A Day to Feel

The last few days I had been playing word games in my head trying to write poems and in my book projects. I’ve cried more in the last few days that I have in three months. I think it is time to acknowledge what is really going on so I can move on. If these grey clouds aren’t going to move... then I need to. Under this dark cloud is a depressive state of sadness, grief and loss of people that are gone or have repositioned in my life In the last few years Ive acknowledged, felt and experienced enough to last me for another six years… my opinion. However, everything is what it is. Ultimately, I am the co-pilot of this vehicle just as the journey is co- written. In order to get what I want in this life, achieve my goals, and get to where I am headed, I need to acknowledge and share what is behind me. The motivational factors that is not just a story, but my life. I need to give myself permission to feel the changes, sadness, grief and loss and the best way I know to process through it is to write it out from the beginning. To go back to the very first domino that has brought me to where I am today. ******************* ************* About four years ago, I had lost almost 200 hundred pounds. There was no surgery, no pills, and no drugs. I worked at it hardcore, changing my eating habits, traded in favorite foods, became obsessed with nutrition, healthy holistic life style and exercise. I was working, changing and molding myself into the person I wanted and needed to be for myself. As wonderful as I was doing and feeling I now know there were still some emotional fractures I did not even realize I had. I still had about 50 pounds left to lose when I fell off my path and into someone else’s. My life and personal world was in a whirlwind of confusion when I met him. I was still fairly new to my new found self. I was twisted with emotions, feelings, knowledge and experiences that I had not even gotten a full grip on. My growth and personal changes had caused a shift in relationships, friendships, career desires and life plans. Out of nowhere in walks this man full of passion, intrigue and mystery. How easy it was to shift my focus for a few just to enjoy him, us together and escape my confusions. Before I knew what was happening or could catch my breath I tripped and fell hard. Once I was down, I couldn’t figure out how to pull myself back up out of the dizziness, nothing made sense. Everyday I spent trying to gain focus was a day he gave me reasons to stay and believe in something else. Within nine months of our relationship, my whole life had changed once again. These changes did not consist of individual growth or even maintaining what I had achieved before "us". They consisted of nurturing him, his dreams, wants and needs, trying to heal what was broken within him and facing his demons head on. There was no room for me as an individual, what I believed, what mattered, what I wanted or needed. It is now my belief that When someone tells you that you complete them.... run. If you complete them it’s because they are broken and need pieces of you that should not be given away or compromised. Those pieces of yourself that you give to heal someone else, to "complete" them will probably leave you in a tailspin someday. I gave away the very deepest parts of my being to someone else. Not JUST to someone else, but to someone who had no real comprehension or interest of who and what I really was as an individual. To someone who abused the love, trust and loyalty given to him... as well as the spiritual, mental/ emotional and physical human being I was. I say was because the person I was when we met changed as needed to cope and survive myself, as well as him and the different levels of hell I felt and experienced. I am no longer that Woman that gave myself away. Those three years with him had a lot of darkness but in hidden corners was a light. In that light I found who and what I was prior to meeting him, it is where I grew when he was not looking, ultimately it is what got me here today. That "tailspin" I previously mentioned started about a year ago. It was when I realized that Living and breathing for him wasn’t going to cut it for me anymore. However, I didn’t even understand who I was or how I had gotten to that point in my life. My heart, my mind, my soul, and my body I had given away to him little by little to "prove" my loyalty and love. I had no one in a town 1200 miles away from home. Most everyone had given up on me, given up on the chance that I would ever leave him for good before he actually did follow through with making me “disappear”. I had no real connections and hardly any communication with anyone. It was through writing I found that light in the darkness and where I started piecing me back together again. It was where I was able to recollect my strength, courage and face my fears. It is where I had to come to terms with myself and just why and how I ended up in the position I was in, what I needed to do to get out alive and prevent it from ever happening again. Today I know and stand firm believing that no one can ever complete anyone else. Our individuality, self respect, self worth, dignity, integrity are just the beginning of what’s to NEVER be sold, traded, sacrificed or given away to anyone for anything. It has been four months sense I arrived back home. In these four months, I have made a book of my writings from the last three years and climbing the staircase to get it published. I have started two new books and working on developing Hopes Hand (my project for women and children starting over after surviving domestic violence). I have had to really tune in to heal what was fractured before I met him, rebuild what was damaged in the last three years with him, collect from the lessons learned and focus on utilizing them. I am struggling day to day with losing the 70 pounds I gained back during my time with him but I have no excuses because I know what I am capable of. As of four days ago I have lost 25 pounds so far. These holidays have been a little rough to say the least. Everything has changed in the hometown and it feels like nothing is the same. That comfort zone I was hoping for really doesn’t exist anymore.. While I was away, other people changed as well as dynamics. The biggest change and loss was the passing of my mother and grandmother while I was gone. Some days I feel very alone without them or their female wisdom but I try very hard to notice, feel and collect from their presence around me. This is Christmas night and I had spent the last two days crying until earlier today when I realized what I needed to do that I have not been doing. I have been focussed on my mental/emotional/ph ysical health and building myself back up. Working on books, projects, and exercising. What I have not done is put any time into healing my spirit. It took a real beating and fought back hard. Hard enough to survive the most dangerous darkness I’ve ever experienced or felt in my life. I used to practice mediation and know first hand the benefits of it. I was just beginning to learn yoga at that time of meeting him. I think tomorrow morning is a good time to start healing and reconnecting with who and what saved my life.