Before we get started, I feel like I need to make it abundantly clear that this is a reflection, not a resolution.
There are 3 days left in this decade. And what a decade it has been.
I have lived in my house for 11 years as of January. Back then, I was so young. I didn't think I was at the time. Chin deep in a bad relationship that continued on badly for another 7 years. At a job that I didn't love. My kids loved each other and were stuck together like glue. Now, I'm in an amazing relationship; albeit brand spanking new, but still working towards forever. I love my job. My kids barely interact with each other which is to be expected. I have a lot of barely scabbed over wounds that I'm still tending to. Still tending to the rubble that has been the past 38 years of my time on this big blue marble.
Looking over the past ten years, one thing has been certain. I have not lived. I have floated through. As a mom, I have always been a fan of boundaries. With everyone but myself. There hasn't been a "Don't drink that. Don't lay around doing nothing. Don't do the random dumb thing. It's not fine that you have spend 3 days in Zombie-mode and haven't slept in a week." I have spent every day just doing the bare minimum to get through it relatively unscathed. I have not always been successful at that. Hell, while I'm being honest, I've spent the better part of ten years of my life a fucking train-wreck that hit a dumpster fire during a tornado. And there is only one thing that I can do to fix it from here on out:
Live intentionally. For real this time.
It's all well and good to make a list of all the crap that will be different from here on out. Stop letting the mail and the laundry and the bills pile up. Never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. Make the bed every morning. Blah, blah, frickin blah.
I just need to make every day count. Never go to bed feeling like that day meant nothing. That is my plan. The only plan.
There comes a time where even the strongest person breaks. And it usually comes when they have had a little taste of what it's like to be taken care of for once. I couldn't pull myself out of bed because my entire being was so heavy. I have been strong long enough. I got tired of feeling like every time I make a wall four feet high something comes along to knock it down over and over again and I am tired of picking up the pieces, alone. The world feels like it's one big spinster aunt who never got married so she has to make everyone else's life miserable by congratulating you on your milestones and then simultaneously pointing out everything that you've done wrong in your life to neutralize it. Even I needed a break. Even the bravest and most resilient one got tired of taking care of everyone else. Yes, even I get tired of the independent life I have lived. Of all the bills I have to pay. Of the work that I have to do to make everything come together because without every ounce of energy spent on my part it would all fall apart. Other people have always expected me to always be okay and never took the time to think that I may have problems that I need help solving. No, this isn't about me not recognizing the people who are there on a regular basis. If you understand what I mean by that, then you aren't a part of the problem.
I've said it before: MY BIG GIRL PANTIES ARE PERMANENTLY WELDED ON. I CANNOT PULL THEM UP ANY HIGHER.
I've always thought that calling someone my partner would be a fairy tale to me. Love lived in a magical land, far far away. Even the strongest person on the planet needs love and affection; and man does it feel good to have that for real. Something that isn't a part of my life that's just being used to fill my emptiness. Sometimes, I don't want to be the hero. It's nice to be the one who's been rescued. Resuscitated. A three page love letter in a world full of relationship status updates.
You see, "finding yourself" is not really how it works. You aren't a ten dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. "Finding yourself" is actually returning to yourself. And unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.
I remembered something in church today. You read that right. I go to church now. Sam plays piano every Sunday and I actually enjoy it - though I still don't feel differently about religion than I did before. Today in bible study, they were talking about how everything is tied together with the plan that God has for you. I don't exactly believe that, but the more that I have been excavating my childhood and what has made me, I realized that I was always as much of a gnarled up ball of string as I am now. I was born programmed this way. One time, while worrying about something that I couldn't control, my grandmother took me aside and said "You're going to have a better time trying to push a cow sideways." It's one of my earliest memories if that's any indication.
And there I was sitting there, listening to the conversation both in my head and in the group of people in front of me and it dawned on me: Accept what is.
With the exception of a few people, the only real experience that I've had with love is learning what it isn't. I have always pushed everyone away because I knew any amount of joy that I felt was about to be matched with the same amount of agony when they left, and I always knew it was coming. And it always came. When Sam went took the trash to the town dump for the first time I was like a baptized cat. He took the damn trash out and I panicked thinking that because I was sitting back and letting him do it that he was never going to come back when he told me that he was leaving.
But he didn't leave. And I'm done leaving myself.
I need to slow down and recharge my spiritual batteries. I have learned to be vulnerable on the fly because I've never been able to stop. Just. Stop. I'm still learning how to ask for what I deserve without it sounding like an apology. If I allow my past to consume me, I am never going to have anything good because, even though it might be right in front of me, I'm too busy worrying that it's going to end that I'm never going to enjoy it.
Here's to living with intention for another 38 years on this big blue marble. For real this time.
