out with debris all around him. His clearly frustrated father was looking at him and saying, "you really have to get your priorities in order." I did not quite get the comic and thought about getting my own priorities in order. My daughter had called last night and t0ld me that her car was demolished after veering off the road and flipping over. I had today to think about how little I pay attention to her life until a major issue arises. I think that I need to quit doing things that push us apart, and instead, focus on the things that can bring us closer. She was okay after the crash but only to the degree that you can be okay from walking away from a serious crash unharmed. There are the images that continue to haunt you in dreams and the body aches that tell you something major has occurred and the body is not quite right. Trauma.

Fifteen years ago I was the victim of a random act of violence. I suffered for years after the event and still do in some respects. I never really got over it. Certain things influence my moods. Just hearing about my daughter's accident made me so grateful that she came out of it relatively unscathed. But there are still the things that you don't walk away from. The thought that it may happen again. Life is unpredictable. My event left me feeling that God had somehow left me down, Where was He? And would He allow this to happen again? Questions that have no answer. Life is unpredictable. My little drawing reminds me that I must plot a new course and focus on moving on as best as one can.

I am getting better at inserting images into my blog. This one only took a few minutes. I did this image as a bookmark. I use up the scraps of watercolor paper since the costs are so crazy for a sheet of 22 by 30 Arches watercolor paper. Besides, it is just fun to do a picture for the heck of it...