I found her....

If you don't get lost, there's a chance you may never be found. 

~Author Unknown

Nothing could have prepared me for the discovery I made while on my trip to the ocean this past weekend. Nothing could have even hinted at the overwhelming amount of emotion I would leave with. I had no idea I was so lost.

 

As I touched down and took my first breaths of the incredible ocean air, I realized I was home. I was raised on the prairies, visited the ocean a handful of times as a child, but the water is a part of me, it always has been. The ocean, in all her strength and beauty, is always changing, never the same  and I am in awe of that. The ocean is home to me – it fills me with life. The problem however is that my boys, my boyfriend and my family are also home to me. Spiritually, physically and emotionally I feel torn between two worlds and I don't know how to make them one.

 

I went in search of myself and I found the free spirit, the happy, strong, fit lovable woman who I am so proud of. She couldn't make the journey home with me however. She remains on a large piece of driftwood, watching the tides rise and fall. She has the wind in her hair, she breaths in the salty air and she is happy. She is not willing to leave this place of peace right now in order to come to my other home, where I am confused and a little bit broken but sustained by the love of my boys. It is a bit of a contradiction because I need her in order to finally become whole. She will be the last and final piece in my journey toward peace. Deep down, I know I will feel it in my bones when she finally arrives.

 

I have a lot of work to do to bring myself home. I have realized that others see beauty in me that I hide because I am to scared to show it. I realized that I do not put myself first. I realized I am driven by my fear and I want to be driven by passion. I want to conquer every ounce of hurt and pain that resides in my body, every speck of doubt and imperfection. I realized that I am a mother and that my love for my children  overwhelms me, leaving me floundering sometimes but without them, I am not whole. I am everybody but myself. I need to be one so I can be happy and peaceful no matter where I am  - on the prairies or by the ocean.

 

I am scared, I am afraid that my 2 worlds will not ever mesh entirely and I need them to in order to be whole. It is going to take an overwhelming amount of work  in order to become who I am. I fear the failure I know I will face, I fear the loss I know I will battle, I fear not getting back up and being lost forever. I know the path to self discovery is never ending. It will be something I do until my dying day. I know it will be tough, I know I will stumble, I know I will have to change. I am ok with that. The ocean changes – she is never the same yet she is always strong, beautiful and free.

Where is my spark?

"I'll ride the wave where it takes me"

~Pearl Jam, Release~

If you want to change then change – that is the advice that so many give yet so many are unable to follow. I need a catalyst, something to spark me, a moment, a goal, an event. I haven't found that spark in quite some time. It decided to go on vacation this past summer when my whole life and every waking thought was devoted to staying upright during a truly devastating time.

Here I am, 6 months later, and my spark has not come home. I believe my spark will be found by the ocean and that is why I am headed there soon. I am also hoping that along with my spark, I may also find myself. It is such an intense feeling, actually realizing that you have completely disappeared. Your value, happiness, energy, your life - have all managed to creep out in the night and not return. It takes months to realize that you are merely a shell, following the motions, dancing the dance. I am no longer leading the dance and each day I feel like I am losing more and more of the woman I fought so hard to become. I am back to the woman that hides in hoodies, never smiles and just survives. I am pissed off, I want to live. Life is far too short and second chances are hard to find.

I know the bits and pieces I am looking for. I know how to put myself together. It is all on me. I am responsible for my happiness, I am responsible for the weight I carry, I am responsible for the things I let in and the things that I allow to break me. It is my job to live and I have been  too lazy, too broken to move. I have felt sorry for myself but I act as though everything is ok. I am not fooling anybody, most of all myself.

I will sit by the ocean and there I hope to regain control of this beautiful life and the second chance it has given me. I will relax and have fun, I will let go and realize that I am, in fact, important. I will fight for me because in the end, I only have myself. I will find my spark and I will find myself and in that, I will find happiness once again.

Taking back my Life

It is not a matter of being fearless. The fear is sometimes constant, but it's about moving forward regardless of the fear. Courage means feeling the fear and doing it anyway. 

