Just Friends

I’ll always remember the first time we met. I was having one of those days where everything was going wrong. Quite frankly, it was one of those weeks. I had a “friend” out visiting with intentions to move in with me, and it all slowly deteriorated from there. (Which in hindsight should have been a sign that living together would be an awful idea, and yet I have a bad habit of not paying attention to those signs. Anyway…) I went and got a massage from a good friend who then wanted to introduce me to her favorite Sunday breakfast spot. And that is where we met. He was dressed in his all black uniform. He had a killer smile. And from the very first interaction I knew he was going to be a part of my life. I also knew that I could trust him. I wanted him to be my friend.

In our initial meeting he found out I was moving to a different part of town and naturally he would happen to have a moving company. He helped me move. We eventually became friends. And a few months later we would have our first kiss after a night out on the town in downtown Portland. Eventually he would become one of my closest friends. And once I let the walls come down and let him in…I wanted to be around him all the time. I never told him that. I never told him that I was drawn to him. That I felt some kind of way. We were just friends.

I think the thing I regret the most was never telling him the truth. Never telling him how I felt. Eventually our lives became super intertwined. We shared friends. We all hung out. His best friend’s girl friend became my best friend. Everyone thought we were together. We weren’t. We were just friends.

One night the four of us went out. It was mentioned multiple times that people thought we were together that night. What was supposed to be a short night for me turned in to an all-nighter. We were driving to the last bar and he held my hand the whole way there. Which he had done before when we were in the car. While we were there he stood behind me with his arms wrapped around me until I was ready to go. On the way home we drove by a spot where you can climb to the top of this property and overlook the entire city. So we stopped. We stood at the top of the property, freezing cold at 2am, talking and wrapped around each other. We told each other how much we wanted for the other person. We wanted the other person to be happy, to be loved, to experience success, to be held when life was tough, and cheered on when they were going for something big. We wanted to be apart of whatever that would look like. He kissed me again that night. But we were just friends.

You see…what I never told him was that when things were hard and my heart was hurting, I just wanted him to hug me. When my grandma died he’s the only one I wanted to talk to. When I wasn’t sure what to do or what decisions to make about my life, I wanted to talk through everything with him. When I wanted to go out and goof off…I wanted him with me. When I wanted to just hang out and not think too much about life…I wanted him with me. When my people came to town to visit, it was always super important to me that he met them. My parents even questioned what was going on between us based on how we interacted. When people asked us how long we had been together when we were out, I’d roll my eyes, but secretly be begging him to see what they saw. I needed him and I didn’t even realize how much I did until he was gone. Because we were just friends.

He started dating someone that I just couldn’t find myself to like. Someone that our entire group of friends didn’t like. Someone that felt like the worst fit for him. Maybe it was easy to feel that way because I didn’t want her to be. We argued a lot about her. There was no question about where I stood and voicing my opinion created a wedge between us that completely destroyed what we had created. We went from being involved in each other’s lives, knowing what the other person was up to, asking each other for feedback, and involving each other in our future plans…to not speaking. I was slowly losing my friend.

The last time I saw him our conversation was forced and awkward. We both acknowledged that we knew nothing about each other anymore, and we have since justified that sometimes that’s how things go. He asked me if I could go somewhere to talk privately, and I declined because I knew the harsh reality of where the conversation would go. I got up to leave and as he hugged me I started crying, because I think it was then that the reality of what was gone hit me. I asked him to not let go until I could gather myself. He squeezed me tighter. He held me until I told him I was okay. I was okay enough to get to the car. Then I sat and sobbed with my best friend. We weren’t really friends anymore.

Our paths missed each other by a few weeks many months later. And as much as I believed that our meeting was serendipitous, I feel like I needed to believe missing each other was the same. Our text communication was even more strained than the last time we saw each other. I called my friend Kathleen, crying once again, and for the first time I admitted what I never could admit before. I loved him. And not just that “Hey pal, you’re important to me. I love you, dude.” But rather my whole heart was in love with him. When I called our mutual best friend, she simply said…It’s about time you admit it. I waited. I missed an opportunity. I lost him with out ever really having him. He still doesn’t know. Or maybe he knows but he’s never actually heard the words come out of my mouth…because we were just friends.

