It’s all about Bob…

Earlier this evening, I had a gut wrenching conversation with my soon-to-be-ex-husband (let’s just shorten that to STBEH from now on) that left me wanting to crawl into bed and watch surfing movies all night. The problem with that plan was that I recently went back to my former AA home group that meets on Thursday nights. Needless to say, that was the last place I wanted to be, but I went anyway because they say if you don’t want to go to a meeting, you should get your ass to a meeting. The conversation was about how he doesn’t want to get divorced and the gut wrenching part was about me wanting to honor his feelings and not cause him any more pain than he’s already feeling. So this is how things went, I got into my Escape (fitting name for a vehicle I own, believe me, the irony is not wasted on this girl) pointed it toward Bloomington and drove, all the time saying to myself “don’t think, it’ll only hurt the ball club” (which is my all time favorite movie line because it works in so many different situations, try it, you’ll see).

I made it to the meeting and felt better just walking in the door. Afterwards, I spent some time catching up with an old friend and getting to know a new friend. During the meeting I had shared about how that was the last place I wanted to be because of the conversation I had with STBEH so this friend kindly reminded me that while I am fantastic, I am not responsible for STBEH’s feelings in this situation. My part is to take the 10th step of AA seriously, “continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.” In other words, my part is to make sure I treat STBEH with dignity and respect and be done with it. In other-other words, it’s not my part to ruminate over his pain if I’ve treated him with dignity and respect, which I feel I did tonight.

Here’s where it becomes all about Bob. My old friend introduced me to a new friend (Bob) and during the course of our conversation, Bob made a comment that alluded to his desire to believe he’s the center of the universe and I, in my admittedly wiseass way responded “Ya know, I’ve heard it’s all about Bob” to which both friends laughed and said “yep, it’s all about Bob.”

On my way home, it hit me that this seemingly casual conversation had much deeper meaning, which often times happens when you throw drunks together and get them talking about life. I realized that the gut wrenching part of my evening was not caused by STBEH, or his feelings, it was caused by me making it all about me. It was all about me taking responsibility that isn’t mine because, as a general rule, I like to make it all about me. Long story short, I will definitely get my ass to a meeting the next time I don’t want to go to a meeting…and for today, I’m going to make it all about Bob because I’m kind of over myself and don’t want it to be all about me anymore…