I started writing about my journey here as a leap of faith but also as a result of one I took. The leap of faith I took in love in January did not end how I had hoped it would at the time. And in all honesty I cried and was confused during that month. I vacillated between feeling proud of myself for having the courage to do what my heart said to said to do and feeling like I had failed again in love because it wasn't returned to me.
The last time I was in a relationship I was engaged in 2008. The relationship was abusive on many levels and it took me a while to heal. I briefly got back together with him for about 6 months and then it took me two more years to decide to try with anyone else. When I did start talking to a couple of men and things got to the point where I would have had to make the choice to emotionally open up, I froze. I wasn't ready to open that door. I was still sooooo afraid to trust anyone with my heart again. So I walked away. I spent the time after not dating, not even remotely interested in opening up. For one thing, I was scared. For another, I hadn't really healed and I didn't think it would be fair to let someone allow me into their life knowing I couldn't give them what they needed. And honestly I was like 99% good with not dating, not having sex, not engaging. I was still trying to figure out how to let go of the past.
In August of 2017 I was losing weight, I had decided I was done hiding at least who I was on some level. Then one day I had a conversation with my oldest daughter, 19 at the time. And she asked me why it seemed like I just gave up and stopped trying... I thought about that a lot. I thought about how at age five she had saved my life by calling 911 and what I was doing for her in return was showing her what getting hurt and giving up looked like. To say I was not "good" with that is an understatement. I wasn't about to continue to set that kind of an example. So I placed a woman looking for a man ad online and was upfront about who I am and what I wanted. I didn't expect much of a response but it was a step I chose to take because I was not going to hurt my child like that. So what resulted was meeting a man who I fell in love with over the next four months. And yes, it was unrequited love, he had been dating someone else for awhile and hadn't told me about it. I was heartbroken. His being honest would have saved me and probably him a lot of unnecessary drama but it is what it is.The point was the leap of faith.
I had lived in my mind for so many years trying to deconstruct the past or run from it. I went in mental circles and lived in either mental turmoil or a state of trying to deflect/avoid how I was feeling. And at no point in the now ten years of not being involved while I was doing that did it get me anywhere. It was not until I decided to get out of my head and take baby steps, start engaging, and take leaps of faith that I finally did begin to extricate myself from the pain I had been in. The whole time I was hiding and holding back who I was from the world all I was doing was making myself stuck in the past and my own pain.
And like I said before, after the leap of faith in January I was more happy I had the courage to do what I had, to speak from my heart and hope, than I was wallowing in being disappointed. Today I realized, life isn't lived in the mind, it isn't lived in daydreams or stories we tell ourselves about "if only". It is lived IN leaps of faith, in daring to be foolish, or nieve. It is lived in overzealous acts of hope. Hope has sustained me in the places where it was the only light left. That I might hope for a better future, to no longer feel afraid, or have my pain. That I might bring in the light to a world that has suffered as I have, if even in only a small way. i hoped liked my life depended on it, in some ways it did.
But hope it is not just mental gymnastics done to pacify our inner darkness or those voices in our mind that say things are shit and can't get better. Hope is action, it is the mind/the heart/and acts taken in a symphony; just as love its self is all three.
We can not know how a thing will turn out, how a leap of faith, how a hope, or how love will play out in this world of ours. But I would have liked to know not just that I succeeded but that I tried! I want to be steadfast in the knowledge I did not go out with a whisper because I have been hurt. I raged "against the dying of the light!"
The last time I was in a relationship I was engaged in 2008. The relationship was abusive on many levels and it took me a while to heal. I briefly got back together with him for about 6 months and then it took me two more years to decide to try with anyone else. When I did start talking to a couple of men and things got to the point where I would have had to make the choice to emotionally open up, I froze. I wasn't ready to open that door. I was still sooooo afraid to trust anyone with my heart again. So I walked away. I spent the time after not dating, not even remotely interested in opening up. For one thing, I was scared. For another, I hadn't really healed and I didn't think it would be fair to let someone allow me into their life knowing I couldn't give them what they needed. And honestly I was like 99% good with not dating, not having sex, not engaging. I was still trying to figure out how to let go of the past.
In August of 2017 I was losing weight, I had decided I was done hiding at least who I was on some level. Then one day I had a conversation with my oldest daughter, 19 at the time. And she asked me why it seemed like I just gave up and stopped trying... I thought about that a lot. I thought about how at age five she had saved my life by calling 911 and what I was doing for her in return was showing her what getting hurt and giving up looked like. To say I was not "good" with that is an understatement. I wasn't about to continue to set that kind of an example. So I placed a woman looking for a man ad online and was upfront about who I am and what I wanted. I didn't expect much of a response but it was a step I chose to take because I was not going to hurt my child like that. So what resulted was meeting a man who I fell in love with over the next four months. And yes, it was unrequited love, he had been dating someone else for awhile and hadn't told me about it. I was heartbroken. His being honest would have saved me and probably him a lot of unnecessary drama but it is what it is.The point was the leap of faith.
I had lived in my mind for so many years trying to deconstruct the past or run from it. I went in mental circles and lived in either mental turmoil or a state of trying to deflect/avoid how I was feeling. And at no point in the now ten years of not being involved while I was doing that did it get me anywhere. It was not until I decided to get out of my head and take baby steps, start engaging, and take leaps of faith that I finally did begin to extricate myself from the pain I had been in. The whole time I was hiding and holding back who I was from the world all I was doing was making myself stuck in the past and my own pain.
And like I said before, after the leap of faith in January I was more happy I had the courage to do what I had, to speak from my heart and hope, than I was wallowing in being disappointed. Today I realized, life isn't lived in the mind, it isn't lived in daydreams or stories we tell ourselves about "if only". It is lived IN leaps of faith, in daring to be foolish, or nieve. It is lived in overzealous acts of hope. Hope has sustained me in the places where it was the only light left. That I might hope for a better future, to no longer feel afraid, or have my pain. That I might bring in the light to a world that has suffered as I have, if even in only a small way. i hoped liked my life depended on it, in some ways it did.
But hope it is not just mental gymnastics done to pacify our inner darkness or those voices in our mind that say things are shit and can't get better. Hope is action, it is the mind/the heart/and acts taken in a symphony; just as love its self is all three.
We can not know how a thing will turn out, how a leap of faith, how a hope, or how love will play out in this world of ours. But I would have liked to know not just that I succeeded but that I tried! I want to be steadfast in the knowledge I did not go out with a whisper because I have been hurt. I raged "against the dying of the light!"
No comments:
Post a Comment