I always hoped that somehow we’d find our way back together as serendipitously as I felt we found each other in the first place. And yet, life doesn’t always work like that. There are days when I wish things were so different. I wish I could talk to him as openly as we used to. I wish that he was talking me through some of the heartbreak and struggle that is currently happening. I wish so much for things to be different. I miss him terribly. He does know that. I sometimes wish to find myself wrapped in his arms on top of that overlook, and both of us realizing that we are meant to be something so much more. And even with all of the wishing, I’m doing my very best to trust where things are at. That this is it and it is perfect. And the truth is…for me…we were never just friends.

I will always think of him and wish him well. I hope he finds everything he’s looking for, that he’s happy, and that life brings him more adventure than he ever could have dreamed of. And if for some crazy reason life brings us back together, then okay. And if not, I’m still grateful for the time that we had as friends.  

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.

Doing The Best We Can

All of my posts seem to come from conversations. They spark a lot of thoughts that roam around in my head until I get rid of them in some fashion. I talk to my cousin every day about pretty much everything. We go to each other for advice and for understanding. She gets me and knows me quite well. We’ve talked on a regular basis since I was about 13 and almost every day for the last couple of years. She’s easily one of my best friends and I consider her a HUGE blessing. I’m very lucky.

Anyway, as we were texting about various relationships today I said to her, “He’s doing the best he can with what he has.” By that I mean that this person really is trying to bring as much as they can to the friendship with the information that they have. Which is what we all do. We all give as much as we can to our friends, family, and relationships the best that we can, with the experiences we’ve had and what we’ve learned from them. Sometimes that may include the willingness to give 100% of ourselves up front without any hesitation. In other situations we may be more guarded and reluctant to be open, and every now and then that reluctance is sparked from something as simple as being reminded of a past character in our lives. I have a bad habit of assuming someone will be a certain way, simply because they remind me of someone from my past. As we all are aware…assuming isn’t always a good thing. I’m sure I’ve missed out on some great friendships due to this very assumption.

As for myself, because I can really only speak for myself, I have spent a good portion of my life keeping people at arm’s length. As long as people don’t get too close then they can’t hurt me. Then when I have let people in completely, I ensure that I provide ample opportunity for them to do just that. One of my very best guy friends tried to kiss me a few years ago, and I did everything I could to completely destroy our friendship after that. And I was SO talented at the whole sabotage thing, that it only took me about a week. I spent every day with this person for 6 months and had been friends for well over a year and a half. As soon as I thought there may be a shift I went into destruction mode. It was terrifying. The worst part, is that he knew me so well that he could use all of my weaknesses against me and he did, just as I feared he would. I don’t blame him. I set him up for that, and did so very successfully if I do say so myself! He and I have become friends again, but I don’t think it will ever be possible for us to be as close as we were.

I don’t spend a lot of time beating myself up because of that experience, nor am I so frustrated and angry with him. The reality is that I was simply doing the best I could, and so was he. I don’t think we intentionally set out to hurt each other, actually I know we didn’t; however, it definitely ended that way. I miss him and our friendship…a lot. I have taken full responsibility for my behavior. I don’t know if things would be different today if I wouldn’t have become a crazy person and we will never know. I have learned a lot and now I get to move forward.

That’s what I think it’s all about. It’s about us doing the best that we can with what we know, and then adjusting as we experience and learn new thing…if we choose to. It’s not something that can be forced. Nor is it something that we can wake up from one day and be ‘healed’ of what we may consider to be brokenness. I don’t think any of us are ‘broken,’ even if we may feel like that way, I simply think we are a work in progress. We choose to learn and grow, or not. No one is forcing us to do anything differently. However, I am sure that you are not any closer to where you want to be by doing the same thing you’ve always done.

