Excuse the Soapbox.

I was discussing my new friend Stacy who thinks I'm out to get all psoriasis stricken people with my old friend and co-worker Andrew. Andrew says, "Well. You do call yourself a princess on the blog."

Andrew has never read my blog. Nor, apparently, does he understand the finest form of humor -- sarcasm.

I hate to keep blathering on about my hate comment, but it got me thinking about judgments and how insanely wrong people can be while believing that they are right.

As you guys know, I've been attending Al-Anon meetings on and off since this past February and it's taught me so much, but what stands out the most was this one woman who shared in a meeting. Obviously these are anonymous meetings and I would never betray that, so I'll give you an example of what happened, without actually relaying any factual details.

Being the daughter of a parent who was habitually late for everything, I am a huge stickler for promptness. So, when I attend my meetings I'm usually one of the first to show up. This sucks because I hate that feeling I get when I'm alone in a room and the others start showing up. I don't know how to handle it. Is it okay for me to just be silent? Do I have to make small talk? What if I'm in the meeting leader's chair and I don't know it? So much to deal with. However.

I also get to watch every single member of the group enter the room and -- up until this particular incident -- pass judgment on each of them. Usually these are mainly guesses at what their qualification is for being in the meeting ... a drunk boyfriend, a heroin-addict father, parents who were fabulous and threw great parties but were secretly chugging nail polish remover in the closet during the afternoons.

The last time I did this -- without mentally reprimanding and correcting myself -- was at one of my favorite meetings. A woman walked in and here's what my judgmental self saw: a girl wearing expensive, trendy clothes, carrying a fantastic bag that most likely held the keys to the cute convertible something or other that her rich daddy bought her. Her reason for coming to Al-Anon was that her Mom had taken to liking her Creme de Menthe a little too much ever since rich daddy hit his midlife crisis.

Of course, during the meeting this woman shared. An hour prior to the meeting she had escorted her severely drug addicted husband to rehab, again, after having to drag him onto a plane to return from their vacation in order to do so. This woman was broken and sad and I felt such shame and disgust at myself.

In a book I read a woman who had overcome her own addictions said that she makes a point to be kind and gracious to every single person she meets, regardless of how they behave towards her. Because, she had been on the edge. And she had been pushed over it by a stranger more than once. You never know what is going on inside a person. Yes, that guy may be sleeping on the train because he's nodding out from heroin. Or he may be exhausted from working a 19-hour shift to pay for diapers and daycare.

Yes, of course, I still catch myself making snap judgments about people I see on the street, but the point is, I catch myself. And I feel like that's a step in the right direction.

Pills & Prom Dresses

In a lot of ways I think I've been waiting for my mom's breakdown for years. The more we learn about her illness with addiction, the more I realize that she's had a problem for much longer than any of us realized. It's just that now, we've come to a crisis point. And I have to admit, there is a part of me that is relieved.

Fucked up, I know, but it's just the truth of how I feel right now. I've spent so much of my life (pretty much all of it up until this past February) scared of Mom and realizing she has a problem with pills makes me feel like I'm finally on equal footing with her. Maybe even gained some control of my life in relation to her. When she's on the pills, I feel like I have a sense of who I'm dealing with. A pill addict I can understand, I know addicts, I love addicts, I have my own addictions. Addiction is right up my alley.

Before last February, I just had an unpredictable, inconsistent, erratic, moody mother whose heart I was constantly breaking in one way or another.

Are those tattoos?
Yes.

How many do you have?

Twenty-three.

Well! You have broken my heart. [Dramatic exit from room containing the majority of my family because we had all gathered for my grandmother's funeral.]

This story actually began with my cousin/arch-nemesis and I washing dishes together and her announcing loudly that she had just spotted the star behind my left ear. I believe this was a malicious outing of my decision to have 23 miniscule stars permanently applied to my body. It resulted in my mother's heart being broken. I hope she is happy.

See it? There on my left shoulder. That spot? That's one of the 23 tattoos that broke my mother's heart.

Another time my Mom's heart was broken happened on my sixteenth birthday when she bought me the prom dress I was dying for as a gift and told my, also 16 year old, best friend and was absolutely livid when she found out my friend told me about it.

I was so excited to give this to you as a surprise and Cindy had to come along and ruin it! I don't even want to give it to you now! The whole surprise is shot and it just breaks my heart. [Dramatic exit from room, as per usual.]

For months I had clipped pictures of this dress out of magazines and hung them on my wall. It was a beautiful, lacy off the shoulder number with a hoop skirt with a white lace pinafore and a scalloped overlay of satin with three-inch vertical pink and white stripes. I thought it was the most stunning thing I had ever seen. As I look back, I realize it only served to make me look like a pastel circus tent and if 16 little people in clown makeup had emerged from underneath it, I am sure no one would have been surprised. But my 15 year old self adored it. I tried it on over and over, I fantasized about how beautiful it would be next to my date's white tux and pink cumberbund. And in the span of less than two minutes, I learned to despise it because it had broken my mother's heart. Imagine this dress but with stripes. That's my dress. (I have to get a scanner. I'll show you the real deal. It's a good time.)

So, last week when I confronted Mom, about her pill addiction and told her that I could no longer participate in her killing herself, she replied, "Susan. You have broken my heart," and I gotta tell you, it just didn't pack the punch it used to.