With grace in your heart & flowers in your hair


"When we make a change, it's so easy to interpret our unsettledness as unhappiness and our unhappiness as a result of having made the wrong decision.  Our mental & emotional states fluctuate madly when we make big changes in our lives.  Some days we could tightrope across Manhattan and other days we are too weary to clean our own teeth.  This is normal.  This is natural.  This is change." ~Jeanette Winterson

 The above quote rings such truth...I wish I had found this quote a year ago!  The end of this month marks the one year anniversary of an event that shook my little world to its core.  Let me start by saying that I know there are people out there who have gone through so much more than I can even imagine going through but that this event was one of the hardest things that I have personally experienced.  A year ago this month I was coming out of a ten year relationship.  I look back at it now and it was really more of a divorce than a break up.  We met when were between the ages of 15 and 16 and while there were a few bumps in the road, the two of us stayed together for a decade.  Over ten years we grew up together, grew into basically being the same person and eventually grew apart.  For a few years there, he knew me better than I did...I trusted him with every part of my being because he was there front row and center while I was finding myself.  Near the end of our relationship we both knew it was over but just weren't ready to look it in the face and acknowledge it.  We grew apart by the day until that one moment when it all just kind of spilled out and we officially called it "the end".  The strangest thing for me right now is that the day that we closed that book happened almost a year ago!  When I say strange I mean strange in the fact that so much has changed over the past 365 days that I can't remember what it was like to be in that relationship anymore but on that same token, my memory can bring me back to that day where we said "the end" like it was 5 seconds ago.  It's this weird place to be sitting....I suppose it's all part of emotionally dealing with a break-up...but its still strange none the less.

I do have to take a moment to pat myself on the back for getting to where I am within a years time.  I left that relationship feeling broken and lost.  All I knew was who I was with him - I never had to learn who I was on my own (yes, that sounds cliche but it is so very true!) Granted it took me between 4-6 months to actually get out of the "funk" that it put me in but now, a year later...I'm okay!  I remember right after we broke up, I didn't know what to do with myself.  I specifically remember a day that I looked my mother in the eyes and said "I don't know how I am going to get through today."  It hurt more than anything I had ever dealt with and in those moments I couldn't fathom being where I am now.  It was as if I would forever be in this mourning state and never get over it.  I had so many wonderful family members and friends around me telling me that it would be okay but the words just sat on the surface and never really sunk in.  They didn't sink in until I was ready and I wasn't ready until I had fully accepted that I was going to be okay.  It took a while that's for sure but now, right now, I feel more alive than I ever have before.  I feel like I'm spreading my wings for the first time and living my life (again I know it sounds cliche...but it's cliche for a reason!)  This overwhelming feeling of freedom is now in the form of a dove tattoo on my wrist so that I can forever remember this transformation...It is simple and lovely and every time I look at it I feel genuine happiness stir inside of me...



When we have monumental changes (good or bad) happen in our lives we tend to reflect on them when the anniversaries of those events come up.  This is the first anniversary of an event like that for me...hence the weird melancholy state that I have been in over the past week.  I do have to say that over the past year I have experienced many wonderful things and because of those things, I know that "closing that book" was the best thing that could have happened to me...

The Proof:

Wow - I really threw it all out onto the table in this post...Have you ever been through any huge events in life that changed you?  How did you cope?  What did you learn?

Lots of Love,
Meg

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