~Gillian Anderson~

It has been a year and a half since the big one hit, the emotional tsunami that wiped out everything I knew, everything I believed, everything I wanted. That day that left me with a feeling of nothingness and with walls 10 feet high, made of impenetrable material. But it was a day that left me with an amazing view of the sunshine.

So here I sit, so many months afterward, still reeling from the aftershocks. I still let a man whose selfishness emptied me of everything I believed in, continue to take from me and traumatize me. The sad thing is, he doesn't have to do anything. I allow him to reside in the deepest parts of my head and heart. He is single handedly tearing me away from a man I desperately love. He makes me question myself and he makes me feel unlovable. But it is not his fault this time - it is mine. I am letting him rule my temple and control something in me that he has no right to. It is time to take back my life and free myself from this callous, ruthless villain.

How sad is it that dis-arming this man, facing my fears and opening myself up scares me more than letting this vagrant squat in the recesses of my mind. Kicking him out means opening myself up and becoming vulnerable again and finally letting the man I have grown to love feel trusted. Giving him my trust means that he can hurt me but it also means that I can be happy. It means I have to have faith and faith is not something I have relied on in many years. It means that I have to relinquish my need for control. So much control has been taken from me that I cling to what I have left like it is a life raft.

I am not willing to be hurt again nor am I willing to have everything taken again. As much as a gift as all this has been, I am petrified of starting over. I know my fears are foolish. My future is not something that I can predict or guarantee – nobody can. I have never known "happy love" so I am still learning that the risk could be worth it. For now the risk is too great and too frightening. I want the love, the happiness and peace that come with it but taking down the walls that I have built to keep everyone out scares me. It is safe in my walls – not happy, but safe.

The only thing I truly want is to love and be happy but yet, as I peer over the concrete walls at those things, I am far to afraid to crawl over and see what my dreams could look like. I have a knight waiting at the bottom of my wall, encouraging me to come over, handing me little tastes of what happy is, little bits of what love feels like. He gives me these things regularly but I hold on to the little things he has given me that have made me retreat to the darkness behind my walls, even though the love he has shown me far outweigh the  moments of doubt.

So here I will sit, on my wall, darkness behind me, sunshine in front of me. I fear for the day when my knight gallops away because he can no longer wait for me to jump. The sunshine is beautiful and it does not have the creepy, ball-less villain creeping in every shadow. It has poisonous apples but it has beautifully wrapped treats of love and happiness as well. The darkness holds a past that ties me down and cripples me. Why is this choice so damn hard when is seems so amazingly obvious?

Here I go again.....

“Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.” 

~Nick Hornby~

I have been driven by fear and it seems to be consuming my life. I am afraid to be angry and get walked all over because of it. I cater how I live, I am afraid to let go and love. I shut down my blog because I was afraid my thoughts and feeling would get me in trouble. I have come to realize these are my thoughts and feelings, I own them and I am ok with them. Writing gave me salvation and peace as I navigated my way through a world that scared the shit out of me. I stopped writing and that world began to consume me. Today my blog will go back up, I will read every painful word as I try to figure out where the hell I am going and where the hell I have come from. Many found strength in my words, now I need to. I know there are those out there that will lead the ex to my words, that is their own pettiness to deal with. I suggest that they look at their lives and what they find pleasure in and if he and his new wife in fact decided to read, they themselves should question why they have such an invested interest in how I feel about life. I am strong, I am free and I am ready to take on the world again. 

Here they are, from day 1, still married... what a Journey!

Where did the time go? - 21/10/2012

“How did it get so late so soon?”

Dr. Seuss

I stopped blogging a year ago despite it being incredibly therapeutic for me. I ran, out of fear, and my blog disappeared to ensure no ammo would fall into the hands of my ex when he threatened to take me to court for more time with my kiddos. I have learned that people can control you by using what is most important to you and it can destroy you if you let it.

So much has happened that I am not sure what to release first. Should I talk about the one-year anniversary of throwing my husband out and my realization of how broken I was, or should I talk about the short but expensive court battle that took me to rock bottom or should I talk about the man that has been through it all with me? At this time I seem to be unable to find happiness as I try to avoid everything that that has hurt me in the past.

