The Storm

I have thought about this post for a long time. Re-written it many times over in my head. Feelings are so hard to put into words. The things that happen to us in life are hard to explain to others. Sometimes all you can say is I hope you never have to go through it.

There are many days in a girl's life that she looks forward to. We plan our whole lives for these days. We dream about what will happen, how we will feel, and we think about the people that will surround us on these days to share in our joy, love, and excitement. When these days finally happen, and you get to experience them, you forever remember every detail.

Tomorrow marks one of those days for me. Tomorrow is my 11 year wedding anniversary. It has been 11 years since I stood before God, family, and friends and promised my best friend that no matter what happened, no matter where life took us, we would be together forever. Now keep in mind, when you're young and in love, you never see those things that are in the future.You can't think of the worst case scenario. All you can do is hope that no matter what comes your way, you can weather the storm together.

I sit here 11 years later with tears streaming down my face, because for the first time in 11 years, we won't be celebrating this day. We will be boxing up half of our house. I am sitting in the living room writing this surrounded by boxes and tape that will hold the things that once held memories for us. The life that we built together. I once heard it said that men move on, and for years to come, women are sitting still trying to figure out where everything went wrong. I would completely believe this to be true, I have replayed the events of the past 2 years over and over again in my head. Only to come back to the same conclusion- there are some things in life you just cannot fix, no matter how hard you try.

Someone told me that if you keep staring at a closed door, you'll miss what's on the other side. The better stuff to come. For me, it isn't about starring at the closed door that's the problem. It is walking through that door and closing it in the first place. How do you make that decision? How do you say that it is okay to walk away from a life you have built with someone for 11 years? Some of my friends have walked away from their marriages and never looked back- a lesson learned. I can't see it this way. This is the person you were going to be with until the day you died. I remember sliding his ring on his finger and talking about how love was a never ending circle just like our rings with no beginning and no end. That ring (love) was the foundation to build all our hopes and dreams on. Just somewhere along the way, they lost their sparkle, they became more fragile from wear, and there were no hopes and dreams left.

Over the past 2 years, I have read many blogs on getting through the rough patch in your marriage, rebuilding your marriage,  and moving on and starting over. What I have learned is no 2 stories are alike, no one can tell you how to feel, and no one can do this for you. You truly break completely.You have to feel every emotion. You have to create a whole new inside, because after so long, you have become a wife, a mother, an employee. You don't even recognize yourself anymore. Maybe this is the thing that had to happen for you to find out who you are again. Maybe this is the thing that makes you stronger. Maybe this helps you become who you are suppose to be. I just know that when you are walking through it, you just do the best you can. You hold on to the good things, the few laughs and smiles you have, and at some point, you start living again...

Any day now....

" And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure the storm is really over. But one thing is certain, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what the storm is all about."

Earthquakes

Have you ever had that day where you wish you could just go back to bed and start over? What about a whole week? a whole month? What about a year? People say God doesn't put anything in your life that you aren't strong enough to handle. Do you believe this is true? If that is true does this mean we don't really know ourselves at all? Maybe this means God has more faith in us than we have in ourselves. And at times, more faith than we have in Him. Sometimes, life just falls apart and you have no clue how to put it back together. And you wish you could just start over... start over when everything was picture perfect... start over to where your dreams were coming true... start over to where everything was color instead of living in a suddenly black and white world. 

Sometimes, life changes by a phone call, an email, a decision, or a feeling. That feeling you have in the pit of your stomach where suddenly know something isn't right. This is that moment you wish you could rewind your life back to. Maybe even just 5 minutes before this feeling hit. 

I'm gonna pause here and say... this is where I was raised that how you handle each situation shows what kind of person you are. We need to watch how we handle things because other people are always watching. We don't want them talking about us, or even better, we are "Christians" and we should make sure to shine our light in every situation.

So what happens when the feeling hits, how do you handle your world falling apart? How do you handle your world going black and white? But more importantly, how do you put your picture perfect life back together?

