Constance and Change

In the last 7+ months, a lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same. I am still temping at the same place (now there for 13+ months...), I am still not really healthy.
I'm more of a roomie to my husband; this change brought on by a typical drunken incident that just finally made me say enough is enough. We still live together, still go to counseling together, but we're pretty much roomies. He knows he needs to actually DO something (Get Help) about his alcoholism, I know I need to go back to my personal counselor. So I'm taking the steps I need to. I don't know about him.
My sis was back for a week after New Years and it was so incredible. I missed her terribly over the summer, but you know how you get used to someone being away after awhile...well, I'd gotten used to her not being so close. But having her here for that week was so awesome, and I'm so glad we could share that time. We went into Boston and walked around Chinatown and the North End. It was fr-EE-zing, but we survived!
I talked to Mom after my last post. Things got a little better with her, but the holidays really brought out the worst in us. Unfortunately, I know that some things are just never going to be the same. And in a sense, that's a good thing, because "the same" is SO unhealthy. But at the same time, I really envy those families that ARE healthy and can continue to have healthy relationships into adulthood. Well, maybe I can have a healthy relationship with her, it just won't be idea. What I mean is, since I know I can't trust her to respect certain boundaries, I just won't be able to share those parts of my life with her. It's unfortunate, but it is a step toward my own mental health that I'm finally willing to make.
I've begun reading Codependent No More and the more I read, the more I see it in myself - in many areas of my life! I've begun helping my sis with her college essays; editing for grammar and punctuation. At first I was just correcting everything and inserting comments to tell her why. Then I realized she would learn more if I explained general rules and let her make her own corrections. I was so worried that she'd be irritated with me, but she responded really well, saying she learned so much more! It's so funny to me how these things really work in real life!
So to be real, I'm depressed again. And not happy about it either! (That was a joke, though it's true :)
I thought I had this all under control and knew how to deal with the warning signs, etc. But then last August I started having a little wine with my dinner and ended up doing that a few times a week. It's absolutely FACT that alcohol is a depressant and I was already teetering on the edge. I went and pushed myself right over. I finally accepted the fact that it was really harmful to me right after Christmas, but by that time the damage was done.
But now it's February and I should be "over it," right? Believe me, I've been around this block enough times, I know it doesn't happen that way, but I'm back to seeing my counselor and am consciously looking for the healthy/mature ways of dealing with things.
One thing I decided to do this year is to try a new recipe from my cookbook collection at least once per week. I have over 40 cookbooks and I haven't used even one recipe out of at least a third of them. So this year, I'm going to change all of that! It's been really fun and I'm definitely enjoying the fruits of this particular labor! I'll share more on that another time. For now, I'm going to try doing the healthy thing and going to bed at an almost-decent hour.