The One That Almost (Always) Got Away

This story is inspired by real events.. (Duh!)

I believe in timing. Mostly because I have seen it's effect in my life in lots of ways. I believe there is such a thing as the right thing at the wrong time, the wrong thing at the right time, the right thing at the right time and the wrong thing at the wrong time. You catch my drift.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all.

Time and Chance.

I have this one particular person in my life whom time and chance seem to be our worst enemies. And an eventful weekend inspired this post.

I don't believe in love at first sight, but if I did, it would probably look a lot like what happened with us. He's been in my life a loooong time. Long before even he who came and stayed 4 years and left. I've known him about seven years now. But timing. Timing refused.

This guy is honestly one of my best friends, granted our friendship has been on and off through the years because of this timing thing. I could go without speaking to him for two years, and when we meet it will just pick up where it left off. Like an entire book could be written about our story, seriously. But timing.

There always seems to be something in the way. Either I'm with someone, or he's with someone, or we loose touch (most often than not because other people are involved). The last time we lost touch was when my previous relationship got pretty serious and more so when I got engaged. Then it ended and I was to involved with fixing myself to reach out. Then somehow, someway, our paths crossed again. And I thought, maybe, just maybe, this time the stars have aligned in our favor. Or not. It doesn't help that we look, and feel, right together. Like if we were to be in a relationship, it would probably be to get engaged and get married. He's not the kind of person that I would need to figure out if I can spend a life with, I already know. Same applies on his end. I mean, if we haven't figured that out over the past 7/8 years, ummmm....

But I am at a point in my life where I am completely averse to drama. I can not deal with it anymore, because life should not have to be that complicated. Yet sometimes it just is. My friend was just telling me that my life is like a soap opera - like the things that happen to me only happen to people in movies and series... And it doesn't feel that way sometimes. Either that or I make really poor decisions. But hey, it makes for entertaining reading :-D

Timing.

It's easy to underestimate how important a good thing at the right time is. It could make the difference between life and death. I know about 3 couples who never worked out, not because they were't right for each other, but because they weren't right for each other right now. It's crazy, I remember on of the ladies telling me how maybe if they'd waited another two years, it would have worked. One of those couples re-connected after about 4 years and are doing great. Timing.

But the events surrounding this particular person just got me thinking - we may think we would be great together, but is the constant bad timing the universe or God's way of telling us otherwise?

It's just frustrating. There's no deep lesson here... just me ranting :-)

A Love Song For No One

Today is my birthday.

25.

I had hoped that life would be a little different from what it is now, but you know.. things don't always go according to plan. And still, I feel like the good and the not so good in my life currently cancel each other out :-)

I rarely make birthday wishes, but this year I do have one. And it's one that is very dear to my heart. And I do pray that this is the year it finally comes through. Because at some point, you do get tired of all the "almosts" and near misses... It is time.

Staying home alone on a Friday

Flat on the floor looking back

On old love

Or lack thereof

After all the crushes are faded

And all my wishful thinking was wrong

I'm jaded

I hate it 

I'm tired of being alone

So hurry up and get here

So tired of being alone

So hurry up and get here 

Searching all my days just to find you

I'm not sure who I'm looking for

I'll know it

When I see you

Until then, I'll hide in my bedroom

Staying up all night just to write

A love song for no one 

I could have met you in a sandbox

I could have passed you on the sidewalk

Could I have missed my chance

And watched you walk away? 

You'll be so good

You'll be so good for me

Happy Birthday to me... May this be my best year yet :-)

A Pot Belly Still Gives Good Loving...

"Even though I have fat thighs, flabby arms, a pot belly still gives good loving.."

Freshly Ground

This was not the post that was planned for today. But #fakeskin #fakeboobs running rampant all over social media caught my attention.

So one of our so called socialites got a boob job. And she's darn proud of it. I actually admire that confidence. Like she goes MIA for two weeks, re-surfaces and flashes her brand new pair of twinnies. Said socialite has also undergone skin lightening. Yes, apparently there's a difference between skin lightening and bleaching. She also got a permanent pair o fake lashes quite sometime back.

And all this got me thinking  - if you had the money and opportunity to "improve" yourself, would you?

