Better than Bitter
Many people are afraid of getting involved again after
the collapse of a relationship. Some people would call
them embittered, but beneath bitterness is fear. We have been hurt. We are
afraid of being hurt again so we stop trusting men, or women.
I don't want to be one of those persons. This is
not to say that I don't have my own fears. I do. Sometimes my fears are so huge
they feel as if they will engulf me. But I'm willing to sit quietly in the
center of those fears until they become something else, even if I chicken out
the first hundred times and have to keep coming back to them.
I know enough to look at the world and see
that it is made up both of people who are incredibly generous and open-hearted,
as well as those who, in their woundedness, have chosen to turn their pain
outward upon others. And these two types of people are not divided up
by gender lines. And to recognize them you don't look at their faces or listen
to their words, but look at their actions and listen with your heart.
I could tell stories from my relationships that
would illustrate this, but I won't. I must have been okay with it on some
level, because I stayed. I tried to make it
work and sometimes I believed it could and sometimes I wasn't sure.
So, where does that leave me? Have I been
betrayed? Truly, madly, deeply. In ways I can't quite wrap my mind around. Does
it hurt? Fuck yes. It hurts so much I haven't even allowed myself to feel it
all yet. I can't feel the full impact of the pain. I have to take it in doses.
But I'm still full of hope. I may not be as
young as most, but I'm young enough and I still want to get it right. The
good news is I'm no longer afraid to be myself, to speak my truth, to use my
voice, to enforce my boundaries and, most importantly, to be vulnerable.
Perhaps that is the gift of getting it wrong.
Maybe that's what we're all here for. To hold a mirror up to
each other. If there is anything I could wish to accomplish with my writing it
would be that, to hold a mirror up to each of you that reflected back to you
your greatness.
When I say it was weighing me down I could
actually feel it. It felt like all this stuff was a web of dark energy that sat
over me. I hated it. I was sick of it. Today something rose up in me and
just said no. I said it out loud: "NO!" I said, "I want to be
free," and I felt it. I felt it all the way through to my core. I started
crying because when I said it out loud I saw myself, in that mirror, and I knew
that I mattered and my life was worth more than this, so much more. It felt
powerful, like a rush of energy going through me, so I just kept talking and
naming everything that I wanted in my life: love, joy, safety, freedom. It was
liberating. In that moment, I felt like I could reach out and touch
God. I felt something like a fire rising within me and I smiled and cried
at the same time.
In : All About Life