Save Yourself

One day. Be patient. Keep preserving. You’ll get there. Stay positive. You’ll get everything you deserve. Keep pushing forward. Good things will come.

What a difference a year can make. On this day last year I laid in bed hurt, physically and emotionally. I did not know what to do or say. Soon I’d receive phone calls that forced me to say something. I let it out. All the secrets I had felt necessary to keep. Nearly 4 years of terrible, ugly things that I kept inside and very few people knew about. I sobbed, asked why me. Why do these terrible things keep happening to me?

Through the past 12 months there were forced glimmers of hope. Times I felt like things were turning a positive corner.

Hindsight is 20/20.

I’ve had to make some pretty hard, life changing decisions. Things I wanted to run from rather than deal with. I’m so glad I dealt with it all.

The hardest of all the decisions I had to make was the one to put myself first. My whole life I always did for others first and myself last. I went into a profession where I’d do the same. I was unselfish in every aspect of my life. I thought this was the best way and only way to live and be happy. At 27, almost 28, I learned this was so far from the truth. I was silly to think it was. After all, I preached “self-love” and nurturing yourself in order to nurture others. I often told the “airplane” story. The one where we have to put on our masks first when in an emergency situation and then help others, because if we don’t help ourselves eventually our own air runs out and what good are we to others if we are dead?

I found myself crashing, completely exhausted. They refer to it as Compassion Fatigue. I needed to start taking care of me, and doing it first. I had to start right away and go all in, no little by little. I did it. I did it all the way. It was not easy. I lost people along the way, both by my choice and theirs. I miss the memories, but I don’t miss the way these people drained me. I learned who gave me life, and those who sucked it out of me. And through this I also learned how to recognize who is who sooner rather than later.

I am happier, more full of life and love. I realized how thin I was spreading myself and how little love I was actually able to give because of it. I feared that loving myself would prevent me from giving love to others. This was so far from the truth. The more I love myself, the more love I have to give. I am selfish with my love. I love all who enter my life, whether they bring life or try to suck it out, I choose to love them anyway. One thing I learned not to do is give my love in the form of my time to those who are not doing the same for me. They say life is about give and take. I can see how that can be, but I choose to look at life differently. It’s about give and give. I give life to you and you give the same to me.

Love and be loved. Share a smile with someone. Remain positive, despite the negativity that may surround you. Rise above when someone tries to bring you down. Forgive those who hurt you, but don’t forget how they made you feel. Take everything as a lesson, learn from it, and put it into practice. Wake up each day with the idea that it is a new opportunity to be better and do better. And above all else, love yourself madly, fiercely and compassionately.

 

-SM

My Mind

My mind, it knows no boundaries as it rests and dreams of you. 
It’s not just in the late night hours that my mind finds its way back to you. 
It wakes up in the early morning hours, too, reaching out for you. 
It travels throughout the day, searching for your sweet smell. 
It often wanders to places deep within itself. 
Thinking of your smile, your hair, your lips, the creases in your skin. 
My mind, it wonders, does your mind think of it?

The Walls.

The following is a poem I wrote at a time when the grief of losing my father was almost unbearable. I was away at college and often received phone calls from my oldest sister about things that were going on at home. Though I’m the 2nd youngest of 10, I was relied on as if I were the oldest, or had all the answers, even at 19 years old. I witnessed my family grow further and further apart. My relationship with my mom was pretty much nonexistent and getting all my siblings together was a headache. We were all grieving separately and in our own ways. I had emailed and shared this with my entire family, including aunts, uncles and cousins who lived out of state. My hope of sharing it at the time with everyone was to get them to wake up and see we are not heading in the right direction. It didn’t happen right away but we eventually found our way back to each other. I have no idea if this poem impacted that at all. 

“The Walls”
2 years, 8 months, 24 days, 29 minutes
“Tick Tock,” goes the clock.
They walls don’t move,
But yet, they rock.
How do we stop it?
How did it start?
A family together, falling apart.
Now it’s clear.
We sit in fear.
I try to move forward.
Once strong, now a coward.
The clock keeps moving.
But we sit still.
They say free time is time to kill.
But what is free about death?
No time is free, no time will rest.
You either move with it, or get lost in it.
But no matter, you cannot forget it.
Piece by piece, tick by tick
The walls crumble brick by brick.
We need some spackle, or some clay,
Or maybe just one more day.
It hides within us, waiting to emerge.
Dig deep, find the urge.
Step up, speak out!
Come now! Relieve this doubt.
Stand together more now than ever.
Not one by one, but side by side.
Before the ceiling and floor collide.

one day at a time

We’ve all heard it. And have even rehearsed it to ourselves over and over again. 

One day at a time. You just have to take things one day at a time, you will be okay, one day at a time. 

I’ve heard this a lot over the last few months as I go through my divorce. I’ve heard it so often from so many caring and good-intentioned people that it has made me think (and also become annoyed). 

Do we really have any other choice? What is the alternative to “taking things day by day”? Taking it on every other day? I don’t think life works like that. Sure, eventually it won’t be a daily struggle. Eventually we won’t struggle with it at all (hopefully, right!). Until then it’s either taking it head on every day, day by day, or just giving up all together. 

