Finding Comfort In Being

One of my longest setbacks had to do with my starting to write again. After my mother passed away, all creative sources in me welled up and died along with her. I did the same routine day in and day out (hating it all the while), but that’s all I could do because I felt so lost. In time, I became used to this, hating my life but to comfortable in it to stop it. I figured I would wake up one day and my life would be in alignment and things would be okay all I had to do was sit there and wait.

So, I did. I gained weight, became more angry and miserable in my day to day living. I decided that I need to take my life back but how? How do I reclaim something that has evaded me for so long, what if I couldn't, what if I was too old (I'm 25)? 

Yea, right. Excuses, excuses...I really should make that my middle name.

That's when I decided to take my life back and soon, I could feel my creativity energy soaring back. I could write again not at the valor that I used too but I’m working on it. Dancing felt seamless, my body connecting more to the movement and the music and less self conscious, everything seemed new and fresh again. I realized then how not having creativity in my life changed me, I was stunting my growth and slowly draining all the color from my life. When I forgave myself and allowed myself to be happy, I felt free and open to all my blocks and they finally began to crumble and I could breathe again.

Which is when I entered my catch 22. 

With the walls coming down, though came all the pent up emotions surrounding my mother’s death. Stuff that I didn’t even know existed; my mind was cluttered with thoughts of her, of guilt and anger. I felt them so strongly and at first it was disarming because I thought I handled so much of this. 

Yesterday, I was triggered at work. My bosses' wife is battling cancer and she is being taken off a brand of chemotherapy because she isn't responding the way they all hoped. She is also a second mother to me. So, she came downstairs to work on something and I asked her how she was doing and she turned to me and started to cry. "I'm just sick of tired of being sick and tired," she said.

She reminded me so much of my mother then. I could feel it all rushing back, that helpless feeling. Of wanting to help but knowing that I can't, not the way that I want too. So I end up crying because all these feelings well up inside me and I can't bottle them up, anymore.

Yet, initially, I wanted to stuff all those feelings back down and go back to what was comfortable and familiar but I knew better. Hiding from it won't help matters any.

I have to handle this now or else I’ll keep drowning from the inside out. I have to learn to sit in my pain long enough to handle it and not be ashamed of my vulnerability. That being vulnerable isn't a sign of weakness but the opposite. That, just being is really okay, being present in this feeling and not feeling that I have to hide it anymore.

That I can find comfort in being still.

In being myself, finally.

And that I feel strong enough to share it all with you.

Thank You.

Accountability

Today, I realized that you have to always move forward, always keep fighting for what you love because you only live once this lifetime. This journal will be the entrance into my inner most thoughts. My dreams, passions and desires will be spilled out for all to see in the hopes that someone out there, someone who is like me, will take that first step. The first one is always the scariest, standing on that ledge leaving behind what you know and moving forward towards something unfamiliar but it's soothing at the same time. If by reading this, you emerge with the courage to take that step that will be all that I need. Along, the way, you'll encounter some swearing, frustration, temporary setbacks but I want people to see my journey because I believe people want to sugar coat things and not OWN their issues and baggage. I am 25 years old; I believe it's time to be fully aware of all my actions the good, bad, ugly and shameless. So this is my being accountable to all of you (or just the one viewer, so "heeeey" to you.) but here, I will be honest always. The things you want in life involve huge risk and nothing will ever be handed to you, ever.

I would be lying if I didn't say I was scared but having being complacent as my only other option, I have no other choice. I'm the product of a dysfunctional nuclear core (who isn't, these days), dishonesty, verbal and mental abuse ran rampant in our households. Growing up, I never had strong, confident female figures and that has shaped the woman that I am today. Was my mother horrible? No, she was an excellent parent but she was easily hurt, which turned her into someone very cold and spiteful. She could hold a grudge something fierce. Still, even with all of that she was the smartest woman I have come across but I see that she was a product of her environment, just like I am one of mine. And this is not about blaming or pointing fingers, deflecting attention away from the real issue which is I. In order to move forward, you have to make peace with your past or else you will be doomed to repeat it.

I'm tired of repeating, of making excuses just to feel better. At least now, when I fall I will do it honestly.