About two weeks ago, someone else that I follow on Instagram (a YouTuber) addressed a boob job that she got that people had been speculating about for a while. The thing is, it was so subtle, I hadn't even noticed it until she brought it up. In addressing it she said "anyone who's followed my journey knows that this is a part of me that I have always been insecure about, and I finally decided to do something about it. This is for me, it has nothing to do with anyone else. I love it. My husband loves it. And that's good enough."

It was a whole monologue but I remember finishing it and thinking, wow- do you boo boo.

And in some ways I get where these people are coming from. We live in a brutal world. And I know different people get enhancements for different reasons- for example, our socialite says she lightened her skin because she makes more money as a light skin than a dark skin, and I'm she got the boob job for the same reason. The YouTuber on the other hand had the boob job done because it's something she has always been insecure about and decided to fix it.

Whether I agree or disagree is hard to say. In fact, it feels almost hypocritical. I find myself more sympathetic to the one who did it to fix her insecurities as opposed to the one who did it to make money. I know people who have had reductions done as well, would we treat them with the same judgment?

Here's the thing- I was bullied in primary school because of how I looked. I was bigger than the other kids (though looking back on photos, I wasn't even fat- I just had a bigger frame,and I was tall). I also used to get really bad allergy reactions on my skin. I would swell up and get hives all over and blisters filled with pus, it was nasty. And the bullying was at the hands of only two people, but they were the "queen bees". I never talked about it, but it really broke me inside till one day I woke up and decided that  I wasn't going to school. I felt ugly. I believed I was. I remember during one of my therapy sessions (I was only about 10 then), my counselor had me stand in front of a mirror, look at myself and tell myself that I am beautiful. And I looked at myself and just started crying. That's how unattractive I felt. Right now I have a crazy high self esteem, and that took lots of counselling plus working on myself.

But back then if you offered me the chance to get a liposuction done- i would! And I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Right now, nah.. I think my body is actually at it's sexiest right now. I love it, the men love it (*wink, wink*)plus I made peace with the fact that this is who I am. My doctor told me due to my bone structure, I can probably never be skinny.. At best I could be size 12/14. I've lost some weight, I'm down one dress size and still going down a bit, but the thing is it has nothing to do with who I am. The changes going on on the outside, have very little to do with what I am on the inside

Anyways, at the end of it all I just feel that we have collectively as a society pushed people to go to certain lengths to achieve a look that is "acceptable" and then we are the same people who turn around and bash them for it... You can't win these things!

What to do then?

Love you. You have just got to love you. From deep down within. The way Kanye West loves Kanye West. Because if you do not love yourself, nothing you do on the outside will make you feel better about yourself. There's people who've lost tons of weight and became even unhappier than when they were big. They say they'd look in the mirror and not even know who that was. If you don't know yourself on the inside, you will always struggle with what's on the outside.Your body is not static, it is bound to change. You will get kids, you will fall sick, you will have bad eating habits, you'll shed weight and so on and so forth. And if you have no value attached to who you are and what you have to offer devoid of how you look, this will always be a huge struggle for you.

Your validation should never come from what you look like. Your value should come from your soul. Your soul is the real you. The you that will remain pretty constant through the changing seasons of life. Invest in it, grow it, love it.
 
After all, there is no make up for an ugly soul.

Online Dating

"If you want something you have never had, you have to do something you have never done"

Wueh!

I'll just start there. I will say this- there are a lot of men in this world. A LOT. Fine, Fine men. Shemar Moore men. If you are not finding a man, I would suggest you remove yourself from that cocoon that you spend all  your time in and venture out. After all, you can't keep doing things the same way and expect different results.

Let me start by explaining how I ended up on the interwebs.

I'd been with him for such a long time, our lives sort of almost became intertwined. His friends were mine, my friends were his. We lived not too far from each other, so we spent a considerable amount of our free time together. During the week, I was at work full day and then in school after work so I'd leave home at about 6:30 AM and get back at about 9:00 PM, by which time I was too tired to have any meaningful conversation with anyone anyways. My weekends were spent mostly at church, and with him. And then we got engaged and wedding planning took up a considerable chunk of my time, so I had to cut back on some of my responsibilities at church because it was becoming too difficult to  juggle everything.

