With Gratitude

Dear Sweet Friend and Mr Bee,

It’s Tuesday morning and I am sitting on the veranda drinking an Americano from Ah Cacao and reflecting on what an amazing month I have just experienced here in Playa. I want to tell you both, I will be forever grateful for the time I have spent living with you at Las Olas (the “waves”). The name of your home is very appropriate when I consider the never-ending waves that have washed over me this past four weeks. I loved the ocean waves (of course), but the waves of extreme gratitude, of love and friendship, awareness, and of healing – these were the strongest waves of all. Gracias.

The month has also been about reconnecting with one of the very dearest friends of my heart. I won’t ever forget the night that we met at a recovery meeting back in the day, Sweet Friend. I shared in that meeting that Soul Mate and I were brand new in our beautiful new town. I shared that moving there was a culmination of years of hard work and years of dreaming, but that the dream was tempered with a little bit of fear because I had arrived in our new life with a diagnosis of stage three colon cancer. I was scared. I shared that we had left our kids and family behind and I didn’t know anybody and that I really, really needed a friend. You came up to me at the end of the meeting Sweet Friend, and I knew when you hugged me and I looked into your beautiful green eyes that you would be a friend for life, however long that life was going to be. And so it is.

Here are just a few of my favourite Playa moments and things: 

• Starting each morning with tropical fruit, yogurt and granola
• Tuesday excursions to Xpu-Ha to lie on the beach (whoops, kind of burned myself up a bit yesterday)
• Friday night recovery meetings
• Tacos at “Tacos on Juarez” after Friday night meetings (Ten pesos each, I mean seriously)
• My nearly daily walks to and through the Mega store (can you really ever buy too much hot sauce?)
• Morning meetings with Bruce, solving world peace and other minor issues
• Fish filet dinners, at home or out
• Working on my course work for Recovery Coaching and learning that I am going to love being a coach
• Learning that I like Kundalini yoga
• The many laughs shared three ways
• Shrimp tacos
• A Valentine’s Day trip to Tulum with my Sweet Friend
• Shrimp ceviche at El Camello in Tulum
• Planning the She Recovers retreat that we will hold later this year
• Getting over my fear of walking down Fifth Avenue (the vendors really can’t make me buy stuff)
• The zillions of hours that Sweet Friend and I spent pondering the meaning of our lives and recommitting to our dreams
• A wicked massage on the roof, under a full moon
• More tacos 

So today I start my journey home. I have a lot to go home to. I will be extremely happy to see Soul Mate, First Born, Yoga Kid, and all of the other girls and people in my life. I lead an extraordinary life, and am blessed to have extraordinary people in it. Thank you both for your generosity, and for everything that you have taught me this past four weeks. We are all going to be beyond okay. Skype you soon. 

The next time you are both walking down the beach in Playa, think of me, okay? Oh, and have a taco for me on Friday night after the meeting. Or better yet, have three.

Love

Dawn

Soul Mate at Twenty Three Years of Recovery

My Darling Husband,

Tonight will be the first time that I have ever missed one of your recovery milestone celebrations. I won't be there in body, but I am pretty sure you know that I will be there with you in spirit. I wish I could be there tonight, but of course I am rather preoccupied tending to my own recovery over here in the Mayan Riviera. I know I have said this a million times, but thank you again for being happy for me, for your generous attitude about my taking this time and this space to really settle into my new reality. Our new reality. It's going to be awesome - this next part of our lives. Hard to believe that it can get any better, hey?

I could write for hours about our life in recovery this past several decades. But this blog is for you. And here is what I know about you, and your recovering life:

• Your Higher Power works wonders when mine does not, which is extremely useful
• A Narcotics Anonymous convention in June 1989 was an amazing turning point in our recovery and our lives
• More than anything, I believe, you have recovered the Soul Mate who is at his very best a father, a son, a husband, a friend, and a brother to more than just Car Dude and Sled Dude (though they must always keep the biggest slice of your heart)
• You take recovery very seriously, but only if you can have a lot of fun while doing it
• You love the boys and girls in recovery, but you completely underestimate just how very much they love you
• The last two sets of steps (both completed in the past four years) were maybe (but not quite) as profound as the first set twenty some years ago
• You treasure the early years, when we were all stumbling around like idiots with control issues - because back in the day - control issues were fun
• You have truly come to realize that how other people work their program, or don't - and whether they stay or go - is none of your business, you just love 'em anyway

What else do I know about you, and your life? Well let's just go through a few things that you have survived or experienced with joy...clean:

• Watching your two boys grow up and become absolutely remarkable men
• Your own bout with cancer
• Becoming a grandfather to the Three Adorables
• My cancer
• Blending a family of the "least likely to blend" specimens
• Supporting me through my mother's death from cancer and my grief from same
• Owning a business and letting it go
• Making a home in the same house for 15 years
• Making another home in the same house for 4 years and counting
• Being there for your Dad and Mom after his accident
• Being there for two teenage girls and a teenage boy, even when they each had lost their minds
• Always (quietly) being there for anybody in your family who might learn from your experience
• Developing a passion for fishing and following it through
• For being open to going on amazing amazing amazing trips to beautiful places
• Moving to Paradise, and still realizing with great wonder "We live here"
• Persevering at a job that is pretty difficult at times, but works for our lifestyle
• Learning how to love a woman who always had great potential, but was broken in a few spots for a few years
• Building a family, a home, a life, and a future - because you know you are worth it.

