Truthful

I got one of those emails from a friend where you reply in one word with one adjective to describe them. Truthful was her one word description of me. Took me by suprise. I certainly strive to be truthful and now that I am sober I am closer. When I was drinking I claimed to be an honest person. But I was full of lies. Mostly to myself but to others as well. I did alot of truth dodging. Hedging my words, dancing around a subject, avoiding people, places and things so that I could claim to be honest. Building myself up to feel better. Twisting words and actions. It was hard work but I'm a paralegal and a smart woman. I am good at manipulating and convincing people to my way of thinking and that I am right. One definition of truth I found was "sincerity in action, character, and utterance." That is my goal.

I definately learnd something at the roundup. Was discussing Thanksgiving with my mother. We are going to my brother's this year in NYC. It will be tight. 8+ of us in their small apartment but it will be fun and I won't have to cook. We'll stay through the weekend to attend a college hockey game my daughter wanted to see. I asked my mother if she wanted to go as well and she hemmed and hawed and said that we would have a better time without her. And she's right. But the truth of the matter is she doesn't want to go and she can't say that because that's not how a mother is supposed to feel. We have been playing this game all my life. So I didn't let her get away with it. I dodged the guilt ball. We went back and forth and I turned it around and said, Mom, that is not acceptable and you will have to state the real reason: you would rather not go. It's perfectly acceptable. And she did, said she wouldn't feel comfortable. Doesn't like to leave her home for more than 2 hours or so. She likes her routine and does not like disruption to it. So there you have it. Now, instead of feeling guilty for not bringing her to NYC I can feel guilty for going at all:) But at least I know that she is happier where she is, even if I were having Thanksgiving, she'd come for the meal but is not really enjoying the communing with family. I am not going to have this conversation with her again until right before we leave. She didn't write it down so she won't remember. She only has about a 3-5 minute short term memory due to Korsakoff's syndrome. Long story and I'm pretty sure I wrote about it previously.

Anyway, I am grateful that I got rid of that guilt. Now, on to the rest of it........