I don't have control, but I'll probably drive myself mad chasing it.

There is a lot of stuff on my mind. I am planning a trip to Costa Rica with one of the most amazing people I have ever known in my life! This semester was mostly a success. It was a success in relation to how many times I tried to sabotage myself and possibly setting my goals too high. But what is too high? I am smart, but I am relate-able smart, not genius smart. I'm pretty sure that this gives me just enough room to hang myself. So fine, the semester was a success.

I am planning to go to KU next fall. I missed the gun just enough in the application process that I did not get scheduled for orientation until 21 August and you can't enroll until you go through orientation. I have a defining schedule picked out if I can get the classes I want. I will know pretty quickly if I would like to continue on into accounting or start the search over yet again. Apparently I am destined to learn the same lesson over and over in that I cannot control everything even when it directly involves me. And what faith will I need to have to get through the summer not knowing what next semester brings until after 21 August. I haven't even looked up when classes start. God saves me from things like that quite often. He reveals bits and pieces to me so I don't freak out.

And speaking of freaking out, guess who is finally moving in with the hottie?! Are you ready for this background? In July of 2009, my previous long-term partner decided she had had enough of my alcoholism. No one blames her. I was and, at times, still am a mess. My best friend decided with his wife in a manner of 7 minutes that I would come live with them after drug and alcohol addiction had taken my wife, my apartment, my car, my cats, my life as I was barely conscious enough to know it. So I moved back to Manhappenin' Kansas. I stayed with him and his family for as long as I could stay sober at the time. I got a job and got my wits about me a little. I was unable to maintain sobriety and got my own place at his request to save our friendship. This is an ugly disease. We knew it was best for me to move and it worked. I got a place with a pizza delivery friend. This disaster was colossal and I am grateful that I made it out of this situation alive. The day I can share the details with anyone would definitively be a blogging day. We got things like a couch and cats to make it seem like a home. But it was never a home.

Insert my first rehab. And after I went right back to where I had left and picked right back up where I had left off, like so very many drug addicts and alcoholics do. It's very common. I picked the shovel back up and started digging again. Insert rehab number two. 28 February 2011. This time I listened. I did exactly as I was told to the letter. This led me to extendo-rehab with 30 other women in Lawrence, and on to a three-quarter sober living home called an Oxford house. Thems is fancy words for 6 girls living in a sober house with a bit more structure than your average roommate situation. Their house, their rules. I stayed there for eight months and then moved in with a wonderful friend that I had met here in Lawrence for another eight months. She was kind and we needed each other at the exact same time. Her house, her rules.

I met the hottie when I lived in the Oxford house. But we didn't really start getting to know each other until I was living with my friend. At this point I had been living or existing with in someone else's space since July of 2009. I was worn out, but still living a much better life than I had dreamed since mostly what I knew was "where is my next bottle coming from and when can I start drinking it?" The hottie had surgery in September of 2012. I packed a bag to stay with her and help her recover and I never left. This seemingly was just a fairy tale. But I am still a mess, so one day when she was at work after I had been staying with her for a while, I got fed up that I was still paying $300+ in rent to a place that I never even saw and moved my little crop of stuff into storage essentially taking away her decision to send me home or take a few days apart. I did it with the intention that I would look for another place on my own. I wanted a place that was mine. I was so tired of living with everyone else's rules. I am ridiculously grateful for each and every opportunity to have lived where I have lived, but I was done. I was an still am crazy about the hottie, but it was unfair of me to take that choice away from her. At 33 years old, I am still very very new at compromise and cooperation.

So now we are ready to move my stuff into her house out of storage, right? Nope. We are so very different. She likes stuff. I loath it. And we are running smack dab into what I am sure so many adults who mesh two adult lives together have run into. She has made so many compromises. She is not an alcoholic  but we live in a sober home. Her home. She has made progress on making space for me. She tries really hard. But I am still a mess and have not had a home since 2009. I don't think that I am responding to all of this very well. There is finally a deadline that comes with financial incentive and visiting family as relaxation incentive. And I LOVE THIS GIRL. But I am really really tired of living in other people's space. Really tired.

I am so hard on myself. How will she ever have a chance? I am a lot easier on others than myself. It's very easy for me to say, "that's fine for you." I am hitting a brick wall with these issues being outside of myself, but too close to be understanding and tolerant. It all comes back to control. I want neat and tidy. I want control over my life! And since I am learning this for the millionth time for the first time, I am struggling with the fact that I don't have control over anything, even the stuff that directly involves and is tangent to me.

I know what some of my kindreds will say. High class problems. I have someone who loves me and wants to share a life with me. This is all I have ever wanted in my life: a strong independent woman who will take care of me. But I am so strong and so stubborn that I wouldn't even know her if she was screaming in my ear. And I would probably tell her that she was taking care of me wrong. I have no control over people places and things. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.