Lost

Well my enthusiasm for putting things into words here dwindled fast. Actually it didn't really go away...I just drifted. Feeling a bit lost. Wandering aimlessly through my days. Searching for a new purpose in this new life. Navigating a new routine, new schedules, new demands, new fears. I am learning stop looking back, because each time I do the old path becomes less distinguishable….forcing me to look forward. To clear a new path on a journey that has not yet revealed itself to me. The purgatory of leaving the old behind and not yet knowing what the new entails is draining. Causing the motivation and desire to forge the new seem almost impossible.

What now? This moment. This season in my life. Is this right? Finding a sense of being comfortable in an uncertain world is not a skill I have mastered. Renewing my trust in a higher power that I had convinced myself did not hear me is painful. Accepting that change is the only constant and that some things will never change is infuriating. Yet, I get up everyday, put a smile on my face, and move forward. Because what was all this change and pain for if not for forward momentum?

This. Oh my gosh, this.

Read it...it's amazing. Love this site and all the wonderful things posted there daily.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/09/how-to-love-a-strong-complicated-woman/

Confident or Bitch?

Why is it that a confident and assertive woman is often labeled as being a bitch? This is a question I've been pondering lately. Is it in the way she (I...let's be real, this is about me) presents herself? Or is it in the perception of those around her? A strong and extroverted personality is often intimidating to those who tend to be more soft spoken and reserved. Over the years I've tried to take less offense to those who jokingly (or not) refer to me as their favorite fun-loving bitch. I know they mean well...it's their way way of saying that I'm direct and don't have a tendency to sugar coat things.

 The problem is that there's a fine line of this being a compliment and an insult. No, I don't beat around the bush much. But I am kind, highly sensitive, and have a huge heart for pleasing people. My love language is most definitely words of affirmation. I want to feel appreciated. But I also have learned that hole will never be filled by someone else, and I shouldn't expect that of others. Especially a significant other. I don't NEED someone to tell me I'm enough. I know I am. I don't NEED someone to tell me I'm worth it. I believe I am. 

So is it the awareness that I am confident in myself and my abilities that seems to make it ok to label that as bitchy? My goal is to focus on what it is I think people are really trying to say...that they see a confident woman who isn't afraid to express her opinions, ideas, and emotions. If bitch is the term folks wanna use then I'm gonna take it and make it my own. 

Broken but Worth Loving

It's the dark days and the long nights that remind me of my brokenness. That make the loneliness so alarmingly obvious. The self doubt creeps in, and I begin to question if it was me all along that caused such turmoil in my life. Would things be any different with anyone else? Am I too controlling? Too demanding? Too narrow minded about the way life should be approached? Selfish? I occasionally stumble onto the path of self hate instead of self love and wonder if it's possible for someone so broken to be wanted or desired.

I miss the simplicity of knowing there is always someone on your side. Even in the long lulls of emptiness in my marriage I still felt the tiniest bit of reassurance that I had someone to walk through life with.  Someone in my corner. Now on the bad days it's always just me. And getting comfortable with that is taking longer than I'd like. Maybe I never will. 

There is often music playing to drown out the silence. To keep my thoughts from heading down the wrong fork in the road. The lyrics are healing. Putting into words what my heart is often incapable of admitting. Forcing me to recognize where I still need to learn and grow...and where I'm still hurting. Reminding me to be gentle with myself and reaffirming that in spite of it all, I will love again and will be loved again. All in due time.

Painfully Honest

I hate how guarded I've become, and I hate how guarded the people I care about are. Somewhere along the way we all began to believe that we (and others) are desperate for feeling anything other than indifference. It somehow became normal to be with someone without a "label"...to "casually" date. That's such bullshit, in my opinion. We're meant to be connected to each other. In lots of varying degrees. And the acknowledgement of that connection has been lost. We hide behind social media and texting. 

I'm a passionate person. I like passionately, and I dislike passionately. Gray area is hard for me...especially when further muted by distant, cold, tech-driven communication. Let's be real with each other. Full of love, tenderness, joy, sadness, hurt, and everything else we feel. Without downplaying or apologizing for such honesty. Truth is so much more valuable in this world of lies we live in. 

