Down the rabbit hole, I go. That’s how it feels. One day completely happy, looking forward to a new life. One that I thought was my reward for all the hard work I had done to improve all the things I saw in myself I didn’t like.

Became self-sufficient. Depended on no one. Took care of myself in every way a woman should learn how to. It became my monthra and I hit every goal! Went to Alanon to improve where I was failing my sons in their addictions. Failing myself!

To separate me from their addictions was the hardest for me to learn but I did it and can see my mistakes. In defeat is where we learn the toughest lessons but the ones we truly learn.

I was ready for something more! The fairy tale I so desperately craved. Deserved in fact but there were signs. I saw the same red flags but I choose to ignore them because I could understand this. I could help. Offer my 20+ years of experience. Right? Wrong! That’s not how it works and I soon found out.

We tend to gravitate to what we know. Familiar even if it looks completely different. You can Imagine my confusion with how I’m feeling now. Being sideswiped with regret and feelings of failure.

I was glimpsing a stress-free life. at least not with the kind of stress that I had been under for the last 20 years. A life not without challenges. I expected that. Not without some stress that wouldn’t be life. None the less I anticipated bliss even among the challenges I could see coming.

Then out of the blue, this new life started looking different. Consuming, out of control, the chaos that started resembling that same doomsday stress I for years fought. Every effort to keep afloat has failed. I can feel myself drowning under every wave. Under every new day!!

Still, I try to ignore the mounting pressure just beneath. Little by little it fills me. Taking every breath, stealing every happy moment. As if an out-of-body experience I can see myself in the force of its grip, flailing under the strength of its crushing hold. Surprised to find me here is an understatement!!

Life has a way of slapping you across your face. Stunning you into submission because you couldn’t or wouldn’t listen.

So here it is. Did I make a mistake? Did I excuse too many signs? Did I excuse the clues and hints and rationalize it into paranoia? I don’t know. That’s the hard part. Heart says one thing, everything else says something else.

Maybe I haven’t learned as much as I thought. Understood or accepted my value as much as I have others. Stop and listen to that inner voice that often talks but is never heard.

So now what? Keep going? Or for once in my life do what I claim I have learned. Give me the one gift I have withheld!

Permit me to say NO!

Here is where I am. The Rabbit hole! Dark, terrifying void where I’m existing but not living. Will I listen to that little girl screaming or ignore her cries?

Sometimes even with us to hang on we must let go!