Is that available stitched on a pillow somewhere?

It's not a secret that I used to drink a lot and that I'm a former addict. What I'm not so open about is that no matter how short-lived or how long ago it was, things tend to carry over for a long time after you've let your life get out of hand. I'm commitment-phobic. I don't like to make plans for the future. I seldom answer my own phone. I shun. I evade. I avoid. I try not to Do Important Things so I won't Let People Down. Friends ask me to water their plants while they are out of town and it suddenly makes me feel very Sandra Bullock in 28 Days, taking baby steps like I'm fresh out of rehab.

Except I'm not. The last time I was in rehab, I wasn't even old enough to drink (legally) yet. Since then, I haven't gotten evicted or arrested. I've supported myself. And I think I've even proven myself in the tricky Keeping Creatures Alive department; I've had my high maintenance cat for six, almost seven, years. I have three plants that grow no matter what I do (or don't do) to them. I have a guest bedroom with a bed in it (as opposed to it's former use as wardrobe closet/dressing area). I've made some good choices (or not chosen, as the case may be) with regards to the relationships in my life. I feel my feelings, even when I don't share them. I'm probably healthier emotionally from having gone through a rough patch when I was younger than I would have been otherwise. I know what the damages are.

What's my point? According to the 12-step timeline, I'm running behind. I've passed the stage of being Caring Nurturer enough to: (a) water plants, (b) buy a bed frame and assemble it, and (c) sustain the life of a domestic housecat. I was supposed to move on a long time ago and (d) have a relationship with someone who won't turn out to be crazy and isn't 10 years younger than I am. Except there's that part of me that wonders what will happen if choose incorrectly, if I screw it up, if it makes me want to dig another hole for myself. I've had a few exceptionally wrong answers in the past 10 years. I want to make sure I'm asking the right questions this time.

Or I could just get another spider plant.

"There's a time when you can share and you hold hands and be on the same path. But there's always a fork in the road... at some point. And sometimes you have to go on one part of the fork and they gotta go on the other part of the fork. Or just down the back part of the fork while you go forward. And they're like *sigh* Or they got a salad fork and you have one of the big dinner forks and you have longer to go but they're like done because that's it, they're stuck on a piece of food, that they *sigh*. A dessert fork or like one of those, you know small little shrimp forks or crab forks and you're trying to get out a crab. They're like that and you're over here jumping to the huge serving fork or something like that, or a ladle, you know." ~Gerhardt (Alan Tudyk), 28 Days.