B's Bootcamp v3

[Bfice3]

Hey Vanilla, And RosaLinda, and anyone else following along or would like to respond.

Am I okay? I don't know. I guess I can say yes. Today is officially 4 months sober. And interestingly I got a very nice text message from a friend. He's a great guy who is the dad in one of our old married friends families...they have a S(9) in our son's class and a D(11) in our daughters class. He and I went to the Daddy Daughter dance together with our daughters on Saturday, and we had a good time. I mentioned in passing at dinner that today was going to be my 4 month sobriety date, and he remembered and sent me a very nice text this morning. It really went a long way to put me in a very good mood. I was very appreciative and told him so.

So, that was good. The weather is nice today, and that's good too. I've been to two AA meetings in as many days now, and that was very good. I had a really great conversation with an old guy Mike last night and it was very comforting.

I'm going to kind of change tack here, and journal, but if everyone is okay, I going to make this about me...and not really my MR or lack there of.

I think I mentioned that I've been seeing this codependency therapist...and its really helping to open my eyes. Vanilla, your first post was also a great reminder. So many things are converging and really, I'm seeing that my focus just has to be on me. After all, I am the only thing I can have any control over.

What I've learned. I am a very flawed individual that has been carrying around a lot of pain for a very long time. My parents got divorced when I was 3 years old (my brother was a year old or less). My dad I believe was a drug addict amongst other issues. He left and never came back. I do have a memory of going bowling with him and I know that was in Texas so I would have had to have been in either kindergarten or 1st grade. I also have a memory where he came for my brother and I's birthdays (2 days apart) when I was in the 2nd grade in Louisiana. He brought a remote control airplane on a line that you spin in a circle and I crashed it in a basketball goal. And...that was the last time I ever saw him. I do know his name. And I have searched online a number of times, and I think he still lives in Texas, but really not certain. He hasn't made any contact at all over the years, no letters, no phone calls, nothing. My brother actually has zero memories of him at all.

In addition to him being absent, no one on my biological fathers side of the family ever was a part of our family ever. I never met or really even know if he has/had brothers, sisters, parents, etc. At one point, somehow it came out that perhaps he had a daughter in a 2nd or 3rd marriage.

So that covers half of my family history. I always felt it like a huge hole in my soul. Just this giant void that, frankly, had to be ignored, because it was taboo to speak about it in front of my Mom or Step-dad or Grandmother. My brother and I have our fathers last name...which is weird isn't it? (I'm literally just now for the very first time asking that question.) That is weird. I'm pretty sure my mom went back to using her maiden name and then when I was in 4th or 5th grade she got re-married and took that name. But my brother and I always had our fathers name. I don't know...maybe that's normal. But the whole identity of being a male with my last name was this thing that was a stigma growing up (in my head). My life, my family, and my identity, as I made friends and acquaintances growing up, was always difficult to describe or be honest about. It became easier to simply have a 'story' to tell people that was simple to explain and digest. But, without realizing it, I was making that void worse.

So, here's an irony that I now have a very small and uncelebrated amount of pride. My father-in-law is big into genealogy and heritage and as such he does this ancestry.com thing all the time. Well, a couple of years ago he started adding or searching for things about my family. And guess what?

This is so freaking weird.

The man that was a giant hole in my life...the most obvious missing person in my life, my father...well...apparently there is exists a true lineage of males from (now) my son, through me, on to my father, his father, and his father, and his father, and directly on until around A.D. 1300 in England!?!?#$!?! Wait...wtf? Seriously? Yes. The men in my family have literally had a son every single generation for over 700 years and handed their name down father to son.

I don't know...I've told two different 'friends' about that and they were both less than impressed. And ultimately, it means nothing...but to me...in a weird way, it meant everything, and yet, was again at the same just another reminder at how messed up my personal identity is.

I'm going to stop this post now because every thing is being traced in red.