Step 4

I have loved a lot of people in my life, had a lot of best friends and learned to trust many. I feel like I have typically been blessed in my life to have the relationships which are most healing to me exactly when I need them. 
When I needed a mom going through new motherhood just like I was, I got one. 
When I needed a friend to lean back, have a little fun and forget my troubles, I got one. 

When I needed a friend who would testify of Christ and teach me what sacrifice, service and love really were, I got one. 

These days I need a sponsor-friend. I need someone who can help me work through the crap in an unbiased and loving way. I need someone who will call me on my stupidity, remind me that Husband's words might not always sound as stupid as they do right now and that I can forgive him and move forward. And I have been blessed with many of even these oddly specific relationships. 

I put one of My People in the car and drove her to Arizona with me last week to attend The Togetherness Project. We talked and laughed and cried together for days. We didn't sleep enough, but couldn't bring ourselves to value sleep above what we were doing. By the time the weekend was over and it was time to come home, I was dreading the drive home. We were exhausted, and Arizona is freakin' hot and my CD player had a stupid non-music CD stuck in it and all I really wanted to do was sleep and unpack and get ready for my crazy week ahead, but instead I'd be driving. But, Friend was the silver lining. If you're gonna be trapped in a hot car taking backroads through 2 states she's the one you want with you. 

What I didn't expect was to be so healed. Friend and I don't have many secrets, there really aren't topics of conversation we avoid. There's nothing that I'd be too scared to tell her and we probably cross a lot of lines when we get really detailed - but it's helpful for me, so I don't even try to stop that. 

Even with our history of extreme honesty and no off-limits topics I was surprised when the conversation turned toward "mistakes I've made". We talked about the poor choices we'd made and why, we talked about how we want to talk with our kids about these kinds of mistakes when they make them, we talked abut how it made us feel and how the people who loved us dealt (or didn't deal) with them. As we got closer to our destination I joked "I think we just did step 5."

I've struggled to appreciate fully the 12-step program because Husband and I weren't good at working it when we attended weekly (for 2-3 YEARS). I worked steps 1, 2, & 3 over and over again because I could easily see how they were important, but I couldn't bring myself to do step 4 because I knew step 5 was coming and I was still so rooted in shame I couldn't look at myself that way. I just wasn't ready yet. But a few months ago I started feeling the pull to go back to the 12 steps. I wonder if it would be different now? I thought. Now that I'm more whole, could I face those awful truths about myself? Am I ready? I think I am, but I haven't made time in my schedule to attend meetings. So my ARP manual sits gathering dust on my bookshelf and I roll around the concepts in my brain. 

Until they come spilling out at the end of a long, involved, emotional weekend. And then at the end of the drive, I feel a tiny piece of the healing which I fully believe can come from doing step 4.

Now I feel totally confident I can do a formal step 5. I'm not sure when I'll do it, but I know I can. And that is a kind of healing I wasn't really expecting from my weekend away.

Next Post: dead step 4 buffalo. (I hope.)