Full and Unfinished

I have drafts of unwritten posts. I start one, lose interest, walk away. Then another, and another. And I can’t figure out why I am having such a block in emoting via the written word, other than the fact that so much has changed for me since I started this blog. So much has changed about how I see myself and the reasons I am writing.

Something interesting has been happening since the rug got pulled out from under me with access to affordable therapy. I started asking myself how I’m going to press forward without that little safety net. And subconsciously, my mind turned from victim – all these things I have done and seen that are hurting me – back to survivor. All these ways I have always persevered.

So what do I want this next chapter to look like? I want it to look like peace. Real peace. My head held high. Never shrinking or ducking. And I want it to be authentic, raw, and as real and messy as it needs to be. Because there’s a lot of fake around here lately. There’s a lot of pretense and image and smoke and mirrors perfectly procured for the masses to digest smoothly, easily. The next chapter looks like me doing whatever the hell I want and making zero excuses or apologies. And being really real with myself about what I really want, at every moment, present and in charge of myself to such an extent that when people look at me they instantly feel the need to also be authentic, or I scare them to such an extent that the fakers don’t waste my time.

Because I was thinking about how we lie to ourselves. And I don’t want to lie to myself. The last man I dated was fantastic at lying to himself.

I saw what a lifetime of pretending not to care can do to a man. I saw what a lifetime of bottling emotions and holding everything in, never letting anyone close, did to his relationships. And I realized how many mediocre men I was allowing access to my energy without asking anything in return. And how, in their mediocrity they had a brief, shining moment to be loved by someone with a genuine heart and they couldn’t see how priceless that was. And how hilarious it is that I ever thought there was a possibility that I was somehow unlovable, unwanted, easy to discard. Pigs will turn away from the finest silk to roll in shit. And if you ever doubt yourself because someone walked away, remind yourself of that.

And somewhere while I was busy thinking about all of this, I realized I never needed him in the first place. That every time my life leveled up, it was by my hands alone. Even while I was married. We had a roof over our heads because one of us stayed employed, climbed the ladder, earned the raises while one of us sunk any spare penny we had into cans of beer and bottles of whiskey. One of us held down a job and actually excelled at it while the other struggled to get along with anyone in authority.

And somewhere along the path of reconciling who I had to become to walk my dad to the end of his life, I became the things I loved most about him. Caring. Supportive. Opinionated. Funny. Strong. Willing to drop everything to help the people I love. And in becoming this kind of woman, I realized that is who I have always been. Capable, intelligent, tenacious, relentless.

And somewhere in the dark nights I’ve spent alone over the last 6 months, the tears I cried into my pillow turned into tiny little diamonds, twinkling in my heart, lighting up my soul, igniting who it is I was always meant to be. That in the grief and the heartache and the wish that the sun would never rise again, I found so many reasons to live. I found so many ways to be brilliant. Like opening the curtains on a clear winter night with the stars sparkling cheerfully in the sky.

And somehow, in spite of every rock and hard place I’ve ever been in, I managed to crush the pain into a twinkling galaxy of diamonds.

No, I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who I am and where I’ll stand when it happens.