Life Stuff (I'm not so good at coming up with titles...)

The last year has been hard. Really hard. Yet, it’s also been needed on so many levels. I left Phoenix a little over a year ago, and moved to an area that I was completely unfamiliar with and where I literally knew one person. By the way, the one person that I knew was best friends with my baby sister and she had just moved out to Portland a few months before me. We didn’t really have much of an established friendship, and had kind of gotten off to a rocky start.  

I left Phoenix for my job. Or at least that’s what I told everyone. My job was moving me out to Portland for a year, so that I could take care of the three big customers that we had up here. It was an easy way to leave. I needed to leave. My heart had been torn apart during the last few years that I was there.

I was in a relationship with a man that I never should have been. I let him so far into my world, and when it came time to face the music about our relationship I was left to face the music on my own. We both had consequences, there’s no doubt, but I’m the one that was ridiculed and blamed very openly. Everyone had an opinion about how I should handle moving forward, with very little sensitivity to the fact that in the midst of all of this I’d single-handedly destroyed my self-esteem, my reputation and shattered my heart. I literally felt like a piece of my soul had been removed from me.

I felt like too many people had a microscope on my life. There were people who used to be kind to me, and they just weren’t anymore. People that didn’t know me that thought I was an awful human being. People that looked at my like my choice defined everything about me. People that had been in a very similar situation that told me how horrible and messed up I was for getting in that situation, and yet clearly had a hard time looking in the mirror. There were also people who hugged me, loved me, and stood beside me in my darkest moments. There’s something about experiencing that level of shame that can expose the realest things about the friendships you have with people.

The weeks and months following I did everything I could to move forward. I cried, a lot. I was taking care of the most perfect little girl at the time and there were days when I couldn’t make it a few minutes before the tears took over again. I don’t know how I would have gotten through that part of my life without having her unconditional love every day. I had the greatest friends that a person could ask for, and even when I’m sure they were tired of hearing about how badly it hurt, they stood beside me and wiped the tears from my face.

 A new job would lead me to different customers in the Phoenix area, and there were customers that had locations close to him. There were days when I’d go to visit those customers and I’d spend twenty minutes talking myself into getting out of my car. I’d have to figure out how to breathe, because I felt like my lungs were going to collapse. I’d eventually get the tears to stop falling, clean myself up and then slowly get out of the car. I always rushed these appointments because I had a desperate need to get out of his neighborhood as quickly as possible. I never really thought I’d run into him, but I didn’t really know what I’d do if I did. I was constantly terrified.

For a long time I plastered a smile on my face, and did my best to fake it until I felt like I was making it. I still have days when I cry myself to sleep. Like the day that I found out he was getting married. I felt like my earth had shattered around me. Not because I wanted to be married to him, or that I wanted to be with him in any way, but because I was so pissed that he could so easily move forward while I still spent so much time punishing myself.

Everyone has a different way of dealing with the hard knocks of life. My way of dealing with life is to eat myself happy. Well, the other consequence of dealing with life this way, is that I also ate myself fat. Which is so fitting, considering that I decided a long time ago that if I was fat I wasn’t lovable. I found other ways to abuse and punish myself, and I have kept it up for three years. I will have moments where I’ve decided to get back on track, but it doesn’t take long before I’ve found reasons to hurt myself all over again. 

I had a friend ask how I was doing with the move after I’d been up here for a few months, and I revealed to her at that time how I’d realized how much I genuinely disliked my own company. I hated being alone, because then it was just me with my thoughts. The thoughts that constantly reminded me that I’m an awful person and that I didn’t deserve to experience what I’ve longed to experience my whole life: a man that genuinely loves me and a family. (Disclaimer: Just to be clear I am in no way declaring that I'm desperate for that to happen. It's simply one of the things that I've always wanted. My life has never been defined by having a man in my life or not, and if I am to get in to a relationship...I want it to be with someone who enhances my life, just as I would want to enhance theirs.)

Mistakes happen, and I get that. Yet, I’ve spent so much of my life and my energy ensuring that I did everything I could to keep people happy. That I lived up to their standards and that they were completely aware of how good my heart was, and one choice changed a lot of that. The biggest change was how I viewed my own heart though. I’ve learned a lot in the last few years that I am the only person who can genuinely determine what kind of heart I have. People are going to have opinions no matter what I do, and yet the only power those opinions have is the power I give them.

I’ve been focused on mastering self-love for the last few months. It’s hard. Really freaking hard. Some days I look in the mirror and I fall crazy in love with myself, and then the very next day I look at myself and find every single flaw. The greatest gift of working on this, and spending more energy with the idea of self-love, is that I’ve allowed myself to be more open to the idea of other people actually loving me. The craziest part…is that there have been people in my life for forever that have loved me all along. I have had moments when I’m really honest with myself, and I know that it’s because of WHO I am that I have so many people in my life that love me in ways that I never thought possible.

