BullDog777

This was a weird holiday vacation.

I made amends with my parents and with my brother. It's not all happy go lucky with sunshine and rainbows, but I've decided to let all the s#it go. All of it.

I'm helping my parents...getting them to and from appointments and bought them some elderly gear to help them get around. There are some ground rules, but I'm gonna stick this out and make them as comfortable as I can for as long as they're here.

I've decided to let all the BS go with my idiot brother too. I think that'll go just fine as long as he's 3000 miles away. haha

He actually wants a better relationship between the 2 of us. I tried my whole life and failed because he never showed up. I told him he's gonna have to earn it cause my days of giving a flying F about it were gone years ago. So he's trying, I guess.

So after a full blown panic attack for about a week, this is what I've settled into.

I guess I'm ok about all that now.

I'm noticing that sobriety gets infinitely more complicated the deeper I get. Not harder, but definitely more complicated. I don't know how I feel about that.

I remember thinking that once I had some time, I'd just move out west. Buy a ranch style home and be like an old cowboy just sitting on his porch over looking a huge meadow with some rolling hills in the distance, capped off by some blue mountains that you could just barely see. My dog Maggie by my side, and I'd just listen to the breeze.

Instead...I'm in the butthole of the US, about 15 minutes outside the nation's capital during a snow storm with a tiny house full of teenagers, who wouldn't know quiet if it bit them on the ass. My wife is sick and my 85lb pitbull has the zoomies and I wanna go to bed.

Of course, I wouldn't trade this for anything. It's just different from what I imagined.

AAPJ

BD Thanks for posting. I'm on the other side of the river about an hour drive from you if 495 and 66 are running smoothly. Not much of a storm here but enough to cause the schools to close early yesterday and open late this morning. So that means unplanned presence of my teenage daughter and her friends which is a bit of a PITA when one works from home. Add a wet dog that loves to roll in the snow to the mix and my work productivity just plummets. But like you said:

I wouldn't trade this for anything. It's just different from what I imagined.

ScottFromWI

Thanks for checking in BD and I'm very glad to hear you are letting go of some of the things swirling around you, that is a very healthy step forward.

As far as things getting more complicated - I think that's really just the way life works - not just a function of sobriety. As we become more aware of our lives, we notice things we never did before. It is possible to set boundaries too- you are already doing that by letting go of things with your family. You can do the same in other parts of your life too - focus on what is important and the other stuff can either wait until later or someone else can deal with it.

Hope you have a healthy, happy 2020!