Stranded

I'm stranded in a parking lot in Anaheim, in front of a Spanish language health care clinic. I can smell Little Ceasars pizza, and there's a woman singing opera in the apartment next to me. She sounds like Snow White when she sings to the birds. I ran out of gas so Linsey's bringing me the gas can. Oops.

I am grateful for:

-My (mostly) sweet pre-teen daughter Ashley, who's braces-filled smile lights up my day. And that she still IM's me “I love u” on Facebook.

-That James still begs me to play light-saber fights with him.

-That Linsey and I filled Valentine's Day with love and patience, not hurt and alcohol.

-That every night I have chihuahuas nestled up against my head and my ankles.

-That I got to sing and play the piano for a living this morning. And I'm thankful for the song “Our God.”

-I have pink eye. I'm not grateful for that(!), but I'm thankful it's getting better. Man, it itches.

-For thirty days of sanity.

-That people I've never met bother to read my site and leave comments that have helped me through some awful times.

-For my rabbit Max, who's dug a cave system under my patio. Now that the rain has stopped, he's sunning himself outside my window.

-That I have bro's I can call – like my cousin who came and helped me patch my tire this week. For some reason that flat tire had me feeling helpless and depressed, but I didn't have to deal with it alone.

-For parents who live down the street and will loan me $ to buy antibiotic eye-drops when my bank account's totally empty.

-I'm grateful for Entenmann's donuts. I just am.

Chips off the Old Blocks

Familiar Scenario:

-Linsey tries to convince James to do [thing]

-James (the 8-year-old) resists

-Linsey pushes back

-James improvises, comes up with yet another way to avoid compliance

-Linsey tries various parenting methods she's read about in books

-James displays stunning array of varied manipulative techniques, exhausting Linsey's will

-Linsey gives up in exhaustion and does [thing] herself

-Eli smiles

You didn't expect the last one did you? But just substitute my name for Linsey's, and imagine I'm asking Linsey to do something, and you'll have the other most familiar scenario in our house. My wife is dazzlingly tenacious. I rarely proceed past step #3 above because, why bother? She will win. Oh yes, she will win. So when I get to see her in my spot, fighting that losing battle, some sort of evil happiness wells up inside.

Now just to be fair, here's another familiar scenerio:

-Astonishingly loud and high-pitched loony singing emanates from the car's back seat

-Linsey reaches tolerance level, begs Ashley (the 11-year-old) to stop

-Ashley says okay

-Blessed silence

-Ashley begins again to make noises that no sane person could imitate, laughs maniacally

-Repeat cycle several times

-Linsey sighs in defeat

-Eli smiles

You see, while James inherited Linsey's tenacity (read: stubbornness), Ashley inherited my bipolar personality. You did know I'm bipolar, right? Maybe not...I mostly show the depressive side on my blog. When I'm manic, I'm too busy annoying people and bouncing off the ceiling to sit down and post. Anyway, I like that both of these situations end with me smiling. It pleases me that our house contains two little opposite-sex clones of me and Linsey. There is much joy in being a parent.

Turn Around

We're in an RV park just outside of Yosemite. The kids get into little screamy fights a few times a day because of the close quarters, (James says, "I just need my personal space!") but other than that we're having a great time. I'm still struggling, as I wrote in my last post. I spoke to my wife just a little bit ago, so that she knows what's going on, and I'm hoping if I keep doing the right things I can turn around.

Turn around is exactly the right phrase. The problem isn't as much what I'm doing, as where I'm heading. My gray-area, middle circle activities haven't taken me into to a relapse, but if they continue, they will. Even if I am "good" for a significant period of time, what I notice is that I am still heading the wrong direction. I'm in that cycle of obsession/anticipation/adrenaline/release, and it feels just like it does when I'm full-on in my addiction. This is what's so frightening. I relapsed during our vacation last year, and for months, Linsey said she never wanted to plan a vacation for us again.

