My dream.

It's a mistake to try to mold one's partner into the image that one would like. Last week, one of my Al-Anon readings ended with:

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island

But I think there's a different between trying to twist a person into another's image, and dreaming about what she'd like to happen. I need to indulge in that dream.

Here's where I'd like to see Al and me on 1 November 2012:

We're back together, living in a modest but cool condo, perhaps overlooking the city.  Al has been off alcohol for well over a year, and is becoming more comfortable with his sobriety.  He's no longer embarrassed that he has the disease of alcoholism.  No more lying.  He's not afraid to talk with others about anything, including his struggles with addiction and depression.  In fact, he's spending a fair amount of time volunteering to help others who are having problems dealing with addiction.  Between his work and his volunteering, he's styaing more than busy, but still manages to go to his meetings several times a week (and I'm at Al-Anon at least once a week, as well).  He's reconnected with old friends, and has made new ones.  He's smiling a lot.  We're laughing together a lot. 

A healthy lifestyle has long eluded us (with a nasty resulting effect on my waistline), but we've finally decided - as a couple - to get serious about it.  As we've learning through, for example, scuba diving, we're better working together on a project than working separately.  So we're taking time to plan menus, we're doing a lot of walking around town, and we have a steady weekend date at the local market.  (Truth be told, though, we still have an occasional DQ Blizzard.)  We've started to entertain again, having folks over, and Al's okay with that.

Life isn't perfect.  Old behaviors, old blaming habits, creep back into our relationship, but when it happens, we'll call each other on it - and the other will listen.  We've learned that while we were - and are - powerless over alcohol, our lives had again become manageable.

I have hope.  We have a future.

There will be nightmares getting to it, but I still have a dream.