Someone once told me... It is at these times, we realize what is most important to us in this life. We realize for the first time ever, that things can be gone in a split second. And these times, mold us and shape into who we become. In these moments, you stand or you fall. You decide what is truly worth fighting for. You, maybe for the first time ever, realize who you really are.  

You see, somewhere along the way, I lost track. I forgot. I think as women, this happens most often and so much more easily to us. Usually, we grow up with this fairy tale dream. When it comes true, we give over our identity and become one with another. Then, if you're lucky, you become a mother. You're no longer just someone's daughter. Someone's wife. Now, you are and forever will be, someone's mother. It doesn't really shock me that we would forget that we have a voice. That we matter. That we should stand up for whoever we want to be. But life often takes its toll. Whether it be, because our dreams didn't come true, life just didn't turn out as planned, or we just completely forget who we are.

That day... the day the feeling started, I found out who I was. I found out who and what mattered. I found out what I was willing to fight for. I found out, I could break. How easily I could break. I found out how fragile my whole world really was. In those moments of being completely shattered, my entire life stopped and turned black and white. 

I would like to tell you that this journey over the past several months has become easier. I would love to say that the terrible feeling only happened once and went away. I would love to say that everything has resumed full color, and along with it,its picture perfect quality. Sadly, I would be lying if I said any of that.

What I can tell you... I don't take anything for granted. That day began the voyage of finding out who I really am. That day, I decided I was going to fight for what mattered most to me... what I had spent my whole life building. 

Standing at a fork in the road, wondering what each path holds. I can't say yet what lies ahead. I don't know that it will ever have the amazing picture I had before. I don't know that I wouldn't fall apart again. I don't know that the terrible feeling won't return. What I do know, is whatever this path holds, it was that path I decided to take. It was the path I was going to fight for. It was the journey, that regardless what was at the end, I was going to take. Daily, the bumps scare me. Daily, they make me afraid that my road will crumble. Daily, I see the odds against me. But I choose whatever lies ahead. And I hope that maybe I don't have that perfectly colored picture that I once had. I hope, that despite the lines and dreams that have faded and changed over time, it will make the picture that much more perfect. It will have weathered any storm. It's a picture that has stood the test of time. That it will be some much greater than I ever imagined. It will be worth the fight. And just maybe, I will have discovered exactly who I was suppose to become along the way. 

“All of life is a journey which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us. We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there.”

Fairy Tale vs. Reality

I wonder if Cinderella ever woke up after Prince Charming swept her off her feet to a crazy life.....

Today, a friend of mine asked if she should go to Florida to see a guy she just started dating who is in the military. They recently started dating before he got transferred. Because most of me is a a hopeless romantic and as Rosie O'Donnell once put it"wants to be in love in a movie", I told her to go. I told her she would never know if it was love if she didn't. He could walk away and he could be the one. She would spend the rest of her life wondering what could have been. Everyone else, of course, told her not to go. It was crazy for her to drive for 8 hours to spend 2 days to see some guy that she may never see again.

As I sit here in write this in my tiny house rocking from the wind outside, I still sit thinking of what could become of a fantasy relationship for her. But as I am surrounded by toys, laundry, dishes, and some aches of everyday life, I realize she will return to reality. Love will only make her float so high.

I have begun to wake up from the fantasy dream cloud I prefer to live my life on. It seems like I have received a list from each direction of I have turned of who I am and who I have become. Some of which, I am proud. A lot of which, I am not. A lot of which, I hoped to never become. The scariest part, not knowing how to fix it and scarred to death that I'll change it too late.

Do all fairy tales come to an end? Do we just wake up one day and find ourselves in a reality of our own making? You see, what I didn't say about my friend and her struggle about following her heart to Florida is she has been married 3 times. She has had her heart broken 3 times. And somewhere inside, she still finds the strength to believe in love. So, to all those hopeless romantics, I guess regardless what happens, Cinderella's story never ends.....

"Once in awhile, in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale."

~Author Unknown

Almost 9 months later....