So what am I learning? I wish I had the answers. All I know is you have to do it. You have to take it on. You have to live it, breathe it and yell it out. You have to acknowledge that it’s there and that you are struggling. Rejoice in the days that it doesn’t feel so bad and get mad at the days when it doesn’t. It will be an up and down battle. Just ride out the waves. 

I also have come to realize that there is no time limit on when you’ll get through it. So, my advice to anyone having to “take it day by day” is to throw that expectation out the window! After all, expectation is the root of all evil (and heartbreak). My heart has been broken by someone, I won’t continue to break my own heart. It’s hard not to feel that aching “when will this just be over?!” feeling. Believe me, after 3 months of being separated from my ex and her already moved in with someone else, I have thought and felt this often! 

I’ve also thought, “Why me?!” Why can’t I just be more like her and just move on? Well, I’m not her and, thankfully, I’ll never be her. Now, I won’t sit here and bash my ex, because I loved her deeply and will care about her always. What I will explain to you is this: there are two different types of people in this world. There are people who make things look “easy” as they can quickly move on, seeming unaffected by things. These people oftentimes are even able to express themselves eloquently quoting some inspirational quote about letting go and moving on after heartbreak. Great, you can read! Sorry, I shouldn’t get so snarky. I can tell you, though, these people are just really good at putting on a front like they have moved on when they actually have yet to truly confront, feel and deal with anything. Not to say they never feel pain, rather they feel it and run from it. They become so good at it, too. It makes me jealous at times. Then I remember the other type of people in this world. People like you and I. People that feel deeply and madly. People that have been hurt, but continue to open themselves up, because to them there’s no other way to truly love and live life. It hurts and cuts deep, but it also allows us to feel happiness greater. You see, when you allow yourself to truly feel everything that happens in your life, you are able to grow emotionally. While we may wish we didn’t feel negative emotions, it’s those emotions that help us to recognize and appreciate the positive emotions. 

When our hearts break we feel empty. There’s now this void that seems impossible to be filled. And the more we hurt the bigger the hole. A hole that will be filled again, eventually, and only filled by happiness, because happiness is related to the feeling of wholeness. You see that hole from a broken heart may feel large, but imagine just how much happiness is going to fill it! It may sound cliché, but I have to believe it’s true. That’s just the type of person I am. I have seen and felt too much pain throughout my life to believe that “happily ever after” doesn’t exist. 

I may not be there, yet. I don’t know when I will get there, but I will get there. One day at a time, day by day.

Opening Up

As a child we only know what we know through what we see and what we’re told. So how was I supposed to know what was happening to me and those around me was not okay or “appropriate”? Soon I’d figure it out, whether it was through the icky feeling I felt when being told to “keep it secret” or my mom’s reaction when it all came out. Later in life I’d figure out just how much my childhood would affect me and the relationships I’d have with people; family and friends included. I always think of the saying, “Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets could hurt someone.” To this day I feel the need to keep some things secret, especially to my mother, though I’m certain she knows all. It is not fun and it continues to hurt. For me, I’d rather hurt than hurt someone else by exposing the secrets.

One secret I kept from my family and just about everyone else in my life, besides my now ex-wife, was my battle with depression and just how deep it was. Some others knew, but not quite the extent of it. This past December, I exposed myself. I sat with my mother, two of my sisters and one niece in a room as I told them I have been battling depression my whole life and I have coped by taking pills in hopes of either not waking up again or just knocking me out long enough to forget the way I felt. I’ve expressed how the numerous failed attempts have made me think of other ways of going about it, but coward out after the thought of it. This had been happening since I was 9 years old. Still to this day I have no idea how I knew at 9 years old that taking a large amount of pills (ibuprofen was the choice at the time) could kill me. I don’t remember what triggered that first attempt, but I remember it completely. I believe it was just feeling alone and unwanted amidst a large number of people. I’d continue to feel this way for much of my life. I’d mostly blame my mother for this feeling of being unwanted because I didn’t feel she was around enough or showed me enough affection. I used to write her letters about how I felt and place them on her pillow. I never received a response from her and this only justified the way I felt. Now, through many trials and tribulations, I have a much more open and honest relationship with my mom. We talk often and she’ll even say “I love ya” to me from time to time. This doesn’t erase all the pain I felt as a child, but it helps ease the resentment I had towards her for many years. I’ve also learned things about my mother that has helped me gain understanding of why she is the way she is and why she deals with or doesn’t deal with certain things the way she does.

Understanding is everything when it comes to growing in relationships.

I’d continue through the years feeling immensely alone, though I was constantly surrounded by people and was generally well-liked. I am still figuring out why I feel this way. Could it be I’ve just grown used to my solidarity? Or is it my mistrust of people’s true intentions? Could be both or neither. Maybe I’m just comfortable in this state of feeling alone, because allowing someone in that may leave is a much worse feeling. There’s so many things in my life that could attribute to this.

Through my sharing of my story we will piece it all together and learn together that our life is not defined by a single moment or experience, but rather a culmination of everything that has ever and will ever happen to us.

 

-SM