So anyways, point is, when he left, I suddenly found myself with nothing to do. Especially over the weekends. Weekdays were not too bad because work and school kept me heavily occupied, but weekends were bad. That was often when the loneliness would really hit.

Now, by the time this online thing happened- I had moved on. Some people would argue it was too soon, but for me, moving on is a decision not a feeling. A post for another day :-)
Back to the main point-, I was ready to meet a man. And start dating again. Not because I was lonely, but more because I was just ready. I wasn't thrilled about it- the dating part. It was something I had hoped I would never have to do again. It can be exciting, but it can also be cumbersome. For me, it's a means to an end and so I often want it to pass by as fast as possible. For the record- I have no interest in doing a four year relationship EVER AGAIN. In fact, I don't even encourage people to. But that's just me.

The challenge I faced at this point was where to meet a man. I didn't see it happening with any man from my church, because  to  most of them I was "damaged goods". And I get it. It's hard to approach someone whose whole relationship you saw form and unravel (This was actually said to me- it's not stuff I'm making up in my head, unfortunately). School- not happening. Work- I'm the only single person in my workplace so clearly...

Then my cousin floated this idea of online dating.

So with his help, I tried a couple of sites, most were just a joke. Especially local ones. Wah! Some things would scar you for life. But fact remains, there's a lot of men out here. But there's also just as many creeps. So you need to be really careful. But the being  careful part can be tricky, because in the world of online dating- you only get back as much as you put out there. If you are sketchy, you'll get sketchy. If you are real, you'll get real. Or sometimes sketchy still.

Anyways, it was quite the adventure. I will say this though- being there and doing that is one thing that actually really helped me feel lovable again. Don't get me wrong-  I know that I'm pretty, and smart and an all round great catch (yeah, I have a super high self esteem), But I was really beginning to wonder if I would ever find a man who would see me. Really see me. Beyond everything that had happened, because unfortunately it scares a lot of guys away. There's so many genuine guys with genuine hearts. Turns out when I sit and wonder where all the men are, there's 3 guys out there also wondering where all the women are..

But beyond looking for my Mr. Right, I actually made a lot of new friends from all over the world. So I now have random people that I can randomly chat with whenever we feel like, which is pretty cool. I've made some real life friends and its always funny to watch people's reactions when I introduce someone and tell them we met online :-)

Interacting with these people also really opened up my mind. For the first time ever, I actually found myself seriously pondering on issues such as whether I'd be willing to up and go to another country for a man, whether I could do a long distance relationship, whether I could even get into a relationship with someone I've actually never met. Meeting these people filled me with wanderlust. The world is so big and so amazing and filled with so much to be seen and experienced, and I would love to see and experience it all.

I believe in praying for a partner, but I also believe in strategic placement. That man will not find you behind your closed bedroom door. Unless of course he's come to fix your light bulb. Get out there, do something. Try out new things, hang out in new places, get acquainted with new people. Try a new church. (I know I did, but it was about more than finding a man!). Check out the other floors in your office building. Smile at someone in traffic. If where you are is not giving you the results you want, try something different. But those lines you draw don't just keep other people out, they keep you in.

Get. Out. Of. Your. Bubble.

"At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out, they fence you in. Life is messy. That’s how we’re made. So you can waste your life drawing lines… or you can live your life crossing them. But there are some lines… that are way too dangerous to cross. Here’s what I know: If you’re willing to take the chance, the view from the other side… is spectacular."

PS: If it's something you would be willing to try, I'll let you know what some of the more legit sites are. BUT, remember- it works differently for different people :-)

Forgiveness Is A Marathon

There’s an end to every storm. Once all the trees have been uprooted. Once all the houses have been ripped apart. The wind will hush. The clouds will part. The rain will stop. The sky will clear in an instant and only then, in those quiet moments after the storm, do we learn who was strong enough to survive it.

I thought I was going to do one post on acceptance, but my whole life is sort of about acceptance. Acceptance is my journey to moving on, acceptance is moving on. Acceptance is my journey to forgiveness, acceptance is forgiveness. Acceptance is meeting someone new. Acceptance is getting married. Acceptance is changing jobs. Acceptance is finishing school.

