My Friend's Boyfriend

A girl I know left her husband for another man... a fireman.  She got skinny and hard-bodied and had hot, fiery, passionate sex and they traded effusive exclamations of undying love for each other while having heated love-making fests.

Then he stopped calling and texting.  He couldn't handle the intensity of their relationship or her need or his feelings of being tethered... whatever.  But then he would show up again a month later wanting and expecting everything to be just as if they could pick up where they left off.  Only, my friend couldn't reconcile his words and his actions, so she had to break up with him.

She is in counseling and going to 12-step meetings and working through her grief and poor decisions.  She was feeling good and on her way back to strength when she noticed a man who had been sitting in 2 of her weekly meetings all along.  He is at least 12 years her senior and suddenly she is in love again.  He is a "beautiful man".  He makes her soul "light up".  They are both "open and available" to love.  He is "safe" and for the first time she can truly love and be loved.

On the one hand, I kind of roll my eyes: it is SOOOO Jr. High.  She said all this same stuff (but different) about the fireman.  Now she has beautiful old man and it's all new and good and lovely.  What about husband (and father of her 2 kids)?  What about fireman?  And how safe and good and open and available can they be when they are both still SO broken??

On the other hand, I am JEALOUS beyond measure!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Even if it is pretend and Jr. High, I want to be with someone who makes my soul light up. I want to be "open and available to love" and be with someone also who is.  I want to feel "safe and secure".  I want a fireman or an old, beautiful man.  I want to be skinny and hard-bodied and have hot, fiery, passionate sex and trade effusive exclamations of undying love while having heated love-making fests.

I am TIRED of living in an alcoholic marriage and always being afraid and always being bitter and always being alone and always being tired and always being abandoned and waiting (but never ready) to be abandoned again.  I just want to indulge the fantasy of love again.  

I see people with happy 2nd marriages and am envious... I want to believe that could and would (and will???) happen for me.  But I confess, I am frightened that no one will love me and that I will be alone.  But is that a good reason to stay with Mr. M?  and is it even true?

Devotion 4:6-7

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”- Philippians 4:6-7

PEACE. We all want peace. Peace and quiet, peace of mind, peace on earth, keeping the peace, making peace, peace offerings, and even 'rest in peace'. The thought of peace probably resonates with us as human beings because God designed us to long for His peace. 

And Scripture tells us how to get it.

Think of all the things you are thankful for. We can start with the basics: the fact that our hearts beat, our lungs breathe, and our brains think. Work our way up from there: Trees. Clouds. Snow flakes. The beach. Ocean. Babies. Music. Then get personal: My best friend, my job, cream soda, my little brother. When we function from a place of gratitude, we can’t help but begin to see things in a better, more hopeful light. We come “glass half full” kinds of people.

It is in this spirit we are told to come ask God for what we need. We don’t need to be stressed. We don’t need to wonder if He hears. We don’t need to be afraid. We can just come to Him with thankful hearts and ask Him and trust that He knows what we need and what is best for us. When we do this, His peace – a peace we can’t even begin to understand – will protect us.

Then it all comes full circle. When we come to Him with a grateful heart, we will be given His peace to guard our hearts. When we have His peace dwelling in us, we will not need to be anxious and worried. When we are filled with peace and we are not anxious and worried, we will be even more able to focus on our gratitude for who God is and what He has given us and done for us. We can then approach God in prayer with a peaceful heart filled with thanks.

Therapy Day 5/20/08

My 20th wedding anniversary is coming up SOON... I was feeling profound sadness about this and brought it into therapy this morning.  

Happy Mother's Day Hollywood Moms!

All of us had Moms at some time or other;  Bad ones. Good ones. Working ones. Stay-at-home ones. Present ones. Absent ones. Tall ones. Short ones. Fat ones. Skinny ones. Rich ones. Poor ones.  

All our Moms were different. 

And yet most of us were also "raised" by some of the same Moms, in some way, shape or form.

Did you grow up with any of these Moms?

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Harriet Nelson along with musician hubby Ozzie and two sons, were regarded as the icon of the ideal nuclear family and were the only television couple allowed a double bed until 1969... way to go Harriet!

Sure she was a tad flighty... but Mrs. C was remarkably hospitable to the "Fonz", an adult man with no job hanging out with teenagers.

In her high heels and pearls, June Cleaver still managed to keep an impeccable house and to keep Ward from being too hard on the Beav.

Lily Munster didn't bother cleaning up cobwebs, but she was a true "sandwich generation" caring for an aging father while still mothering young son, Eddie and taking in their strange niece ("one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong").

It was a wonder Samantha & Derwood Stevens allowed meddling mamma Endora to ever come around... even on Mother's Day!!!

Musical mamma, Shirley found time to raise five kids while riding around in a psychedelic bus as the lead singer for The Partridge Family.

Hard-working and feisty, Florida Evans managed to kick some "Dy-no-mite" J.J. and Janet Jackson butt.

Caroline Ingalls was good old-fashioned common sense. Who didn't dream about having a stable and oh-so-sensible Ma & Pa of their own?

G'night Olivia Walton. G'night John Boy.  'Nuff said.

OK... so maybe they don't stick out in the TV landscape of most memorable Moms... but raising kids in the stone age couldn't have been easy.

Probably not the most likable Mom on TV, but single-parenting a troubled speed addict and the future Mrs. Eddie Van Halen all by yourself would make anyone a little cranky.

How did she manage 3 wily daughters and 3 mischievous step-sons sharing a single bathroom, a busy husband, a fairly large house, dog Tiger, Kitty Carryall, and music group The Silver Platters?  Oh yeah... she had a full-time servant!!!

Edith gets the award of "Best Mediating Mother" it was no small feat keeping the peace between Archie, Gloria and Meathead.

Elyse Keaton cooked meals for her brood while looking over blueprints in the kitchen... (and who did Tina Yonkers look like anyway?  Was she the milkman's???)

Crass, blue collar, loud, overweight, overbearing, crabby: Rosanne, the quintessential American Mother???

Attorney Mom Claire Huxtable was able to keep a stern look on her face while bumbling yet wise Cliff joked, rolled his eyes, and pursed his lips through many parenting moments making everyone but her laugh.

Eating disorders, teen pregnancies, homosexuality, sibling rivalry, cutting, dropouts, back talk, abuse: Preacher's wife Annie Camden's family sure had its hands full of "real life" drama.

She's married to Homer (DOH!) and is mother Bart... she makes the Mom hall of fame just for that.

If your mom was as helpful, involved and encouraging (Not!) as Marie Barone, would you live next door?... Or even in the next STATE?!?!

Um... 

They're sure not Harriet, June, Carol, or Claire... 

but they sure are...

Well, 

let's just leave it at that:

They're sure not Harriet, June, Carol, or Claire!

TV Moms, you kept us company late at night when we were babysitting or when we were home sick or even on restriction (if we were allowed to watch TV).
We watched you on one of our 13 channels.
We fought our brothers over whether to watch you, Starsky and Hutch, or CHIPS.
We moved around bunny ears to tune you in without static.

You yelled and slammed.
You weeped and laughed.
You were bad influences and good influences.
You dispensed advice and offered comforting speeches.
You solved all our life problems in 23 minutes plus commercials.
You made us laugh and made us cry.

Thanks for years of entertainment!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY HOLLYWOOD MOMS!