So even if my activities don't look significantly different (I haven't really been able to act out in the crowded space of the RV), I am ready to be different inside, on a spiritual level. I'm glad I've been in recovery long enough to know when something is wrong spiritually, even if things aren't falling apart yet on the outside.

Back to recovery for me. Reading, prayer, talking to the right people, and gratitude. I will remember to see what's really happening: My addict tells me that by being honest I'm giving up the ability to get away with a few marginally exciting sketchy activities. What's really happening is I'm choosing to be present and sober on this vacation. Instead of being distracted by plans in the back of my mind for the selfish things I can do when I get home, I want to breathe deeply of the mountain air, and quietly take in all the beauty that defines this amazing and spiritual place.

Lilly's Letter

Lilly had a crush on me in high school. She thought I was innocent and wholesome – good father/husband material – which I was. Her friend Linsey also liked me, but promised to stay away for Lilly's sake.

Linsey honored her promise by sticking her tongue down my throat and her hand in my pants. I guess she was excited by the lure of something she couldn't have. She's still like this today. She's most interested in fucking when I give up, stop trying or caring, and decide to become a kindly and celibate monk. Then she's on fire.

A few years later, Lilly was the Maid of Honor in our wedding. Yeah, it was a little strange. She went on to become Linsey's confidant when I would disappear down the rabbit hole of drugs and porn. Knowing that Lilly knows all my shit makes me uncomfortable around her, but I'm happy Linsey has her as a friend.

Lilly sent me an email a couple of days ago, opening up about her own food addiction and her fears of hurting the man she's in love with. Writing her back this afternoon was a good experience for me:

Hi Lilly-

What a sweet and honest letter this is. I'm honored you would share so much with me. All I've really known is that you've struggled with food. There's been times when I screw up and Linsey heads off to see you, and I feel so ashamed, and Linsey just tells me that you understand me better than I think.

As hard as it's been for me at times, I really do support your loyalty to Linsey. God knows she needs somebody she can talk to about me, and you and her friend Claire are pretty much all she has (outside of her support groups.) Your friendship and support have helped her to stick around and work things out, and for that I'm very thankful.

I definitely do understand the way that addiction is there every single day. I get angry sometimes when I hear people share that God has taken away the desires they used to fight. I just sit there and think, "it must be nice..." But then when I'm honest with myself and look at the big picture, I realize God has taken away much of the constant drives that used to plague me all the time. I guess I offer that to give you hope - with enough time and work, I think any addiction does become easier.

As far as how it affects your boyfriend, I don't think the answers are as easy. I can tell you that what I wanted (prayed for, begged for, cried for) was to be healed from all this crap, to be fixed. I wanted to be able to go to my pastor and say, "I used to have this problem..." I wanted to be able to completely remove the pain and discomfort that my issues have brought into my family.

But I think I'm learning it doesn't work that way. I finally figured out that I had to go to my pastor and say, "I have this problem, now, still, ... and I'm working on it, every day." I had to find the strength to tell Linsey, "I have this problem, I will always have this problem, and because I love you, I want to work on it so we can have a marriage."

And I had to ask for her help. Things didn't really get better for me until she was willing to accept that she couldn't bring home a prescription for codeine and keep it in our medicine cabinet. I've sat through so many family support groups and heard spouses that were angry they couldn't keep alcohol in the house anymore. And this is what it comes down to for me: Real recovery isn't saying "I will have enough willpower to walk past the liquor cabinet every day and ignore it." Real recovery IS having the courage to say: "will you help me by moving the liquor somewhere else?"

I guess I'm just trying to share what I've had to learn, over and over and over, the hard way - that the more isolated I am, the more control the addictions have over me. Of course much of my openness is with recovery friends and groups. But it's unavoidable that some of it has to happen with Linsey. You mentioned the times when you fudge the truth with your boyfriend. Boy does that sound familiar. I still struggle with this, and I know that it wouldn't really be productive for Linsey to hear every little thing that I share with my groups, or therapists, or whoever else helps me out. But the key is, I can't protect her from it completely. I wish so much that she didn't have to look at it, to see this ugly shameful part of me. But the only way to kill the beast (or at least keep it out of my yard) is to have a certain amount of transparency with her. And to let her see how helpless I am against all this without the help of God and recovery people.

