why are YOU sorry?

uhhhh. i have always known, not admitted but known, that i have the tendency to try to "fix" people. i think i adopted this "disorder" when my father died. i decided at 7 that i did not want my mom to be sad. i made myself be happy and smile and let her grieve. i did not want her to worry about me.

throughout my life i have fixed things. i forced myself be tough. i developed this large back and broad shoulders on my 5'2" frame. i had to be strong to hold everyone around me, so i thought. looking back, no wonder i have a hypothyroid and i am exhausted. funny, so many times i have said "gee my throat chakra is blinding me in meditations". ding ding ding. but i was still deaf, i could not hear myself.

i dated an alcoholic for a few years, my first real adult relationship. we bought house together and i thought that he was the one. then i saw what alcoholism was. it was a really really hard time. he came out a very long and intense rehab facility only to blame me. he said that i was an enabler and that i should have stopped him. i should have made him stay home more, i should not have let him drink. so, i fixed everything for him. i took the blame and walked away. i walked away from our 3 bedroom home in ojai empty handed. i was so filled with sadness for about a month. then one morning i woke up and smiled. i woke up every morning and was so happy. it was unreal how happy i felt. i felt free. i could do and say anything i wanted. i could eat pasta and bread and drink wine and not feel guilty. leaving the house and my invested money and time was so worth my freedom.

i was happy being single. i was single for years...years. people would say "don't you want a boyfriend?" and i would say honestly "no, i'm happy just the way things are" and i was! i felt a little lonely and longed for something but it wasn't a boyfriend.

i woke up and got on line. "yellow lab puppies, 5 weeks old, parents on sight, $700". i did not have $700 and i could in no way take care of a puppy, especially with my job. so i drove to bakersfield just to look. oh my god! i fell so in love. i found him..the one. he was the runt and he came right to me. "oh..you can have him for $200, the white spot makes him hard to sell"

sequoia spent every single night in bed with me for years! i took him everywhere and i would cry in my sleeping on fires because i missed him soo much. i know..i'm a pathetic dog lover. we were very very happy being single. then we met andy. now, i cant imagine that we were ever without him.

apparently, i never really processed what happened with my ex. andy and i would share stories of our past relationships. he is divorced and has a 4 year old daughter and is constantly going to court with his ex wife...so he always has drama to talk about. i thought i was over those hurtful feelings because they never really came out when i tried to speak about them. i tried to process them, i wanted to but they would never really surface. then tonight andy said "i think i might have a problem with alcohol".

oh my god! i cried so hard. i haven't cried like this in years. i started to talk about how i didn't think that i could stand to go through this again. when he said "what do you mean?". i realized i never told him what really happened.

andy made me realize tonight that i try to fix things that i didn't break. i'd see a broken bowl and i'd buy it and then i feel soo sad and sorry that i broke it that i'd focus all my energy on trying to fix it. wow. hmm, that's weird. i forgot how mean my ex was to me and how i would lie about him all the time so people would think he was great and that i wasn't stupid for staying with him. i finally cried for the right reason. jesus christ that was 7 years ago and tonight i finally processed it.

i always thought i was the bull in the china shop, breaking beautiful things. i thought there would never be enough glue to fix what i had broke. i am thankful to andy for allowing me to lift the weight of trying to constantly "fix". all he said was "why are YOU sorry? YOU did not do anything" and it all made sense after all these years! i was still emotional after we had completed our "talk", so i went to lay on sequoia's nasty dog bed with him to share my thoughts. he of course did not care nor even seem to notice that i was pathetically draped over him.

people come into our lives for different reasons. sometimes in odd shapes, colors and sizes. sometimes we never find out why or how they came to us. andy always says that i am his angel and that i saved him. little does he know that he saved me.