Today is a day that I'll most likely never forget. A year ago, I made a change that has forever changed my life. Many friends and some family members, are probably not aware of the critical and scary situations I've proposed onto myself. Of course, one of those situations would be remembered this May, but that's not what I want to talk about now.
I made a choice to end a very deep and important relationship. That choice changed way more about me than any other decision I have ever made. I took a good strong look at myself. There were a lot of things I needed to work on; a lot of issues and problems and ideas and feelings that either I didn't deal with, or even acknowledge. Many of the things that I learned caused me to feel stupid. I felt stupid because it just seemed like some of the most basic human characteristics that any natural normal adult should have gained by the time they were in their 30s. I find it unfortunate that I didn't learn it till now. Not just unfortunate for me, but for those around me, including (but not limited to) the relationship that I had ended just one year ago.
One of these tools to the basics of life that I learned was planing; having goals. Back in April, I wrote about how I had only 10 dollars in my account. I'm proud to say that I have quite a bit more than that in my checking, and 3 different savings. I've made goals and plans that I'm slowly fulfilling on a financial level. I have a roof over my head, and food in the fridge. I've got a job. That right there was a huge daunting task that lifted a lot off of my shoulders. I'm finally more self-sufficient.
All of these accomplishments are just things; natural survival and growing tools that I probably should have learned awhile ago, but was too stubborn to absorb from my life experiences. On a more deeper level, I've gained patience. Well, hold on, I've gained more patience. Not a lot patience, but I at least have various friends and strangers fooled into thinking that I'm patient. I've learned how to actually deal with my emotions. One of my major personal flaws was not dealing with my feelings. I tried to mask it, hide, bury it. Whatever I had to do to NOT deal with the pain or the hurt or whatever dysfunctional or irrational feeling I had, I would do it. Now? Now I calmly allow those feelings to eb and flow through me. I experience it, analyze why I'm feeling that way and decide if it's a healthy thing to deal with or if I'm actually being just overly sensitive and stupid. I'm sure there's still some growing there, but the brunt of it was brutal.
I've had to completely reprogram my brain and rewire my thinking and theories. At one point, (you ready for this?) I had been childish and immature enough to believe that I wouldn't do a job unless it was fun. Well, last year proved my idiocy as I had to realize that sometimes we have to do things that aren't fun, so that we can survive and eventually do things that can be fun. I can't just continue on that life path and expect the world to just open up without putting in the effort. Having a direction finally into where I want to go, what I want to do, or at least attempt, makes me feel better about myself.
Which leads me to my last major change; self worth. I had gotten so low, and would continue to do so, well after the breakup a year ago. I had so little self confidence and self worth in myself that I ended a romance that I later (despite what I had written prior to this) would regret. There's a lot of what ifs and if I's and all of that crap floating there. But the truth is, I had to learn first how to be healthy for myself before I could be healthy in a relationship. My lack of inner strength was not attractive; my constant degrading of myself and my accomplishments (which I DO have, thankyouverymuch); all of those were completely unhealthy and misguided. I had to literally rebuild myself internally and recognize that I'm important.
Sure sure, family and friends love me, and care for me, and enjoy having me in their lives and I'm important to them. But unless you believe you are important to yourself, you really start to fall down a very deep, and horrible rabbit hole. It becomes very difficult to find hope, and to change yourself when you're at the bottom of that hole.
Through all of this, my dependency on God and my religious beliefs got stronger. I realized that I had to be broken to be built stronger. I had heard that when a bone breaks, where it heals, is actually stronger than before. I hope that's true, cause that's how I felt on all fronts.
I'm still struggling with somethings, but overall, I've had one crazy insane year. Crazy enough, that year was a learning experience, even up to now; as I sit with my ankle sprained.
And real quick; this sprained ankle of mine, added so much more insight than I ever thought was possible. The timing of this small event, is very odd to me, but really added so much more to my level of understanding.
So ya, here's to Year One.
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