I don't know much else to say that I would want to share here, there is a lot that I would and will tell you in private.

For today, I just want you to know that I think that 23 years of recovery, for a boy like you (I knew you "when," after all) is an absolute miracle. Thanks so much for sharing it with a girl like me. I love you. Enjoy tonight.

~ Dawn ~

Onward and Upward

Being laid off can suck.

Or it can rock.

My experience is clearly turning out to be the latter. Having a severance package helps, of course. Getting laid off and losing pay and benefits would definitely fall in the *suck* category. I am extremely blessed. Not only do I have full pay and benefits for what seems like a long time, but I don't have to pay $140 a month for parking. I mean really, it's like I've been given a raise if you think about it.

Going to Mexico for three weeks just 11 days after I got axed also helped turn this into a pleasant experience. Having beach time to contemplate not only my navel but my future was a true gift. I have a lot to think about. A lot of different directions that I can move in. It is sometimes overwhelming. Anxiety-provoking. Freaky. Mostly, I am increasingly fascinated by the fact that knowing that my dreams likely will come true is at least a hundred times more scary than it was to think…that they probably would not.  

How fortuitous for me that just over a year ago at this time I hit the wall with some occupational (and life) burnout. (see previous post on Denial) How lucky for me that I was forced to do some deeper work to remind myself what I had previously learned once or a hundred times already in my not particularly short life - that what I *do* is not who I *am.* Definitely a good thing that I remembered that my fancy pants job did not define me before I lost the darned thing. 

It’s weird to be on the edge of this…whatever this is. I have been doing recovery for 24 years. In July it will be 25 years. I saw something written the other day that talked about how one day, things just finally start to come together, to integrate into something that finally starts to look like more of a whole. I recovered my brain with thirteen years of schooling, I am working on my physical realm through yoga (and today for the first time I did Zumba - it was fun but I think I broke my left cheek butt). My emotions are...emotional - just the way they are supposed to be. And my spirit - well this is a spiritual awakening like none other I have experienced. This is God or the Creator or Bugs Bunny telling me, yes Dawn – this is your time. Take it and do something extraordinary with it. 

Okay. I will try.

But first I am going back to Mexico for a month.

There really is nothing about being laid off that sucks.

"Today My Life Is Enough Just The Way It Is...And It Is Mine"

I had a really, really difficult day at work today. Something pretty awful happened.

And yet, something else happened today that was very positive, even extraordinary. Basically, I got through the horrible thing at work knowing that as horrible as it was, I was going to be okay. And I knew that I would be okay mostly because of today's reading from Anne Wilson Schaef's book Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much. I read it before I went to work, knowing what was likely to happen at work today, and I kept thinking about it as the day unfolded. Here it is:

How wonderful that we not only have the opportunity to live our lives, we have the opportunity to accept them! We have spent so much time and energy foolishly fighting things that we cannot change and butting our heads up against steel-reinforced brick walls that we have not stopped to ask ourselves if this is the hill we want to die on.


Part of learning to live our lives is developing the ability to accept what cannot be changed and learn to live creatively with those situations. Also, we need to discover what can be challenged and to move forward with courage when necessary. Acceptance is not resignation. Acceptance is serenity embracing life.

I was laid off today. But I am going to be okay.

Being Gentle With Myself

I have started falling away from blogging every Sunday, and you know, I am not too worried about it.

I have several other writing projects on the go, for one thing. And I am posting twice daily on my She Recovers Facebook page. 

I am in a good place in my life. A great place. I may not have a lot to blog about at this moment, but I sure do have plenty to be happy about. Like what, you ask?

• Soul Mate and I are going to the Mayan Riviera in two weeks, for a three week vacation to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary (I am so excited I could scream)
• Yoga Kid is having great success teaching her new Yoga for Recovery class on Sunday mornings 
• Work is great, easy, normal
• I am losing a pound a week (I gave up sugar and wheat)
• First Born's favourite NHL hockey team is kicking ass this season
• I am surrounded by the most amazing people in the world (women and men)
• I live in a currently damp (but beautiful) spot on the West Coast
• I've just had to develop a new set of life goals, because I've achieved all of the ones on my last list.

