Andy: Bad Person or Good Person?

Dusk in Big Bend National Park

I often feel that I am a bad child to my parents. Certainly I was a challenging child to raise. I can be difficult at times. However, Lisa feels that I have done nothing so bad as to warrant this feeling.

This issue is one that tears at me every day. It’s like I completely failed to live up to their expectations for me. I did not make it through law school. I got a tattoo. I’m a drunk. They do not like the woman I married. I have not had grandchildren. They don’t like my religion.

On the other hand, this is my life. Fuck you, I will marry who I want. I have been sober over three years now so stop worrying. I love my tattoo, I hated law school and I will have children if and when I am ready for them, not you. I will worship the Deity that I understand in a manner that has meaning to me.

I know, that as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous trying to practice AA principles in everyday life, I am not responsible for the happiness of my parents. Try telling my mind that though. The logical, intelligent part of me says: you are doing the best you can to be a good son. You are not expected to be perfect. That’s great, its all well and good—it feels good to be making amends, trying to be a better person and all.

The little boy inside doesn’t know anything about the above at all. What he knows is that mom and dad don’t approve of him and he is afraid he is not good enough, not deserving of love. This part of me says that if my parents don’t like me then I must be a bad person. Whether or not that is true, the feelings are real.

I don’t know what the hell this is all about, but at the end of my drinking my parents essentially did not speak to me. My mother would not speak to me, no matter what. After three and a half years of sobriety, two and a half years of making amends, they won’t call or email. If I don’t initiate the communication, there isn’t any. They don’t call me for holidays or birthdays (of course, I tend to call on the wrong days for theirs).

There is a part of me that feels that I should finish my amends—I have about a year and a half of monthly checks still to send them. And that should be it. I should not call. I should not send cards. They obviously don’t care about me, why should I keep extending myself to them and keep getting hurt? Maybe that is how the relationship should end—one final check in the mail and no more relationship at all.

Then I worry that someday I would learn they were dead, I would feel guilty—horribly guilty.

I am conscious of the fact that I seek approval from my coven, from this blog, from AA, from my sponsor, from my wife as a way of reassuring myself that I am a good person. I’m also aware that I don’t believe what I am told. I don’t know what to do about this except to keep turning it over to She who has the power. I can’t really let go though, and I know it. I just keep trying.

Hey, My Lady, Goddess Brigit, this morning is beautiful! I am grateful to see it and experience it sober. Please, be with me today, all through the day and keep me sober all day long. Show me Your will for me and grant me the power to carry that out. Thy will, not mine be done. Blessed Be!