Forgiveness is necessary. I get to forgive others and more importantly I get to forgive myself. After all, I’m just a human being. I was bound to make mistakes, and if I choose, I get to be an even stronger woman having had those experiences.

I am worthy. I am enough. I am LOVE!

Broken Open

I've been contemplating writing this post for a long time. Then there have been more and more events that have encouraged the need to get this out, to write about it, to publish it, to get it out of my head and then let it all go. However, I always follow that up with the fact that it leaves me super vulnerable and with people knowing too much about me, but I also know that there really aren't a ton of people that read this…so then who cares.

I don't know if one really needs to know the beginning in order to understand where I am at this moment, and details really don't matter. Or maybe they do. It's hard to say. As you can tell the thoughts are still jumbled, and attempting to get them to come out of my brain in a clear way may be a struggle.

I have recently remembered, in vivid detail, an experience I had when I was pretty young. My dad's cousin, Jerry, was like a second dad to me. He adored the three of us kids, and I'm almost positive he thought we all walked on water. I remember the last time I saw him. This moment would become a much bigger moment than one could have anticipated at the time. I was 7 or 8 years old at the time. So young. And considering that this happened well over twenty years ago, you would think that I would have been able to let it all go. Nope. It's still there. Hanging in the very back of my mind. Maybe buried behind some other events and dusty. Very dusty.

Jerry came to visit us. I ran out and jumped on him, hugging him with the excitement of a child. He gave me a stuffed animal during this visit, a cat, and this would come to be the only cat that I would ever really love - seriously. He had a long chat with my dad during his visit, and I don't really remember any of the specifics. The thing that sticks out clearly in my head is that my dad kept saying, "Don't do anything stupid, Jerry." I also remember making him promise to come back to me. I made him promise more than once. Jerry never came back that was it. Him leaving that day was our final goodbye. Our last hug. The last time he told me he loved me. The last time I heard his voice. Because the next morning he chose to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.

At the time I didn't know or fully comprehend the impact this would have on me. To this day when I talk about him and how much he loved me…I can literally feel his love for me. I know how valuable I was to him. I know how much he treasured and adored me. Yet, at the time I know I decided a lot of things about me. I know that these decisions were completely subconscious. My adult self is very aware of that intellectually. The aftermath of that event would be one that would take me years to really wrap my adult head around though. I decided that I wasn't lovable. That if I had been more that he would have made a better choice. That people that love me leave me. And…if all of those aren't a big enough kick in the ass….that men lie. Even if they love you, they lie.

Other experiences, not just the one I described above, have convinced me that those beliefs are definitely true. When I was growing up I was never really enough for my dad. I wasn’t skinny enough – and if my clothes showed exactly how fat I was he made it clear that it was gross and no one would ever want to see that. My grades weren’t high enough. I didn’t do many things as he believed I should. My brother got away with a lot of shit and I decided that was because he was the oldest and because he was a boy. And my little sister was an angel (and I can’t argue with him there, because she really is.) He was very vocal with me and very clear on how he viewed me, and it wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t as easy to love as my siblings. I remember distinctly how I used to pick at the skin on my neck whenever he’d yell at me, just so I could keep myself from crying. Because honestly, if I cried it got worse and it was already bad enough.

I’ve spent years working through the process of forgiving my dad. I have a great relationship with him now. I don’t want there to be any judgment on him because I chose to share this story. My dad was doing the best he could with what he had at the time. He was a product of his childhood. I know this. I’m very familiar with this and I don’t doubt this at all. My dad loves me more than anything in this world. My dad thinks I’m one of the greatest women on this planet, and I know this because he tells me this and the way he expresses this speaks volumes. We’ve repaired a very broken relationship. I’ve forgiven my dad completely. He is a good man. He is a great dad. I would go to battle for this man, and love him with my whole heart. And genuinely hope that someday he forgives himself, because he absolutely deserves to.

I don’t believe for one second that I thought that this is what life would become. I never thought it would become a series of choices, moments, and relationships that would allow me to recreate the same outcome every time. I never thought I'd spend a good portion of my time and energy doing everything I can to be perfect for everyone else. Well, who at any age, knows that they are making such deep rooted decisions about who they are and the rest of their life. It was a moment. That has since defined so much of my life. There has been so much pain and heartache that has come with each choice that has lead me to those paths that have recreated those exact same feelings.

I have found myself in many relationships with men that are the kind of men that would allow me to be right about all of the things that I decided about myself at 7 years old. I will never be enough for them…even if I do everything they ask me to do. I can contort myself into some version of myself that I no longer recognize, and it would never be enough. They lie. They leave. And if I was just a bit more lovable, or just more of everything I’m not, then none of that would have happened. It’s always my fault. Always. Regardless of how awful the man is. And I have been with some pretty awful men. When a good man approaches me or seems interested in me, there is no way to convince me that it’s actually possible. I’ve literally had them say, "You must know I'm crazy about you!" And I never got it at the time. I’ve always worried that any man that ended up with me would feel like he got the short end of the stick. So painful to admit, and yet it's always there in the back of my mind.