Like I said. Life is good.

I hope yours is too.

Happy Birthday, Daddy

I am taking advantage of the fact that you are visiting at Baby Sister's for this birthday and so she can show you this, your birthday blog. I can't believe that you are 81 years old, Dad. You don't really seem to age these days. I just came across these two old pictures of us the other day, and I've been looking at them and thinking about them.

The first picture was taken when I was four months old.You are wearing a tie, so you had either just come home from work or you were dressed up and ready for a typical Saturday night party with the Aunts and Uncles. It still amuses me that you and the Uncles always wore ties when you all got together to tie one on.

I wonder what you were thinking as you held me tightly and gazed down at me. I mean, other than that I was surely the most beautiful daughter that a guy could ever have. I think you must have liked me a great deal when I was as tiny as I was in the picture. Finally, a girl after two rotten little boys. Girls are so much better, don't you think?

This second picture is my all-time favourite of the two of us. I think it is taken at the farm in Rockburn, but you would have to confirm. I could make up a story about why I was leaning my head on your lap, your arm wrapped around me, your eyes on me. Maybe I was tired. Or not feeling well. There is every possibility that you were comforting me because my two rotten older brothers wouldn't let me play with them. Whatever it was, thank you. I know that your care and comfort made things better. It always has. I wish I could remember what you said to me, I'm pretty sure you would have been saying something.

I had a pretty great childhood, and I thank you for that. You've been a great Dad, for most of my life. You weren't perfect. You tended to be a little uptight and cranky during the week. As you may recall, I haven't always been a perfect daughter either.

Some highlights and memories of having you for a Dad as a little girl:

• You were a wonderful provider, and we had a beautiful home
• You made us skating rinks in winter, and tended to our pool (obsessively) in summer
• Sometimes you let me sit on the stairs and watch you and the Uncles play darts and you'd give me my own little glass dish of peanuts and a glass of coke.( I felt very special)
• I loved that you came home from work early most days, although in retrospect you probably did it because my brothers were so rotten
• You always sang a wicked rendition of Holy Night, although seldom at Christmas (still do?)
• You and Mom bought me a yellow dresser with a bookcase for my Nancy Drew books, and I thought I had died and gone to Heaven
• You have always nurtured us with good cooking (still do)
• Watching Hockey Night in Canada was always a blast, you sure did get excited (still do)
• You loved my Mom, and it showed (still does)
• When you were a bit drunk at a family party, you would dance the cha cha with me
• When I played Marilla in Anne of Green Gables, I could tell that you were really proud of me

No need to get into details about my teenage and young adult years, really. It's your bloody birthday, why would I want to make you mad? Suffice it to say, these were my less than perfect years. You probably remember more about those years than I do. I know that you had a rough couple of years in there too, for reasons very different than mine. I am glad that things worked out for you. And for our family.

Flash forward to summer, 1987. I called you and Mom to tell you that I was going to treatment to deal with a an addiction problem. You knew that I had some struggles in that area. (Not quite sure why you never brought it up, but that's okay, things were different back in the day). Mom was clearly upset by my call, but I think I heard a hint of hopefulness as well as concern in her voice. She handed you the phone. I will never, ever, for as long as I live forget what you said to me. You told me that I was doing the right thing and that there was no shame in getting help for a problem. And then, just before you handed the phone back to Mom you said “You have always had balls, you can beat this thing.” Your words have stuck with me for over twenty years, Dad. Clearly, if I do have balls, I inherited them from you. So thanks. I guess.

That was a turning point for me. And you were a big part of it, and Mom too. The next decade was wonderful, until 2000. Again, it's your birthday so I won't make you cry but I am so sorry that you lost your best friend. I lost her too. We'll never get over it, will we? But we have gotten through it. And you had some really wonderful years with somebody else, until we lost her too. Crikey. What's with that?

But seriously. I have gotten to spend more time with you this past 10 years, and gotten to know you better, than any time earlier in my life. And I really like you. And I thank God for your continued health, and I pray for your happiness. I treasure the time we spend together, here in Paradise. I am grateful that you share your time with me, and I know that Baby Sister and those two rotten brothers are grateful for the time you spend with them too. (I don't really think they are rotten. I even wrote them a blog earlier this year, to prove it).

I hope that you are still cooking us spaghetti and screaming at hockey on the television until you are 101. I know that last year was a good birthday for you. I hope this year's is too. I love you, Dad. And this is another favourite picture of you and I. Your arm, still around me.

If Monday Never Comes

Today consisted of:

Several moments of extreme joy 

Minutes of pure gratitude

Hours of healthy acceptance

God, how I love weekends.

Now, tomorrow. Well that's going to be another story.