I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve begun the challenging process of my 9th step work, making amends, and that there were a few right at the top of my list that I was actually very excited about. Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’ve ever looked forward to seeking people out for the sole purpose of telling them what an ass I’ve been more than now.

I pretty much never realize how high my hopes have gotten for a particular situation until they come crashing down and get pooped on. Figuratively speaking. Mostly. That happened regarding the amend I was most looking forward to. Now that it hasn’t turned out as expected, I realize it had become rather grandiose and unreasonable in my mind. There were going to be rays of sunshine and slow motion running toward each other and friendship bracelets and forgiveness scented sparkles falling from the sky and ice cream and no lactose intolerance and a lot of butterflies. But not a creepy amount. Just a good celebratory amount of butterflies. Maybe there would be spontaneous bursting into song…

But then…

Bummer.

So, at the beginning of my recovery journey this type of disappointment surely would’ve led to a severe meltdown of sadness and probably some kind of subtle controlling gesture to try to turn things around. There would have been countless hours of journaling and mentally spinning the scenario over and over in my head trying to figure out what went wrong and what I could do to “fix” it. In the past, someone not really “hearing me” would make me so crazy that I would reexplain myself times infinity to the power of forever and yet despite my best insanity infused efforts, it pretty much never worked, leading to more frustration. However, in the face of this relational disappointment, this is all that happened….my face looked like this..

and for like 5 minutes like this….

Disclaimer: These are not gang member thug tattoo tears. The previous state of sad faceness did not send me into a murderous frenzy, leading me to shank my intended amends target and then kill him again just to be sure. I have no street cred.

Ok so blubbering mess for like 5 whole minutes but really it was about 48 hours of this…

Not so bad, right? And then I realized something awesome! Some of the “promises” of AA are coming to fruition in my life.

On pages 83-84 of the Big Book, there are some promises that begin to unfold for us as we begin to heal through the spiritual discipline of the 12 steps. The one that revealed itself in this situation is….

“We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.”

Yes. After 48 whole hours of medium-grade sadness I was able to sit down and pray and journal for a reasonable amount of time, asking God for wisdom. And then I was able to respond to Mr. Didn’tliveuptomygrandiosedreams in a loving, gracious and simple way. It was not a web of words. There was no hidden agenda to re-explain myself. Just grace and a whole lot of genuine gratitude. In fact, gratitude for another of the promises that has clearly come to fruition many times in my recovery….

“We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”

The way this thing panned out is what’s best for me but I didn’t know it because I still see things through my codependent filter sometimes. My very wise counselor once told me that codependents generally do not live grounded in reality or in the present. We tend to live and think in relation to how we think things could be… someday. And that’s living in a bit of a fantasy world, rather than the reality of how things currently are. So I really believe God worked this out for me…He did for me what I could not do for myself…working it out in a way that is much more realistic and healthy for me. He knew what I didn’t…that in this case, simple forgiveness was better than the grandiose unrealistic restoration of the friendship I had envisioned. He helped me to intuitively know how to handle a disappointing situation that previously would have baffled me.

Aaand I have so many pet butterfly friends to sing to.

~Heidi