Acceptance is my life.


But the one thing though that kept getting thrown at me was this - have you forgiven him. So I'll talk a little bit about that.

That was a tough question to answer. In all honesty, it still is a tough question to answer. But the reasons as to why it is a tough question to answer have greatly changed over time.

In the beginning, I was really mad at him. I was extremely bitter. My anger toward him and what he had done almost consumed my life. I cussed him out, I wished him terrible terrible things. I never EVER wanted to hear his name mentioned near or around me. I never wanted anything to do with anyone that had anything to do with him.

It was bad.

And so, back then, my automatic answer was no. No I hadn't forgiven him. And what did people care anyways whether I'd forgiven him or not. At that point, I remember one person telling me that one of the ways I could work through it was to pray for him. Ha! My response - "If you think he needs the prayers so much, YOU pray for him" (That still tickles me to date!)
I was unforgiving, and I was extremely unapologetic about it.

With time though, he moved out of my heart. And out of my head. And generally out of my life. He would never cross my mind, he stopped coming up in conversation. Things that used to hold so much sentimental value became just that- things. I have never laid eyes on him since that day. I always think somehow life has just found a way to ensure our paths don't cross. Back then it was probably because I might have ended up beating him to pulp. Right now it might be because I just don't see the point, so life has kept him away.

He stopped being a part of my life. And as such, I sort of, inadvertently, blocked him from my mind.

So when a couple of months ago I was faced with the very same question "Have you forgiven him", I thought about it for a minute and my answer was "I don't know". And I honestly don't.He doesn't occupy enough of my thought for me to know whether I have forgiven him or not. And what does forgiveness mean anyways? Like seriously, that's the question I often found myself asking. And of course I've received all the know it all about how not forgiving him is highly unchristian-like and so on and so forth. But the funny thing is that I actually don't care. I really, genuinely stopped caring about peoples opinions. Just one of those things that changed about me.

I can't say whether I have forgiven him or not. I don't know. I honestly do not know. Some would argue that would mean that I haven't, that's their opinion. All I know is that he doesn't live in my head. He doesn't live in my heart. And that's good enough for me.

And you have no idea how incredibly freeing that is.

Forgiveness is a marathon, not a sprint. You aren't competing with anyone. And you have no point to prove. Forgiveness is more about you, than it is about the other person. Forgiveness is more for you than it is for the other person. So take your time. It is your journey. Because if you get this aspect of your journey wrong, you will turn into one bitter person, always mad at the world for everything in general and nothing in particular. Give it your own parameters. Do what works for you.

Run your race. And hold your head up high while you do it.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda...

Do you know the one thing all your "failed" relationships have in common? You.

Yep. You.

First off, failed is in quotes for lack of a better word. Think of it more as all your relationships that didn't work out :) (It's important because someone I once shared this with told me "that relationship didn't fail, it just didn't work out" LOL! Guess some people just dislike the word fail)

Bargaining.

From the time he left I had never once though of getting back together. But if he came back during this period, I just might have considered it. Or not.

In as much as I was still dealing with my pain on the side, I was in a much better place. There's times I would genuinely have good days. I didn't feel guilty about smiling or laughing or being happy anymore. My good and bad days were almost balancing out.

But the manner in which things ended kept weight heavily on my mind. It was actually in this moment a lot heavier than it had ever been. As I'd mentioned before, his leaving never made sense to me. And I desperately needed to make sense out of it because I felt that the only way I could genuinely move on is if it made sense.

I'd turned on him, I'd turned on God and now I was beginning to turn on myself. I thought that maybe if i had refused to give him space when he asked for it, things would have gone down differently. I though that maybe I should have tried harder, fought more. Maybe I shouldn't have been so stringent during the planning- see the thing is I'm a planner and he was more of a free spirit. I had timelines and deadlines for everything, and I begun to wonder if that is what drove him away.

I looked back to the four week silence. I beat myself up about things that I convinced myself I should have handled differently. In retrospect, i wouldn't have changed a thing.

