What is up with the "Downs"?

So just when life is chugging along and you think you have some little amount of control...the downs hit again. What is up with that? Yesterday we had a set back on the home front, revisiting the darkness of addiction and watching someone you love struggle is so hard. Even hard for a person who feels like a life time of watching, hoping, praying and crying is enough. But then it is never enough...so why?

I said to Bob that he will never fully appreciate my side, it is hard for people who are in recovery to ever fully appreciate the side kick's role. The co-dependent wife, mother, friend ....blah blah blah. You wish so hard in your heart to gain control, to make the person right and yet you cannot...you want so to believe that even as the lies are spoken to you, even as you know them to be lies, you try to find some small piece of possibility to hold on to. It is an illusion, you know it is and slowly it kills you, sucks the life out of you and you realize that the only thing you control is yourself. I am not there today.

I am sad and worried. I carry the weight and burden of addiction for a loved one and it makes all of me hurt, I know it is wrong I am aware it does no good but here I am. So I will try to walk through the day, I will visit old friends and try to engage and not resent that my day is not what I had hoped for...a long series of those in a life time should give me some starting point.

And yes I will travel the pathways of my life, journey to days gone by and wonder what I was thinking then...how much damage did my own brokenness cause. I will visit those regrets like old fussy sweaters that you try own, feel a degree of comfort while knowing it is hopelessly outdated and smelly. Still I will sit with it for a while.

I pray. I have not other place to be.