I’m the type of person that has to have a plan.  It might even be a plan to stay where I am.  I get anxious when direction is unclear.  I’m in a situation in my career where the future is unclear and even looks dim.  It took me ten years to get a degree after I got sober.  I was new in sobriety, I was going through a divorce, and I was raising children and working a full time job.  I didn’t take welfare even though I needed it and there was one month in which I ate very little so my kids could eat.  I now make a very nice living and want to move up the proverbial ladder.

 My general feeling is that I didn’t work 10 years to get a degree to stand still or go backwards in my career.  I tend to fight the system, fight my boss, fight my co-workers, fight my employees because I feel like I’m standing in quick sand and watching my career go down the toilet.

It seems that old character defect of entitlement comes to haunt me.  Because I worked so hard to get where I am, I deserve to get farther.  I deserve not to have to go backwards.  I deserve to be Queen!

When I really stop to think about it, every time I’ve been at a crossroads in my life and the future was unclear it always left the door open for transformation.  My divorce let to my children’s father spending more time with them and an education for me.  My alcoholism led me to a life far more full and rich that I could have ever imagined and a new set of skills to deal with life’s ups and downs.  It led me to my current husband.  The hard road to finishing my degree and the years I lived at poverty level led me to a big enough paycheck to live comfortably.  My daughter’s drug problem led me to have a bond with her that would have been impossible to obtain any other way.  My children’s health problems led me to my career choice.  Every time I have judged something as bad in my life, it turned out to have some form of redemptive quality that made my life richer, my soul deeper, and taught me something about faith.  My sponsor used to say. “God didn’t bring you this far to drop you on your butt,”

Maybe it’s time to “cease fighting,” just for today.