I looked back to our entire relationship. Those periods when things had been so hard and when I just wanted to give up. I wondered if I was foolish for choosing to fight for us. I thought back to our very first big fight. Maybe I should have just called it quits then. I thought back to how we barely made it through year three. Maybe it wasn't worth the trouble.

In all this it didn't help that he was everywhere. All my best and most important memories, he was there. He was in all my graduation photos. He was in all our family events. Like he was literally EVERYWHERE.

But even through the bad, this is the period when all the good things flooded back as well. We were good together? Why would he throw that away? I knew him so well, he knew me so well. We'd put so much into this. Like seriously. Even when all the odds were against us. So what was all that for? I honestly knew that we had been through a lot worse, and somehow still got to the other side.. It just did not make any sense. So I questioned whether he had truly loved me to begin with.. I wondered why everything I had to give was not enough to make him stay. And trust me, I am a pretty top quality girlfriend :)

No answers..

But one thing did become abundantly clear- this was not on me. This was not my fault. There's nothing I could have done to make him stay, there's nothing I did to chase him away. His decision to leave or stay was his to make, and there's very little I could do about that. Are there things that could have been better with us? Most definitely. I believe every relationship always has room for improvement. However, the decision to stay and fight for it or pack up and leave rests with you as an individual. It has to be yours. Your partner can't be responsible for that.

It takes two to make a relationship work, and if one party is sold out of it.. well..

And so in as much as I had all these endless questions that didn't seem to have answers, I decided to make peace with the fact that I would probably never get the answers I desired to get. And no matter how much I replayed what happened in my mind, what happened, happened. There was no turning back on it. From the looks of things, he wasn't coming back. And even if he did, I had no intention of taking him back. So what was the point?

All I'm saying is that it's not on you. Especially when you know your heart is true, genuine and honest. It is not on you to make your partner keep their word. It should never be your responsibility to ensure that your partner stays committed to a commitment they made to you.

You  may  have all the should haves, could haves and would haves, but at the end of the day you can't keep making excuses. That's far too big a burden to carry on your shoulders for the rest of your life. At least for me, it was a burden I refused to carry.

I did feel like I had failed, but as time went by I realized that I hadn't. The relationship may have failed, but as a person- I hadn't. I was true to myself, and I gave the best that I could. And only upon realizing this was I finally able to accept what had happened.

''Failure is inevitable, unavoidable but failure should never get the last word. You have to hold on to what you want. You have to not take no for an answer and take what’s coming to you. Never give in, never give up. Stand up. Stand up and take it."

Help, I'm Drowning..

"I make no apologies for how I choose to repair what you broke"

I love the beach. It's extremely calming to just stand there and look out into the never ending ocean.  Only right now, it felt like I was smack in the middle of that ocean.

Depression.

I walked around with the pain for a while, but thankfully only had one major bout of near depression. I say thankfully because a lot of people never get out of it.
The thing people don't realize about depression is that people don't fall into depression, they slip into it. Slowly, gently, and if you don't pay close enough attention, you wont even see it happen. You will wake up one day and you will be in this deep, dark place and have no idea how you got there.

And I almost got there. Actually, I did get there. I just got pulled out in time.

The thing is, many times when you are in this place, what you feel you need is space. You want to be alone. But that's actually the last thing you need. In fact, if you are reading this and know someone who could potentially be in that place - don't give them space. They'll slip right out of your grip.

I stopped talking to people. Completely. I wasn't talking to people at work, and I'd get home and go straight to my room and lock myself in there waiting for tomorrow to arrive. And wine. I drunk lots of wine. Boy, did I drink wine. And i think this is the first time I have openly addressed this. Only two people knew I was drinking, and even then I'm not sure they knew how much. (Sidenote- prior to this I was a teetotaler). Unfortunately, I never was able to get high. But that's what I wanted. I just wanted to feel happy. I wanted this unbearable ache in my heart to go away. But my body just refused to cooperate. Turns out I am extremely alcohol tolerant (meaning it would take a lot to get me high on alcohol), so I gave up on that. I did it because I hear that's what people do. And everyone on my Instagram always looks so happy when they are out drinking :-D

I cried a lot during this period. I think it actually got to a place where I couldn't cry anymore, the tears just wouldn't come out. My eyes were almost permanently red and swollen, and so was my face generally. I'd blown my nose so much, I couldn't anymore.

