fault – A Graceful Catastrophe

I have about a 4 minute drive to my gym. That’s it. It’s through my neighborhood and across the street. Today, those 4 beautiful minutes brought me a realization that rattled me so hard, that I cried.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend and he asked me the following: “If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be? Be selfish, say exactly what comes to your mind.”

So, I did exactly that. I told him: “To be enough.”

His response was to ask for clarification. Did I mean for myself or for others. I told him, “Both.”

This interaction has weighed heavily on my mind, for obvious reasons. It was an incredibly vulnerable moment.

A week ago, I did the Manitou Springs incline with my bestie. While spending the morning together, many topics came up, of course. We’re friends, with busy lives and rarely get quality time like that. So we chat non-stop – even when we can’t breathe because we’re climbing almost 3,000 steps. *chuckling* Anyway, the topic of me not feeling like I’m enough came up.

And it’s haunted me since.

Then, like a lightning strike to my core, in a bitty little 4 minute drive this morning, out of the freaking blue, it hit me. I am enough.

I AM ENOUGH! *grinning like an idiot* I really am. *cue the tears*

It hit me like a ton of bricks, seriously. I was listening to a song…and then I was crying. And smiling. I can’t even remember the song.

I’ve always been enough. I’ve always been enough for me and for others around me. It was him who made me feel otherwise. It’s always been my ex. That’s not my issue – it was his perception that he reflected back at me. Perhaps it is he that feels that he isn’t enough? And he projected that onto me for years?!

Who knows. All I know now, after reflecting back on who I have been, especially in the last month or two, is that someone wouldn’t be as raw and authentic as I have been if they struggled with self-worth, or with feeling like they’re enough.

My interactions are pure. And if you don’t like what I say, what I believe, who I am, then it’s really no skin off my back. You see, I have this phrase that I love, “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the orchard and there’s still going to be someone who doesn’t like peaches.” If someone doesn’t enjoy your company, it probably has more to do with them than it does with you.

Because you are enough. And so am I.

I don’t see it as rejection and I don’t take it personally if somebody stops talking to me. It’s their prerogative to walk away. And it has more to do with them than it does with me. Because if it were really about me, and they cared enough, they’d approach me, talk with me, ask me the hard questions, and value the conversation. Like my bestie did last week. If they just walk away, then it’s not about me, and I don’t internalize it.

If I didn’t, deep down, think that I was enough, that wouldn’t be my response. It’d eat me up inside. I’d take it personally and something inside of me would be devastated.

But I am so secure with who I am that I’m pretty much completely unaffected. I mean, am I sad that I’ve lost friends? Sure. But, that’s all a part of life. Some people are just in your life for a season. And that’s just fine. I get it. Sometimes the friendship comes back full circle and if it does, wonderful! But for now, it’s like, I shrug my shoulders and move on. I’m done fighting to shove a square peg in a round hole. You don’t like peaches? Cool. Seriously. I’m not going to jam them down your throat or disguise them in a smoothie. *shrug*

So, I cried. Because I’m free! I’m finally free of the bricks that have been weighing me down, that I allowed my ex to place on me, one brick at a time, over the years. I never realized they were there, as there was such a subtle (and, at times, not so subtle) art of putting them into place.

Those closest to me have spent a lot of energy trying to take those bricks off. Telling me that I’m enough. But I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wrap my head around how I could be enough when it had been ages since his actions showed me that I was enough. And then, for him to betray me? Insult to injury. Of course I wasn’t enough.

That was my thought process. Anything they said to tell me otherwise, was erased when he reinforced my thoughts by showing me that I wasn’t enough for him. Actions speak louder than words, don’t they? I wasn’t valued. So, that was my fault. Because surely I couldn’t have been enough or else we could’ve had one conversation without his phone in his hand (for example).

But – I am enough. And I always have been. I see that now. Geez…finally!

All of my actions are of someone who really doesn’t care what others think – because deep down inside, I’ve always known that I’m enough. I just had to dig my own way out from under the pile of bricks. I’m not out to behave in a way just so that it pleases you. I’m me. And I’m a delightfully juicy peach.

Or, as my friend told me. I’m not the free salsa. I’m the damn delicious cheese dip you probably pay way too much for.

Because I’m worth it.

Today was a pretty good day. I chose my mindset when I opened my eyes, though the first hour or so was still pretty difficult. I’d had a dream last night that my (ex) husband and I were getting back together. Just as he was pulling me in for a hug, it all hit me and I pulled away quickly with the sad realization that we could never be an “us” again. And then I woke up.