Recently, I’ve come to realize a few things about those beliefs. They are complete and total lies. Yet, as long as I believe them nothing about my life will change and I’ll keep getting the same results that I’ve always gotten. I’ve spent so many years worried that I’m going to mess it all up, so I’m terrified to make decisions because I’m fearful that I’ll make the wrong one. There’s something so beautiful about making a decision though…there’s no way to make the wrong one. No way. There really is no way to mess it all up. You choose something today and if you don’t like where that choice is leading you, then you make a new choice tomorrow. Every day is a new day to choose. So, lately I’ve been making different choices. I choose to be enough. I choose to look in the mirror and love what I see. I choose to believe that there are great, honest men in the world. I choose to know that I can be loved just as I am, and that I'm worthy of great love. I choose forgiveness. Forgiveness for those that have done me wrong and, more importantly, I choose to forgive me. There’s so much power in choice, and I’m choosing to be a very powerful woman.

Friends, when a child grows up believing they are awful, they will carry that for a very long time. I know this from experience. When you are interacting with children – show them love. Tell them they are the greatest and that they can do anything they decide to do. Tell them that they are perfect as they are, and please, tell them that they are enough. Show them what it means to love their mind and body, their eyes, their hands, their sense of humor…show them what it means to love themselves. It’s hard work, but as an adult that has struggled with this…it’s so much harder when you have over twenty years of repairs to mend.

I’m not broken, though, I’m perfectly imperfect.

To the Man of My Dreams!

Dear Future Husband,

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. I think it’s easy for my mind to wander to thoughts of you as I see so many of my good friends getting married, celebrating anniversaries, and having babies. I look forward to the day when I get to share those moments with you. There are a few things that I want you to know, and a few promises that I want to make to you now. So, read on.

First of all, I may have you pretty convinced that I am perfect. ;) I assure you that I am not. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and although I haven’t been perfect, I can tell you that I have learned a lot of lessons that have made me a stronger woman. With that being said, I want you to know that I don’t expect you to be perfect; however, with every mistake and wrong turn I hope that you took what you needed from the experiences and became a better man. I want us to be perfectly imperfect together. I hope that you have lived, I mean really lived, because even though we will have a lot of life to enjoy together…I want you to have many memories that you get to look back on. I want to hear all of your stories and become familiar with your adventures. 

Second, I happen to be a happy person overall…but I will have bad days. Let me have them. I will get back to myself without too much delay, but for the moment I may just need to be angry, sad, or a bit crazy. I promise to let you have your space to deal with your stuff as well. I have worked hard at giving myself permission to just feel whatever I’m feeling in that moment and I hope that you will honor that for me, as I will for you.  

Third, I have a lot of crazy ideas and ambitions. As in…I am seriously dedicated to owning an island someday with my cousin. Support me. Celebrate all of my successes with me, and more importantly, celebrate all of my failures as well. Don’t let me give up on me. Inspire me and let me inspire you. Be my biggest cheerleader. Let me fall on my face, but always be there to pick me up. I promise to do the same for you. I want you to dream big, and know that every step of the way I will be there as your biggest fan. I want to create a partnership with you! Do crazy things, be spontaneous, don’t be too serious, be fearless, and dedicated to the life you’ve always dreamed of – and I will do the same.

Fourth, play with our kids. I’m completely okay if you choose to be a bigger kid than them and show them how it’s done. Laugh. Cry. Risk. Show them the balance between having a good time and still creating greatness. Help me instill a respect for those around them, a soft spot for those that need something we may be able to offer, trust in the greater good of humanity, and acceptance of those that seem completely different from them. Tell them every day that they are amazing, talented, and loved. I want them to know that they can conquer the world.   

Fifth, I ask that you dedicate yourself to learning and growing. I don’t care what you are learning about…well as long as it is moral, ethical, and legal…as long as you are learning. I want you to be passionate about becoming the best man that you can be…for you. I am very aware of the fact that I will receive the benefits of this, and that’s why I’m clear that it has to be for you. I will do the same. I will constantly work on being the woman that you deserve, and educating myself in ways that allows me to be the best version of myself for us and for our family.

Sixth, don’t be afraid to tell me anything. I may not always react in the most graceful way, but give me time. I am always on your side and will come around eventually. Tell me your secrets and I will tell you mine. Be open with me, give me feedback that you think I need (especially when I seem to be moving in a direction opposite of where I say I want to go), and allow me to reciprocate. I want you to know the darkest parts of me, so that there is no doubt that you know the real me. In addition, I want to know you. All of you.