For a while, those around me let me do this. day in day out. Up until they couldn't anymore. How was it broken? My father :)

One Sunday, he got home from church, came straight to my room and forced me to open the door. He looked me straight in the eye and said "You know you cannot give this boy this much power over your life. His decisions should not change who you are. You cannot allow your life to came to a standstill while his is going on". Then he left.

I was so mad. The thing is, I knew everything he was saying. He wasn't giving me any new information. I knew all this - I spent my four years in college studying psychology. But we all know- doctors make the worst patients. It hurt me a lot whenever people said such things to me because in the back of my mind, no one got it. They couldn't possibly understand. But my dad had only spoken to me twice about this- the first was when they were given the news and he asked me to explain what happened, and the second was this.

In many ways I felt it was because he felt helpless. It can't be easy to watch your child in that much pain and not be able to do anything about it.

So I picked my self up, took a shower and went to bed. I woke up the following day a completely different person.

This is not to say I was OK, far from it. I just moved from being openly sad, to being inwardly sad. I got tired of feeling as if I had become a burden to people. I needed to deal with what I was going through, but at the same time I felt that I wasn't able to properly do that when I had to constantly keep worrying about other people worrying about me. So I begun to bottle everything up. And it took an angel to be able to point out what I was doing and helped me handle it. Again, a story for another post.

The main point is this - despite whatever pain you find yourself in, for whatever reasons, you can not allow yourself to drown in there. Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. It's a lot easier for me to say this now that I'm on the other side of it, but it is the hard truth. When something catastrophic happens, you often feel stuck and feel like everyone's life is moving on except yours. But at some point, yours has to move on too. You have to take that first step. You have to allow yourself to understand that choosing to move on doesn't invalidate your experience. That was a big issue I had to deal with. I felt that refusing to live in my pain meant that I was validating his actions. That picking up and moving on meant that I was silently saying that what he did was OK.

That is absolutely not the case. Your experience is your truth. Yours alone. Only you will ever understand it. It will always be with you, but you need to refuse to build a shrine for it. Your life cannot be built around that. Letting go of the pain doesn't mean that you are cancelling out what you went through, it simply means that you refuse to live in it. Fight through it. Fight like your life depends on it.

And trust me, you have more control over this than you could ever imagine. So much more.

"Pain. You just have to ride it out. Hope it goes away on its own. Hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions. No easy answers. You just breathe deep and wait for it to subside.

Most of the time, pain can be managed. But sometimes, the pain gets you when you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn’t let up.

Pain. You just have to fight through. Because the truth is, you can’t outrun it. And life always makes more."

Everybody Knows, Almost Doesn't Count...

The problem with accepting and/or dealing with how you feel, is that you really begin to feel what you feel. Like REALLY feel it.

And boy, did I feel it.

But I wasn't sad. No, not yet. I was angry. Very angry.

I had very many reasons for my anger. And I needed to let it out, but I didn't know how. And it didn't help that the timing of all this was quite inconvenient. You see, he walked out on a Sunday. I had exams for the whole week starting Monday. One of my best friends was getting married on Friday. I honestly did not have time to think about my feelings, so I shoved them in.

Until I couldn't.

First, I was extremely angry at/with God. Like really angry. This one, deserves a whole post. And I'll address it in future. But I was mad. Mostly because according to him, it was God's fault. And I needed someone to blame. So I blamed the person I was told to blame.

Second, I was angry at him. For obvious reasons. But beyond the obvious reasons, I was angry because I felt like I had just lost four years of my life that I would never get back. I was angry because I thought that if I knew this was how it was going to end, I wouldn't have put as much effort as I did into us.. I was angry because I looked back at very many missed opportunities I missed out on for/because of him.. I don't mean missed opportunities in the sense of career or school. I mean missed opportunities in the sense of other men. Yes, I said it. I was angry because this was turning out to be the worst investment I had ever made. I was angry because he got to run away and I had to stay and clean up the mess he created. I was angry because I felt (and still do feel) that he was let off the hook too easy. Way too easy. Actually, this last point sorta still makes me angry to date. I was angry because almost doing something, is not the same as doing it. It doesn't count.