I only slept about 4 hours last night but barely felt tired today. This is new for me. I used to be chronically ill, filled with constant pain and incredible fatigue. I’d sleep 12 or 13 hours and never feel awake or rested, then I’d have to go teach middle schoolers their math lessons, then come home and try to function until I’d finally collapse at my daughter’s bedtime, sometimes still fully dressed in my work clothes.

These years, where I was a “bad wife,” are thrown in my face as the beginning of the end. It’s hard for me to hear that, though I know I was a pretty terrible wife then. I just had nothing left in me. While I felt immense guilt, there was nothing I could do. For over 4 years I saw doctor after doctor who ran test after test. Eventually, they chalked it up to stress and implied it was all in my head. I was barely hanging on and then on top of that, felt awful for failing miserably as a wife, which I was reminded about. Often. It was my fault.

Fault is an interesting concept. On Earth, faults form as the Earth’s crust deforms due to stress (according to Quora here). In my world, fault was assigned due to stress. Being married to someone who has an invisible and mysterious chronic illness is not easy. It’s hard to understand. And when that someone is like me, someone really good at bucking up and faking it when needed, it just doesn’t look all that bad. So, from the outside, compassion isn’t really necessary, as nothing appears all that wrong. It just ends up looking a lot like a wife that doesn’t care.

Fault lines are surely different sizes, I’d imagine. The greater the stress, the greater the divide. My world now has a fault line so great, nothing could bridge the gap. But it didn’t start that way. My world now has 2 sides, the before and the after. The fault line has been steadily growing wider, year after year. I naively always thought it’d be passable. With time and effort, a strong enough bridge could be built and the memory of the gap would fade.

The thing about these fault lines that we all have is that most of us remember the exact date the bridge crumbled because the gap finally widened too far. It splits our history into the before and after. There’s no going back, nothing to unite the two sides once again.

I have two world-shattering fault lines that irrevocably transformed my life and a new me had to be defined. I survived the first, though it wasn’t pretty and many mistakes were made. I know I’ll survive this one, too, and hopefully with a lot more grace and a lot less mistakes along the way.

Take a minute and think about your world shattering fault line(s). Who were you before your world shattering news? Who are you now? Can you define several new strengths you now have, thanks to having to stare down that stress?

I was talking with a friend tonight and she’d mentioned how she compared her position in life, battling with her own earth shattering catastrophe, to those lives she saw on social media. It upset her and quickly led her down the “why me” path. She’s not alone. People do that all the time because a simple truth is forgotten: we all are weathering a storm. Coming with that reminder, the realization that life is easy for no one, she commented that she wishes life would just be easy.

But honestly, where would that get us? Life is not meant to be easy. We are meant to be challenged. We are meant to constantly grow and adapt, to discover new strengths that can only exist after trudging through the worst catastrophes.

So, I remind myself, and any of you who may need it, of two very important things:

we are all battling a storm, desperately trying to not get struck by lightning or be carried away by a tornado, and
if we do get lost in the storm, fried by lightning, buried in an avalanche…we are all strong enough to get out.

Like I said, today I’m in a good place. My mindset is focused on the good. While I’m not a huge fan of the situation I’m in, there’s nothing else I should do but focus my energy on becoming a better version of myself as I work through it. My first step along the way was to have a little impromptu mini funeral for my old self, while standing at my dining room table. The old me was pretty great and I was sad to tell her goodbye.

However, this mess with my (ex) husband is giving me an opportunity to learn how to eventually be pretty darn incredible, to be an even better version of myself. I have been given this catastrophe as an opportunity to self-reflect, to chat with my trusted and wise community, to learn how to do the seemingly impossible with grace and class. Today, I am using this challenge to change me for the better.

Over the last 3 weeks, I’ve stumbled and fallen into the depths of the fault line. Today, I’m starting to climb out. I may stumble and fall deeper again, but one thing I know for certain is that I will fight and claw my way out onto the other side. I’ll stand tall, in the bright sun, in a world filled with rainbows and butterflies once again. It’s surely going to be an exhausting journey. But in the end, it’ll be worth it.

Because my daughter is worth it. And because I am worth it.

And so are you. So, if you’ve fallen down into the profound darkness of your fault line, if you’re at all being blamed for the catastrophe you’re in, or if you’re blaming yourself, take a breath. Seriously, right now, take a deep breath (I just did) and remind yourself that you are in this storm to grow into a new and improved, tough as nails, amazing state-of-the-art you. And fault has no place along that path. You absolutely are strong enough to climb out.

So, let’s all focus on the rainbows and the sunshine because they’re there, waiting to be noticed.

Tag: fault

I Am the Cheese Dip

Fault Lines