fog

My heart hasn't been itself lately. It's a lot less optimistic.. and little more cloudy than usual.
Every where it goes it is haunted by ghosts of all things lost. Lost love. Lost hope. Lost futures.
I've been in this unfixable funk since March and it is exhausting. I wake up exhausted from the night before.. nights of tossing and turning.. nights of praying my mind would just let me sleep, but my mind is fogged with the same words that clouded up my heart.

"you'll never find anyone who will love you like I did."

                                  "You're just like everyone else. Unforgiving."

   

                       "You should just forgive me.. it's not like I cheated."

"Everyone thinks you should forgive me .. we can start over."

Over and over his words circle in my mind. Constantly making me doubt my own revelation and feelings. A constant feeling of manipulation fills my mind and heart.  Making me wonder if I made the single biggest mistake of my life. I have felt trapped in the darkest corners of my mind for far too long.

I need to find serenity.. and I needed to find it in a place that wasn't clouded with the ghosts of who we used to be. That couldn't be found in Logan, or unfortunately in my home because your ghost still haunts me. The memories.. the laughs.. the kisses.. all of it haunts me.

I needed clarity. I needed hope. Most of all I needed peace.

My heart and soul needed to pick up the pieces of what he broke and then continued to break. No amount of tears.. sad movies.. breakup playlists could heal me this time. So I left..

I left the ghost and the fog behind and came to the place my soul longs to be. I came to the sunny home of my soul where the ocean and sand could heal me.

If you need me I'll be here. Letting the sun chase out the fog, and the ocean purify my mind. I will let the laughter of my kiddos allow me to smile fully.. which it hasn't done for weeks. I am giving myself the permission to heal from this.. 

*Off to the sea... I'l be back soon.*

fine line

I have come to realize there is a fine line between being madly in love, and falling out of love. There is no road map for love. No guidelines to follow, no X marking the spot of where we should be, and how to get to that point. If you would have told me that the love I have felt for the past seven months could be gone with the snap of his fingers I would have told you-you were crazy. I have loved before, and I have felt the loss of love before but none of those times can relate to the magnitude of loss I have been feeling these past few months.

My mind has been in this constant battle between loving the man who hurt me or walking away from the first love that has made me feel things I have never felt before. It all seemed so simple when we met. Fall in love with the man who seemed to be everything that I thought was picture perfect, finally have a forever, but there I was standing on this line between loving and leaving terrified of what would happen when I took that step forward. Would we snap? Would the love we had to be enough to fix the lie that had destroyed everything I thought we had? Could I live a happy life knowing that within an instant that line that once held us together could be erased? I lived the better part of two weeks standing still. Not wanting to lose the man I thought I had forever to love, but not wanting to hurt anymore. I stood still. Terrified.. In denial... Broken... and in disbelief asking myself how a love that was once epic could be taken from me in an instant. That was something my mind couldn't wrap itself around. I didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to have to walk away from a promise of forever because our forever looked perfect in my mind.

However, nothing is perfect, and the life I once thought was perfect was far from it. All I wanted was to be loved and to have love in return. I based this blog three years ago off the fact that I am utterly and immensely afraid of being alone, and for once in a long time I had that peace of knowing I wasn't going to have to be alone anymore, and when that peace was taken from me I was constantly wondering why again. Why me? Why could I not have happiness just this one time? Why is every dream, and every wish I have taken from me? It shouldn't be this hard to find someone who is honest, and true. Who is everything you wish for, and everything you need, but in reality it is! It may not be impossible because there are millions of epic and true love stories that give people like me hope that some day when we least expect it that great and epic love will find each of us...

Lately, as I have been faced with what I consider to be the second greatest trial of my life I find myself wondering what I did in my life that brought me here. At this place where I find myself questioning my heart, my mind, and everything else in this world. I have always tried to be strong when I am feeling unimaginably broken and low. I strive to be the person I wanted to be no matter what circumstances I found myself in, but here I am broken and pretending to be strong and happy when really I can't manage to go a day without crying over lost love and lost hope. It's crazy how quick life can go from being so blissfully happy to so unimaginably low within the matter of a single day. I found myself in a situation where I was giving my entire heart, mind, and soul to a man who didn't give all of himself back and the results were catastrophic to my entire being. He was everything I wanted love to be. He was the man that I used to dream up when I was a little girl wishing on stars for, but in the real world perfect is just something we all aspire to be not some thing that can be found, and no one can live up to the expectations of perfection because we are all human.