Lastly, I was angry at people. I felt let down by so many people in ways that I didn't imagine possible. I generally don't expect much of people, and so to feel let down when as is you really don't expect that much to begin with- yeah it was pretty bad. I felt as though I was being punished, yet I had done nothing wrong. People stopped talking to me. And then naturally of course, they started talking about me. I shed a lot of friends in this season. But on the bright side, I made a couple of friends as well :-) .. Again, I was angry at people because all the people that should have stood up to him, didn't. The people that should have fought for me, didn't. There were people taking care of me, but there are people who should have fought for me. He just got away with it.

But the thing that made me the most angry - Life. Goes. On.

Anyone who's walked around with a hole in their heart knows what I'm talking about. It's extremely difficult to watch everyone's life move on, including the person responsible for the situation you are in, yet you feel stuck. And I was stuck.

I missed my friend. A lot. He was the main reason I was in this mess, but he was also the only person I wanted to talk to about it. And I couldn't.

You know all those feelings you feel in your heart that you're not supposed to say out loud? I felt all of them. ALL of them. I became extremely passive aggressive, and to those that had to handle me closely, I was honestly a pain to be around (I'm sorry y'all :-)). And you would think they would understand because I've just been through hell but like I said above, Life goes on. For everyone.. And after a while, they get tired of having to deal with you. And you can't blame them. After all, this is happening to you, not to them.

The Anger set in on  Friday. It was the day I sat my last exam. It was also the day my best friend got married. I remember it so well because it felt like the day I could finally stop pretending to be ok...

And the anger ate at me for a while. It cut deep and raw. And with each passing day, I felt more and more alone and got more and more lonely... then the anger begun to subside..

That's when the sadness set in.

“You know how when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales, that fantasy of what your life would be, white dress, prince charming who would carry you away to a castle on a hill. You would lie in bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming, they were so close you could taste them, but eventually you grow up, one day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears. Most people turn to the things and people they can trust. But the thing is its hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely cause almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true.”

It's Not Just A River In Egypt....

"Denial: It's not just a river in Egypt, it's a freaking Ocean."

Meredith Grey- Greys Anatomy (S02E04 Deny, Deny, Deny)

Clearly you've picked up I'm a big Greys fan by now (That show has some major life lessons). Anyways, I digress..

Denial.

I got home, parked outside the gate and just sat in the car. I was there for about 20 minutes. To date, I have no idea how I drove from the restaurant to the house. (Yes, he did it in a restaurant. Sigh.) I was in tears the entire time. But I sat in the car to collect myself. "What next, what do I need to do, What do I need to say, Who do I need to call/Text.. Omigosh, I need to cancel vendors.. My dress... My dress! Sigh"

I texted my closest friends aka bridesmaids, told my baby brother what happened, switched off my phone, locked myself in my room and slept. I didn't even tell my folks till the next day, and even then I wasn't really the one who told them, my Aunt did.

You know those people who have it all together? Always seem to have it figured out, strong, etc etc.. Yeah, I was one of those. And right there in the car I decided that I was not going to allow people to think I was broken by this. Never mind how badly broken I actually was.

Thing is, I wasn't in denial of that he had left. I was in denial of how I was feeling. And that is the worst kind of denial. It will eat at you from the inside day in day out, and half the time you won't even realize what it is doing to you. I cried openly only for the first two to three days but after that, I never let anyone see. I'd wake up, put a smile on my face and switched my automatic response to "I'm fine. No, really, I am."
But it got hard to keep up. So eventually I sort of just started shutting people out.

It's hard to be in a place where you constantly have to give answers to questions whose answers you are searching for yourself.

"What happened?" "I don't know"

And every time I said I didn't know, it was assumed that it was my way of shutting the conversation down. But I honestly did not know. I still do not know. The difference between then and now is t hat I made peace with the fact that I probably never will know.

And that's OK.

However, in retrospect, I can openly admit that one reason I struggled with denial so much is because I was so deeply ashamed and embarrassed. This sort of thing only happens in the movies, it's not supposed to happen to me. I have always been the sort of go to person for relationship advise and real talk - what water does my talk hold now when my man left me for absolutely no reason. I at times just wanted to bury myself in a hole and hide till all this passed over. But I couldn't. It was so hard for me to face people. I would do it daily, but it was so difficult.

