Off the Rails

I used to cry.

Just cry.

When asked why I was crying, I responded, “I don’t know!”

Sometimes I could point to a reason for the sadness, mostly not. I really didn’t know, because in addition to being born three months premature, I was taught to ‘suck it up and move on’.

The problem with shoving down feelings and emotions. Let me start over, since I’m being brutally honest and not trying to be a writer that appeals to many…

The PROBLEMS with shoving down feelings and emotions all my life were many. (Please notice that I used past-tense in that sentence).

In my life, they manifested as overeating, low self-esteem, confusing sex with love, a tendency towards addictive behavior, anxiety, depression, loneliness, afraid to love, and thinking I wasn’t good enough to be loved. I refer to those feelings as darkness, beasts, or the voices in my head.

Damn, I was a train wreck! Off the rails!

Especially since I constantly looked for individuals and situations that validated my poor self-image. When I found them, I couldn’t figure out why I went down the same road, with the same endings, over, and over, and over again.

Nobody knew what was going on in my head except me. I was ashamed. Writing it down here makes it real, and much less scary.

Then enter my Love. He was different.

I’ve written that he broke me, the me I thought I was, because he did. He broke my heart wide open. To love, accept love, talk, actually talk about my feelings, my fears, trauma, to voice and examine my anxiety. He lit up the dark, and coaxed the cowering beasts out of the shadows

He forced me out of my darkness and up into the light of day.

Fast forward: He died and it shattered my heart.

Again.

But the difference that I chose to see, even through agonizing internal grief that I thought would break me, was that if I continued down into darkness again, I would not survive.

My grief had to be changed from internal to external. I had to allow myself to feel it until it passed. Embrace it as thankfulness for being loved. Gratefulness that I was able to feel so deeply. ALLOWED myself to feel.

The external mourning became the catalyst that is putting my heart back together.

Allowing healing.

I decided:

That I have endured enough suffering in my lifetime. I have experienced a great deal of loss.

It’s time to heal, to be the me my Love knew I was, helped me to be. I miss the me I was when I was with him.

I will still cry. Mourn. Heal.

I will love my Love. Forever.

But life is not a competition.

This train is back on the rails and waiting for the next destination!

XO Lisa