Even though I am broken I wouldn't change a thing. The love I felt for him was not wasted. It was an epic love. A love some only feel once in a lifetime, but for me I hope I am lucky enough to feel it one more time. He was kind, funny, loving, and spiritually centered... but in the end no matter how many times I was reassured that he was the one I was supposed to be with.. it didn't change who he is, and what he was keeping from me. My heart was open and ready to move forward. His was open but not ready to move forward. I hope one day I will find a man whose heart as open to mine as mine will be to his. 

Love is a fickle business. It can't be rushed, or slowed down. Once love is part of our lives, our lives take on a whole new meaning and speed. If I have received anything in this experience it is that you have forever to be together when you find the right person, and forever is long enough that no time will be wasted while you wait to get to know each other. The next is that no one is perfect, and I know that, but that doesn't mean you deserve less than what you feel you are worthy of because everyone is worthy of perfection, so find someone who is constantly striving to be so. Lastly, there is no amount of love, compassion, or friendship that can heal broken trust. Trust is crucial for any relationship to work, and if that is broken or altered it is almost impossible to get back to complete trust. Almost. No abound of manipulation of what love should be, or belittling of your worth can change a heart that has lost trust. NONE. 

I won't settle for a love less than what I know I deserve. My past love was exactly who I needed to show me that love is real, and I could believe in it again. He taught me to love when I didn't want to love another person again, and he taught me that I can take down my walls when I am with someone who I know I love. I want nothing but the best love for him. He is a great man, and I hope one day that greatness will bring great love and he can fully open his heart to that person, but unfortunately that great love is not ours.

So dear future someone. I am here.. striving for perfection.. striving to better myself.. striving to keep my mind and heart ready to accept your love..

stillness

It's a new year. Crazy right? Just like in new years that have come and gone I have found a second in this new moment in life to look back at the past 365 days of my life. What good did I see? Did I do any good? What bad things came in my path? Did I overcome them with the grace and dignity that I strive to have? The answers this year came in floods. This past year was one filled with love, and hope.. but most importantly light.

As most of you have read in past posts there have been a lot of points these past few years where the light in my life has seemed quite dim. I didn't think a lot of things were going to be a reality in my life, and I had come to expect that the Lord was all about sending me new and hard trials to test my faith, but that at least at this stage in my life trials were about all I was destined for. It didn't really matter what positive quote I would read, or what kind of activities, and the type of people I associated with would change that mindset. I had come to accept that I was going to have to be fearlessly alone for the foreseeable future. That wasn't something that came easy for me to accept whatsoever, and I most definitely am not sharing this with you because I want any of you to feel sorry for me. I think in my own way this was greatest trial I have had so far in my life. The trail to accept myself. To accept that even though I didn't want to be; that I would have a miraculous life being alone with just myself. I think the Lord knew I needed to learn to accept my brokenness as a starting point to being able to move forward with my life.

In many moments it seemed that this new stillness of being alone was lonely, but the more I found myself alone the more I felt strong. In those moments I didn't see fulfillment in my life in the form of how quickly I was going to get married, or even if I was going to get married. I didn't see happiness in how many friends I had, or where I was living. I learned to find happiness in a life with just me, and that turned out to be enough.

I am enough friends.

I think that is the most important thing I am taking from this past year. Despite the heartbreaks that found me, and the trials that I faced, or even the amazing trips and laughs that I had. Though they were great they weren't my most redeemable moments these past 365 days.

So if I could share one last thing to start off this new year. If you are struggling with being alone. With the ideas of loneliness, and fear of a future that you can't foresee. I would give you this one piece of advice from someone that has been there. Stop. Breathe. Take it step by step. One single 24 hour day at a time. Learn to find that you are enough. There is no other man or woman in this world that is going to define you, or make you feel complete. That is your job. You have a responsibility to yourself to love every ounce of you. It may not be easy. Heck some days you are going to sit in a ball in your room and cry out that you are done. I've been there. I know that heart shattering moment when your heart and mind decide that you don't deserve to feel that completeness that others in the world appear to have, but let me tell you one thing, that voice in your mind and your heart is dead wrong. One day you will wake up and learn that a life with just you might not be so bad, and that your heart and life can be complete because you are enough.

I know that when you accept that idea.. that single notion.. that amazing things change. You will find more joy and light. There is a light out there for the lonely and afraid, and oh how I have missed it in my life.

So friends here's to a new year filled with light, and learning that we are enough.. and the world can't tell us otherwise.