A CATHOLIC GIRL RETURNS TO THE SCENE OF HER CRIMES

I began my career with the government in a specific agency almost 25 years ago (I am about 7 months shy of 25 years).  I started as a beginning level clerk, married, expecting a baby.  Two months into my new job I lost both the husband and the baby in a horrific accident and my life nosedived for the next five years.

I got sober in 1992 and returned to Holy Mother Church about two years after that, scared that the roof of Christ the King Church would fall on my head when I walked in the joint.

Today, I am a sober Catholic Out Loud, willing to take a bullet for Holy Mother Church and doing the sobriety thing one day at a time, with the help of a loving sponsor and a great 12 step program designed specifically for people like me.

I have detailed the trials and tribulations of the last four years - the new job as a member of management, the hatred I experienced by E and the weirdness from V and all the strange stuff I had to learn about being a supervisor.  I cried, ranted, prayed and begged for help from Christ and those around me and I received it.  I found out that it was not all about THEM - that I had a chip on my shoulder caused by fear of failure and that I had a lot to learn.  Surprise surprise - I was not perfect.

So.....today.....I am announcing that I am returning to the very first department I ever worked for and I will be able to be closer to home, work day shift and I will have a chance to make amends for all the poor work I did when I was drinking...I did it....I have come full circle.

I firmly believe that God has a plan for me and that I had to learn lessons on being able to care for myself without the love I thought I had to have from my brother and my mother.  Today, my brother wants nothing to do with me - and his lifestyle precludes my participation in anything he does.  I wish him the best.  I love him very much and I hope he is able to correct the mistakes he has made with his mother and his children; however, emotionally I now see myself as an only child and that is just the way it has to be...and as for my mother - well, she turned 90.  I love her but must prepare for the day she will enter into her reward in Heaven and I know that when that happens,  I will be fine.

I would not have been able to say that five years ago - I think I was still overly dependent upon the love from creatures rather than relying upon the love that does not end, the love of the Creator.

So I am grateful for all the hell I went through - fancied or real, as the Big Book would say - and I am glad I get to be a woman of grace and dignity today.

Just for today.

one day at a time.