The year anniversary of our break up was a hard one for me. I had made it through every other holiday and anniversary without batting an eyelash and when March 27 came along, I crumbled. I think it may have been the realization that all this is real, that there is no turning back. The intensity of the pain and betrayal was immense and I have struggled every day since. It’s not that I want my ex back, not that I love him but fuck, he took so much away from our family, from me. I miss the dreams that I know will never be full filled. It is hard to start over with the memory of what might have been and begin to dream again with hope and trust.

This time I get it though. I am not masking the hurt, saying "I don't care". I am facing it, grieving it and I think, moving on. My ex told me the date of his impending marriage the other day and I held it together on the phone with him but lost it afterward, not because I want to be with him but because he has a new life while I have to try and fix the shambles he left for the boys and me. I called my mom and sobbed.

The news was not a surprise, I knew it was coming but hearing it made it final. I know this is another step in moving forward but others think it means I am still attached. I have learned you cannot just turn off what was there for so long, it will always impact your life. I went into my basement the other day and the scene from when I found out about the first affair flashed through my head as though it was happening again. I sat in the basement and cried. I have avoided that basement for a year and a half because of my ex and now I am ready to make it my space. I faced the fear, the hurt, the anger and now I am moving on. That is one of the most important lessons - Don't mask the pain, face it. Trust me –  it will be easier in the end.

Next is the battle for my boys. My ex threatened last September to take me to court and I freaked out but nothing ever came of it. He did it again in March and I contacted a lawyer who told me to ride it out before retaining service and again, nothing happened. In June my ex served me with a court date to review custody and it brought my world crashing down. I can say that the court portion of this journey was very expensive but much shorter than most. We ended up in mediation and ultimately resolved things out of the courtroom.

However it took its toll on me and I am not sure I have fully recovered from the emotional, fear-based reaction I had to this situation. I learned to hold my head high and no longer let my ex intimidate me (which is progress) but 3 months of living on the edge of a major breakdown is a very dark place.

I lost myself in that dark place, gained 30 pounds and am still trying to find myself and ditch the weight. That dark place is very lonely and I still see myself peering over the edge sometimes. Happiness evades me on most days. Not that I am unhappy, I am just not happy. I sometimes feel as though I am merely existing and that is not good enough.

There is so much more to this story. I need to and will write out the whole ordeal one day. For now I am glad it is over and am still trying to come to terms with the fact that I will not see my boys at Christmas in 2013. I know it is a long time away but that thought hurts my heart.

I have been with the same man for almost 15 months now. He is a good man with a big heart but happiness is evading me here too. I am so confused. I don’t know what to expect, how to fix myself and what not to put up with. I feel as though I am sacrificing what I truly want and deserve but others tell me that maybe I am the problem, that I expect too much. Trust is something that is very difficult for me but I can say with all honesty, he has not helped this situation and although minor, I struggle to recover from those small indiscretions. I want a castle in the sky, I want to be a priority in someone's life and I feel as though I am not.  I always thought love was enough - it is not.

Here I am a year later, starting a new journey to discover who I am, where I am going and what I want. I am facing most things head on and working through them instead of pretending they do not exist. I am not sure what direction my journey is going to take as I see several paths I could follow. For now I am working on my emotional and physical self and from there maybe I will begin to figure out, just exactly who I am.

Finding Myself again - 31/1/2012

I am on a path to find myself. I disappeared sometime in November and I am not sure where I went. I have been under a great deal of stress and I think I may be hiding as a way of avoiding the things that I am giving power too. I need to face those things before I am lost for good. I am too valuable to disappear. I am scared and fear feeds nothing positive. 