I can honestly say looking back over this year, I properly titled this blog. So much has happened since my last blog - a house, celebrated 7 years of marriage, and welcomed a baby into our new home. We do not tend to do things the simple way. We don't just get one puppy, we get two. We don't buy a house that has a firm foundation, but one that has to be loaded on a big truck, moved through a semi-forest, and resettled. Why would a baby be any different? We didn't wait the typical 9 months for a beautiful baby. Now, don't take that wrong, we have been waiting a very long time for our baby, but he didn't come along as many expect. It all began with a simple phone call which began many months of tears, excitement, and memories. Some days, I have to pinch myself to make sure I am awake and some days, I am so afraid of getting up and finding out it was all too good to be true. I guess that is human nature to believe that something this amazing was too great to be true.

I guess I can say with all of the above, I am tired. There are days I just feel like sitting down and crying. There are days I feel like running so far away not because I am not happy but because the world seems to small. Sometimes, I feel as though life begins to take us over and we wake up without a voice. Hello? Do you hear me? If you know me, I am not very good at expressing my anger. It usually comes across as either I'm crazy or I just sound ridiculious because I can't put it into words. Do you ever feel like saying, "It's my turn! Did you forget me?" Do you ever feel life just slipping by while you just hang on. Do you ever wake up and say, "This is not what I had pictured for my life." We find ourselves going through each day to only get to the next one. I go to bed and question what I did and what I should have done better. How could I be a better mom? Did I make any mistakes today that I have to check into tomorrow? Did I get the record done today? I want to be that wife who makes an amazing dinner and bakes cookies with her children to take to school the next day. I am so blessed to be a mom of such an amazing baby boy. I want him to have a wonderful experience growing up. Most of all, it has gone by so fast, I don't want to miss a single second. Growing up, you always think you are going to be that amazing mom who can do it all.

I don't really have one certain idea for this blog. This is just a bunch of feelings and hopes for the rest of the year. For the rest of 2010...oh the possibilities.

"The best things in life are unexpected-
because there were no expectations."
-Eli Khamarov

Beard Shavings, Sticky Note, and a Gallon of Milk

Do you ever have those days where you are just mad at the world? Where you just want to punch someone for wearing stupid lime green pants? Where it seems like everything you do just seems to make you angrier and angrier?

Today was that day for me. As my mother-in-law would put it, my panties are in a complete bunch and just keep winding tighter. You would think that I got the worst news of my life. You would think that I didn't sleep last night. You might even think that I had gotten into a fight with my best friend. None of this happened. I can't even tell you one specific thing that lead to my panties wadding up. I guess because it was a line of events. It began with a conversation with a co-worker, that lead to a discussion with a patient, and then I began to realize my name tag no longer had my name on it. It had Dumb Butt engraved on it for the world to see. Not because I don't know how to do my job but because it seems as though the world decided to treat me as though I knew how to do nothing. They decided to explain things to me like I had not taken any of the steps that I know I should follow. Another patient literally came in with a sticky note with a deadline on it of something she needed completed. I faxed it in my final 15 minutes. Trying to think of what I was going to do when I got home to make myself feel better, I began to think about what to make for dinner. I realized it would require a gallon of milk. I messaged a family member, who mind you was off today, if they had gotten some. They are also the person who will drink half the gallon as soon as you get in the door with it. I got a response of no they hadn't as they proceeded to thank me for getting it. Then, I came home to beard shavings all over the bathroom sink. I was so mad. I threw a towel or two. Not because a beard shaving means a lot, but because it was one more thing to add to my day. I walked out of the bathroom to hear "hello, how was your day?" I did not respond. Just walked in my bedroom and shut the door. I am mad and for this moment want to continue to be angry. No one was getting off that easy.

So, now I am sitting on my bed watching Friends. It makes me smile. So, I am going to shut off my phone, watch Friends, and have dinner complete with the milk I purchased on my way home. The world with begin just to disappear in the distance. Tomorrow is always new with no mistakes in it. So, tomorrow, I will start over with a better attitude.

"I watch out my window as the planes take off into space. Oh, that I could fly away and start fresh. But I must realize that fresh starts also come in the pretty wrapped gift called 'tomorrow'."
-Unknown