Finally, some promises I know I need to make to you now and I ask that you hold me to these. I promise not to punish you for the things in my life that you aren’t responsible for. I promise not to blame you for the hurt that others have caused, and I will do my best every day to just leave it where it belongs…in the past. I promise to love you, even on the days when liking you may seem difficult. I promise to forgive. I promise to let you be the man in our house, and protect and provide for our family. I promise to be loyal, honest, vulnerable, trusting, and faithful in all aspects of our relationship. I promise to give you the space you may need to figure stuff out. I promise to fight every single day for our relationship, as I would much rather fight for you than against you. I promise to respect and honor you. I promise to pray with you and for you. I promise to let you be my Knight in Shining Armor, because I am sure that you won’t let me down.

We have so much to look forward to. I know that our lives are going to be full of adventures, and the journey is going to be one that our grandchildren will appreciate. In the meantime, be good to yourself.

I will see you soon…

Michelle

Life Lessons

I’m horrible at this blogging business. I’d like to say that I’m going to get better at it soon, but if I’m being honest that’s probably not the case. It’s been an interesting year. One where I woke up one day and had no idea how I got to where I was, and then after a lot of reflection I was able to put the pieces together. As one searches for their purpose they can encounter many obstacles that they never thought they’d encounter. Or maybe that was just my experience. I’ve had a lot of moments that I’m not able to take back, and I think the best part is that I wouldn’t want to. 

To recap: I started a journey to sort through where I was and where I wanted to go. I met a man. Ended up in a relationship I never should have been in. Stopped focusing on the journey I set out to be on. The relationship ended and I felt broken. The kind of broken where you get a chance to re-build and construct something new because the only thing that seems to be left are the pieces that you once were familiar with. I had spent a lot of time shut down and finally let someone in thinking the whole time that it was safe. What resulted was my vulnerability being used in a way that wasn’t healthy. However I let that happen. I gave up any kind of power that I had and I let them control more of the situation than I should have. I take full responsibility for my involvement and I learned how to handle things differently and what to avoid in terms of a relationship. 

I know for certain that I am a better, stronger person on the other side of this. I realized that I struggle with feeling loved. I think that the biggest driving force is to love and be loved in return, and when we don’t feel that, I think we set out to find it. Or we avoid it, which is something that I have found I am insanely good at…as in, if it were an Olympic sport I’d get the gold medal every time. This is what I know, I AM LOVED. In ways that I didn’t even realize and the only way for me to really see it was to go through many interesting experiences. I have some of the best friends in the whole world that love me, unconditionally. There is nothing that I could do to ruin these friendships, because they support me 100% – even when they don’t agree with the decisions I’ve made.  Hell, I don’t agree with all the decisions I made, but there’s nothing that can be done to change what’s happened already. The best part is that I love them the same way. 

I know that in order for other people to value me, I MUST value myself first. It’s interesting that what you put up with, you end up with. If you want a loyal and honest relationship, then don’t allow someone to come into your life on terms that don’t align with that. The more you value yourself, the more those around you will value you. If you don’t see your value, find someone who consistently sees you bigger than you see yourself, and borrow their perspective for a while. It helps.

I have learned that forgiveness is priceless. I think it’s important to forgive those around you for anything they may have done to you; although, I prefer to say that they were things they did for me. This forgiveness doesn’t make the behavior or experience acceptable; it simply allows you to move on to bigger and better things. We all deserve bigger and better things. Also, in forgiving someone else it doesn’t mean that you have to keep them in your life. It simply means you free yourself from a prison that only you know you are in. 

At the end of the day, though, the most important person you can forgive is yourself. No matter how big or small the mistake, you don’t deserve to spend the rest of your life beating yourself up about it. You deserve to let it go. Don’t allow any experience to have so much power over you that it takes away from the greatness of your future. I’m responsible for my actions, and I am responsible for the forgiveness I allow myself to give and receive, even if the receiving only comes from me. It is liberating to take responsibility; it’s powerful beyond measure. In addition, forgiveness brings peace that can be experienced no other way.

So, after learning all of that I think one of the lessons I wasn’t expecting was this: I know that I’m a catch. I believe that a relationship can be everything you desire it to be. I want to be with a man who is authentic, operates from integrity, giving, receptive, trustworthy, trusting, loving, kind, driven, faithful, and someone who adores me. In return, I will ensure that this man knows he is the most incredible man on the planet. I want to create a partnership with him and create a life that we can both be proud of. Life is meant to be shared, and I’m looking forward to that. 

So maybe, just maybe, being broken was necessary. Maybe I needed to know that I am loved, valuable, and that the power of forgiveness pertains to me as well. Maybe I needed to finally understand that I am a catch, and that I can have whatever it is that I choose. I choose to have an amazing life…because I know I’m worth that!