I know there are reasons people rely on things such as alcohol and drugs. It is to fill a void and to cope. I turn to food, food helps me hide. I busted my ass to lose 58 pounds and I have gained about 15 back since I lost myself. I have thought a lot about it and I think it comes down to being loved and protecting myself. I am beautiful when I am thin. It is not just a physical thing, I glow because I am happy and confident. I think I have started eating the wrong things in the wrong quantities to test the love of the man I have grown so attached to, or to make myself less desirable so it is easy to explain when he decides to no longer love me. I have hidden the real me behind layers of fat and disgust to protect myself from the pain of being hurt again. He loves me the way I am now and the way I was 15 pounds ago. The only thing that has changed is that I am now unhappy and disappointed as I have failed in something that is so very important to me. I am no longer glowing and my head is not held quite as high as it was before. I am disappearing inside myself and that is not fair to me, to my family and to the ones that I love and who love me. I am promising myself now that I am going to crawl out of this hiding space and rediscover the passion and drive that defines who I am, that makes me proud of who I am. 

I love my daddy and have always been a daddys girl. My dad has changed. It started years ago when my boy had a seizure and forever changed all of our lives. It broke my dad, my strong, strong dad. And now he is sick. He is stressed and I worry about him. I know the doctors have the medical stuff under control but my dad shakes now. It hurts to see his hands shaking when he is still. He is the rock and my rock is becoming fragile. He tears up and is more emotionally expressive. I don't mind this but it is not who my dad is. My dad is getting older and I am watching the stress, of the last year in particular, take it's toll. I want to stop time and freeze him so he does not disappear any further. I know this is what happens when we grow older but it does not mean I have to like it. I have realized I am doing what I always do when I am scared. I am running. I do not talk to my dad as much, do not spend as much time with him as I used to. If I distance myself then maybe it will not hurt. Who am I kidding? I am missing out on valuable time, whether it is a few years or 20 more years. I dont want to waste a minute more hiding because I am afraid of tomorrow. 

My job – it is wearing my down and I have hidden this behind much hate and anger. I love the women I work with. They have been crucial in my growth and discovery. I have learned so much from the families I work with but it is now demanding so much time. I have not tried to balance my time better, I mean really tried. I just slug through it and bitch about how unfair things are. Things have changed, I do not like change and I am going to need to move on but while I am here, I must embrace what I do and the people I am with. They are amazing and can feed so much energy and life into me. I do not want the negative energy, it is draining me. The real me is hiding behind the negativity, in protest maybe. I need to enjoy each day, roll with the punches and be thankful I have a good job and wonderful colleagues. I cannot be angry anymore. It is getting me nowhere except lost. 

My man, the one I love with all my heart. He has rescued me without even knowing it. We met at a time when we were both struggling. We still are, but we are good for each other. I worry about him, I worry about his health and the things he does. I cannot control this but I can let him know how I feel. I cannot micromanage but it does not mean I have no idea what is going on when we are not together, I worry. He is a good man and he too is hiding. I am scared that he is going to stop loving me as that seems to be the pattern of men in my life. I put up walls and make myself unhappy and unlovable. I try to find things wrong with a man who gives me so much so I can run, just so I do not get hurt. He is not perfect and neither am I but I do love him for exactly who he is. I am scared that I will ruin things, I am scared that things will not change for him and our future will come to a grinding halt. I am scared that this man who I see in my future will not make it there because I am hiding, yet again, so I do not get hurt. I do not know how many times I have tried to run and how many times he has caught me. That is more than any girl could ever ask for, I hope he never stops chasing me. I need him to know that I am not running from him because the real me only wants to run to him and stay safe in his arms, a place I am always at peace. I love him and must let go of the pain and hurt my ex filled me with so I can spend my energy loving him as he deserves, instead of running from him. I need to focus on the things he does for me instead of living with my head in the romantic, fairy tail clouds I have found myself in. He cannot live up to the fairy tale but he does amazing when it comes to reality, my reality anyways....

My baby boy is disappearing, they all are but 1 in particular. My oldest has a sad far away look all the time, My third is angry and my youngest is happy because he knows no different. He does not remember the hurt. My second is disappearing inside himself. He struggles at a school where they have not taken the time to teach him the way he needs to be taught. Teachers are defensive and want him in a box. The more they push, the more he hides. He hides the pain in his heart. He told me the other day he hopes my new man does not stop loving me like his daddy did. He wasn't being hurtful, although it did sting. He was saying in his own words that he didn't want someone he cares about to go away again. I need to embrace those moments and listen with my heart to all of my boys. They are hurting like their mom and since I am hiding, I do not always address this. We have so much love as a family, I need to teach them that love is all we need, we have each other. I need to teach them the lessons I myself am trying to learn. I don't want my babies to disappear – they are much too brilliant. 

