Windy Gap

My muse claims she has committed to memory a million poems. How did Rena Easton find time to write this, and my long letter, on Christmas Day – if she was married?

“Hey hun! Are you going to get that turkey in the oven? The sun is going down?”

“Just two more poems to my old flame, and I am done. Oops! I’m out of white-out. Got to run to town. Be back in a jiff!”

I will always love Rena. When I saw the white-out that fixed a tiny flaw, I knew she was an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, like me.

“She’s mine! I found her!”

After reaching out to me on Christmas Day because she is all alone and very lonely, she begins to have doubts. How will I respond to her long letter? By the time my letter arrives she is in Shore-up Mode, all hands on deck ready to repulse the intruder. Rena was super critical when I met her. Her handwriting is like a typing machine, devoid of any tell-tale connectors and flare. I was in therapy for this. I knew how she suffered. I wept as I read her letter. I should have made my response short and sweet, then increase the depth as we go. Rena needed to be assured all her mistrust and isolation was not in vain. She found proof in my letter she replicated and took to Sheriff Dan to get it sealed with a Restraining Order so she can go another forty years without trusting anyone. Dan found no cause for alarm. I did!

Visitors to the About.com Alcoholism site in answering the question, “How Do You Feel Growing Up With an Alcoholic Parent Has Changed You?” tell their stories with trust issues below:

Won’t Take the Chance
I want to trust people but there is a little voice in the back of my head warning me to stay safe. Better to be alone than to ever subject myself to even the chance that someone might abuse me emotionally the way my mother did. — Pufflet

Paralyzed Emotionally
I am so afraid of trusting anyone, I feel paralyzed emotionally. I am a 42 year old women that has never had a meaningful relationship with a man. I feel so alone and that my life has been a complete and total waste of time. I yearn for someone to love me, but I am unable to let anyone close enough to love. I too am a fixer, but I am unable to fix me. I am damaged goods, unable to live the life that I see others living, unable to love or trust anyone. — Git It Girl

I Trust No One
The effects of my childhood have been numerous and overwhelming. I’m 27 years old and have had only one long term relationship which was very dysfunctional. I have an intense fear of intimacy and trust no one. I have recently become extremely isolated in my life. — L.W.

Everyone Will Let Me Down
I have serious trust issues, I believe that everyone will eventually let me down, but really it’s no more than I deserve. — Orla