I am also sad that a distance has grown between us. But I can live with you being angry at me sometimes. I'm angry at me sometimes. I don't know where you are in terms of recovery "stuff" – you know, groups and books and steps. But I can tell you that for me, trying to fight by myself was an exercise in frustration and disappointment. As busy and exhausted as Linsey and I are, I just started back into a weekly step-study group, because I need other people to stay sober. I hope that it makes you happy to know that your letter, and the time I've spent reading and answering it, were just what I needed right now. You helped me today, and I am grateful for that and for your friendship.

Eli

Fate of Our Fathers

Tonight I cuddled with James on our hammock under a spider-man blanket. On a clear night you can see a few stars from my back yard; tonight there was a cloud cover reflecting the lights of the city. In years past, I spent many nights on that hammock. I was high, smoking cigarettes and imagining the aliens who lived on planets circling the stars above me. A few times I woke up Ashley so she could join me. She thought I was being a good dad, and begged me later to wake her up more often for midnight snuggles.

I've been researching videos for our Father's Day service. I found this one that struck me with its honesty. It begins by recognizing dads who balance work and family – pretty standard fare. What touched me was that it goes on to honor dads who try not to repeat their fathers' mistakes, and dads whose fathers were absent completely. I began to think of the men in my church, and the messes and heartache they struggle to leave behind.

Last weekend I broke one of my rules. I returned a phone call when I was angry. When my coworker answered, I was condescending and sarcastic. I hung up the phone and that feeling came back: I am my dad. My dad, who has tantrums at work, until he's not working there anymore. People only put up with this for so long, then he moves on to another job. This tendency to ruin relationships with fits of ego-centric rage feels like a legacy I can't escape, no matter how much therapy I pay for, or how many 12 step groups I join. It suffocates and terrifies me. It feels like fate.

Tonight Linsey read to James from a journal she kept when he was a baby. Unlike the journal for his older sister Ashley, James' journal is sparse and incomplete, reflecting the brokenness of our lives at that time. We were discovering that while one kid had been fun, two kids were exhausting. I laughed when Linsey read aloud what James said after he hid the spanking-spoon: “daddy no pow-pow me!” I cringed when she read about his preschool teacher, the woman I thought would save me from my miserable marriage.

That was an awful time. We moved to a new house and I was overwhelmed at my new job as a church music director, afraid that I would cave in under the pressure of dealing with people. Like my father had when I was a child. We had left our church back then when he yelled and stormed out of a board meeting. I didn't come back until they hired me twenty years later.

I am still here. I have not been fired or shamed, and I've weathered the conflicts with relative grace, because I am not my father, I am me. There is no fate. Instead there are choices – innumerable choices and opportunities to surrender my future to the grace of God.

After I hung up the phone last weekend, I called my coworker back. I ate humble pie and asked her to forgive me for being a jerk. I think she did. I think we're okay.

Tonight I showed my family the Father's Day video and I cried. Because we are an army of broken men who have imperfect or non-existent examples of what it means to be a father. Because we fight to stand on the shoulders of the men who raised us and we curse our own mistakes. Because the man in the video with the abusive father was not me, but my dad, who escaped a legacy of divorce and abuse to give me a stable home filled with love. He wasn't fated to repeat his dad's mistakes. Neither am I.

Tonight I am thankful for my dad, and for who he is today. I'm thankful that even though he had temper problems, he never abused drugs or alcohol, and he never abused me. I'm thankful that I get to be sober for the rest of my years as a father. And I'm thankful that I could talk about electricity and superheroes with my son while we laid in a back yard hammock.