I was going to write about the struggles I am having as the 1 year mark of kicking my ex out approaches. I know now after writing out my thoughts that what he did to me does not deserve to be spewed on the pages of my feelings. What he did now needs to be insignificant in my life. I am not fearful of him and I am not hiding from him. This is one battle I am proud to say I won with my head held high.

I guess it all comes down to fear. What is fear getting me? Nothing but a world of hurt. I am wasting valuable time and losing valuable people just so I can be safe. My word for the year was vulnerability. I have a really hard time with that but it has become more that hiding. I am lost. What good is life if all the things I love, I cannot enjoy because I have 10 foot walls all around me? It is time to tear them down, hunt myself down and fight for who I am and for those I love. I am far to valuable to disappear. 

Happily ever after - 23/11/11

... And they lived happily ever after.

Life is full of amazing lessons! Lessons that make you cry, lessons that make you laugh. Lessons that make you think twice, lessons that free you from the chains of yesterday. It is what we choose to do with these lessons that can ultimately decide whether we are happy or not. Are we going to let the chains of yesterday restrain us  from the joys of today?

I am learning that although I am very aware of what I want - happiness - I am living my life looking for safety and therefore compromising the very things and people that could contribute to the happiness that I want. I live in fear, as a result of my past. In turn, I run from the beautiful gifts of today. How long can I let my past fuel the destruction of what I want to build today? I have an internal conflict - the need to be loved vs the fear of loving. 

I have met a man who makes me laugh and even on a day when I have manifested some reason to be mad at him - because I am constantly trying to run away - he is able to evoke a smile. There is not one day since we met that I have not smiled. I am not saying it is all sunshine and lollipops in our relationship but just naturally he is able to get me to smile. This is something that I was told for years that I needed to do more of and now, amazingly,  it comes naturally. I have a man who listens to my fears and does not personalize them by thinking it is me criticizing him. This man will hold my pink backpack and even my purse if I really need him to. I have a man that I have fallen in love with - not head over heals, twitterpated like a giddy high school girl, but a deep love grown out of a friendship, something much deeper and real. He is a man I have a history with, not a romantic history, not even a close friend type history, but a history nonetheless and that has given us a foundation to build on, a strong foundation. He holds me when I cry, he apologizes if he unintentionally hurts me and he looks at me in a way that I have never been looked at before. It is amazing to feel loved just from the glance of another.

Why the hell would I run from that? This is a question I keep asking myself as I try every bit of patience my kind man has shown me. I have handed him my heart. It is very fragile and delicate as it had been broken so badly by the actions of another. I was determined to never give my heart to another but I am not so sure I had a choice in the matter. But here it is, in his hands and he has treated it with kindness and compassion, trying very hard to keep the pieces together. Fixing the damage of anothers careless actions is not his job but he has a caring spirit; he is gentle. As any human, he has slipped and the pieces have shifted but every bit as carefully as he holds it daily, he has put it back together the way it should be. My heart is becoming whole again. I have fallen in love. 

I cannot run anymore. My dad told me that ever since I was a little girl I was looking for that castle in the sky and I've told him that it is never too late to have a happily ever after. I told him that I want my fairy tale. He told me if I stop pushing, I may have found my prince. I figure this might be true since I have already kissed a toad.  So many people have told me that I have to enjoy today, that fear of tomorrow will drive away the happiness that I so badly want. I have a man that has my heart. It is time he gets the rest of me as I want to love 100%. I want him to know that he is worth it, because he is. He makes me feel like I am worth it too. I know it is not going to be easy, I know I will still have moments where I want to turn and run as fast as possible but I am going to enjoy each day and each moment I have. I allow myself to be happy in all other areas of my life and I realize it is now time to be happy in love because not all men are toads. I think I may just be somebody's princess, something I have always wanted.