Confession

Finding the motivation that once fueled me, but now seems to have vanished, is a daunting search. Some days it feels promising and others hopeless.

Those hopeless days are the ones where friends are so very necessary. Whether it be a listening ear, someone to cry with, or a stern lecture of tough love...they keep me moving forward. The motivation to do, to feel, to act may be hiding in the depths of my broken heart, but I am trying not to shut myself off from the people who can help me find my back to who I am. I am letting the love in that will give me the strength to love again. Starting with myself.

Tell Your Story

This showed up in my inbox today and the words smacked me in the head (and heart) like an unsuspected foul ball at a baseball game. I have found myself telling more of my story to more people, and the truth feels so free. No longer hiding behind secrets that keep things "safe". What is safe? Who is it safe to? Not me. Not anymore. I've learned that in sharing more I find parallels in others. Some so similar it's scary. Yet it reminds me that I am not alone. I never was, I just didn't know it then. Now I have the option to move forward alongside others who are also taking steps toward a new life. In this joint movement there is power. I'm beginning to tell my story. The one that shaped me as I am now and the one that is unfolding before me. Tell yours too.

Someone. Anyone. You.

Driving in to work today it dawned on me that it's my parent's anniversary. I sent a quick text, all the while cursing myself for not remembering earlier in time to mail a card. As soon as I hit send I was overcome with emotion. Lots of different emotions to be exact. Sadness, jealousy, admiration, happiness, love and so much more. 36 years. Plenty of which they've both admitted weren't the best. But they made it. They pushed beyond uncomfortable times and found themselves in a new love on the other side. The other side that I'll never see. The side I couldn't manage to get to after just 8 years.

 I so wanted that. The love story of years of growing, learning, and experiencing together. The quiet nights at home musing over all that happened between two people during life's craziest of storms. The romantic in me wants to believe it's still possible. The jaded, damaged, broken, cynic in me accepts that it may not. That my heartbreak isn't just now, in this phase of my life, but that it will continue to haunt me. In the form of a dream never fulfilled.

A dream of someone to care for me. The way I care for those I love. This morning I was overwhelmed with the loss of that dream. The idea of someone. Anyone. You.

You, the one who'll look at me as though I'm magic.
You, the one who wants me to be a part of your reality.
You, the one who can't stop talking to me.
You, the one who can be comfortable in silence.
You, who will assert your desires with command.
You, who will so gently hold me.

My dream of you has faded. Only to be remembered in moments of brief yet complete and utter vulnerability.

Familiar and Foreign

Have you ever seen those scenes in movies where someone has some strange out of body experience that allows them to see themselves in a very surreal situation? That happened to me. Sort of. Just not in the glamorous Hollywood movie kind of way. I definitely daydreamed about it being a sitcom or romantic comedy in the moment...about a girl who is finding a new lease on life as she approaches the end of her 20's.

Anyhow, this past weekend was spent celebrating a friend's birthday and it meant I found myself in an all too familiar setting. Me, two couples, who have been the best of friends for me over the last several years, and my former half rounded out a group of six at an intimate dinner in a swanky downtown Franklin establishment. I knew the scenario had the potential to be uncomfortable, awkward, and maybe even tense but had chosen not to think about it and focus on the milestone birthday of such a dear friend.

However, there were so many moments throughout the evening I found myself watching, studying, wondering....how did something, someone, who was so familiar to me now seem so foreign? The past 10 years of my life sitting right across from me, yet it felt like a distant memory rather than what was my day to day life for so long. So I did what any respectable Southern lady would do...I ordered another bourbon and drank away the nagging feeling of such a bittersweet scene.

Unexpected Timing

This isn't the life I saw myself living at 28, but I am learning to like it. Love it, even. With lots of grace and forgiveness for myself and the reasons that I am here. The past is slowly becoming irrelevant enough that my future feels hopeful. For so long there was a fear that I would carry the wounds with me forever. S..l..o..w..l..y they seem to be healing. And while the scars remain, they do not hurt. New experiences, reasons, and people to make me smile. The smiles come easier and more often these days. And the best ones are from unexpected places and timing.