I had to get to the place where I needed to accept that as long as I keep denying what I am feeling, I can never move past it.

This jackass broke my heart. And it's not OK. And it's not my fault.

I decided that this could not be my burden to carry. I didn't do anything to warrant it. I almost feel like it may have been easier if it was my fault that he left.... But this is a story for a different post...

My refusal to accept and/or deal with what was happening did not change the fact that it had happened. And you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time..

“Sometimes reality has a way of sneaking up and biting us in the ass. And when the dam bursts, all you can do is swim. The world of pretend is a cage, not a cocoon. We can only lie to ourselves for so long. We are tired, we are scared, denying it doesn't change the truth. Sooner or later we have to put aside our denial and face the world. Head on, guns blazing. De Nile. It's not just a river in Egypt, it's a freakin' ocean. So how do you keep from drowning in it?”

In The Beginning...

It was the most random of meetings... The first time I met him was in May of 2008. Then the next  time I met him was in December of  2008. At camp. We hang out a bit coz he was my friends friend. We got to talking in January of 2009 and by May, we were inseparable..

He was my best friend. The love of my life. But mostly, he was my friend.

I can not emphasize enough how important friendship is to me in a relationship. Everyone wants the butterflies and the fireworks, which I wouldn't mind either, but at the end of the day- I want that person that I can sit with in silence and it's OK. The guy that I want to tell every single aspect of my day, and they wouldn't be bothered to listen to it, because they actually want to. The Christina to my Meredith, or vice versa. (Only Greys Anatomy fans will get this one). My Person.

And that was sort of us. We were good together. We had many amazing times, but we also had some tough times. Really tough times. Like really tough. I actually think, in hind sight, if I would have known how it was all going to end, we wouldn't have made it to a year. But we did. Make it. To 4 years actually.

And he proposed.

It was an amazing period. The proposal was everything I had ever dreamed it would be. The excitement that followed, unspeakable. Plans started. Dates were set. Budgets were done. Bridal party was formed. Dress was bought.

Then, silence.

It started like a joke. We had a little tiff, which for anyone who's planned a wedding is pretty normal, but he just shut me out. One week. Two weeks.
Week three he says he needs some time to think.
Week four he says we need to talk.
So we met at the beginning of week 5 of silence.

It was over in less than 10 minutes. There was no explanation. No discussions. He just decided that he couldn't do it.

Let me tell y'all something:

"The death of a relationship is actually as painful as the death of a person."

I know some would argue against this. I have physically lost people I love and I can assure you, for me, this hurt just as much.

But the most difficult thing for me to come to terms with was how my friend could do that to me. Because as far as I know, that's just not what friends do. Friends don't handle each other that way..

And there I was. I actually felt widowed. People treated me like a widow. It's funny now, but it wasn't funny then :-D .. Like people would visit and bring food.. LOL!

But at the end of the day, I would sit  in my room, alone, and realize just how alone I was. This was my burden, this was my pain.. No matter how much other people supported me and were there for me, this was my pain and I had to figure it out alone. The path to my recovery was mine, and I had to take it alone..

And so that is where it begun...

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

I Hope You Dance

So, blogging.
I've always thought blogging is too main stream. Like everyone and their neighbor's grandmother has a blog. And then there's all these guys constantly throwing their links in your face. Sigh. I digress.
I have over the years found a couple of really good blogs. Very solid content that I have learned A LOT from. And it makes for a fun way to put down all your thought and life's stories.

And that is sort of how this blog has come to be.

I have a story. A story that I have been encouraged to own. And telling it is part of my owning process. But the blog won't dwell on the story alone, it's more of a story of my coming to birth.. How I got my groove back. How I've changed. And grown. And all the new and exciting things that are happening now.

Many times I have tried to keep the story held up in me. Every now and then I say things or give insights and people have hinted that I should write a book (LOL!) .. I don't think my thoughts could go far enough to write a book, but a post every now and then would suffice :-)

Join me, as I share my story, and I hope you can learn a thing or two.. And most importantly- if you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.