I encourage all of my friends to choose more. I challenge you to learn and grow and become the person that you were always meant to be. Forgive yourself as quickly as possible, and take note of what you weren’t so thrilled with so you don’t choose that path again. Move forward, move on, and move up. Be the best version of yourself possible, and keep doing the best that you can. Besides…that’s all we were intended to do anyway.

Transitions are fun!

Have you ever had that extreme sense that a lot of changes were coming? So extreme that you're a little scared, because it isn't clear what all of these changes may be and what they would mean. 

Yup. That's where I'm at. I'm not clear on the specifics and I don't know what the next year is going to look like. I can guarantee that the last 12 months have looked nothing like I would have predicted. So I'm in the middle. Exploring the unknown. And trusting that whatever happens is in my best interest, and will benefit those that I love dearly. Trust. It's what I struggle with the most. Here's to letting go and being clear on the end result. 

To be honest, the end result for the time being isn't completely planned either...but I know this, I want to be happy. And that's the path I'm on. The one that leads to the kind of happiness that radiates out of my being. The kind of happiness that depends on me, and that doesn't depend on outside forces 'making me happy,' that's not real anyway. No one or nothing can 'make' me happy. This is on me. And it's going to be one hell of an exciting, fun ride! Here's to the next year...may it be SO much better than the last one. 

Exposed...Kinda. Ha!

I was challenged by a good friend of mine to post some pictures on Facebook that I had taken of me, and while that may have sounded like a good idea...I on the other hand thought it was a terrible idea. Mainly because I was genuinely concerned that I would offend someone or bug one of my 'friends' on there. Then I decided to blog about it, because I’d have an easy topic to write about! So…two birds, one stone!

My whole life I have struggled with my weight. I’ve been up and down since my senior year in HS and I’m going to say that’s because for the first time in my life I was down. I have a love/hate relationship with food and when I get sad I have this habit of eating my feelings. And sometimes…I have A LOT of feelings. The summer before my senior year I worked two full-time retail jobs in Colorado, and got small enough that people that had known me my whole life didn’t recognize me when I moved back to Kansas.

(That's me on the left)

Then my grandpa died. And I healed myself through food and lots of alcohol. The only way I could sleep after he died, and not have dreams about him, was to go to bed drunk. After about 8 months of that I gained around 40 pounds. Then the ultimate struggle began, because even though I had quit drinking I couldn’t seem to get rid of the weight. That’s when I started trying every fad diet I could think of and failing miserably as I lost weight and then gained it again.

Last year I decided I was going to do something different and worked really hard to get to the smallest that I’ve been in my teen/adult life. I was working out with a trainer, was super careful about what I ate, and drank a ton of water. I did all of the things that you’re supposed to do in order to see results, and I did. No fad diets, no starving myself, and no working out in the gym 4 hours a day. This was the result.

As I was doing all of this, I was playing a 90 day game and my coach (Melissa Tucker) challenged me to have some boudoir photos taken. Well, for anyone that knows me…I’m a pretty modest person. I prefer to keep as much covered as possible, at all times. I accepted the challenge, although, I did my version of boudoir photos, still modest and yet still a little more revealing than normal for me.

I’ve never been comfortable in my own skin, but when I look at these pictures I am reminded that I am a beautiful woman. I don’t have a perfect body, and after a few months of eating my feelings at the beginning of this year I have some progress to make up for, but I am still beautiful. I don’t have to be perfect, and I don't have to be the size that I have decided is necessary to be loved. I am loved and enough just the way I am. So, here you go. Here are some of the pictures that I had taken, and surprisingly enough...I actually like most of the pictures that were sent back to me. (Photos compliments of Shay Nuttall.)

 

 

 

 

Note to Self:

Such an amazing reminder. I need to worry about me first, because others benefit from me a lot more when I'm on solid ground.