reality – A Graceful Catastrophe

“Sometimes you get the love you want, sometimes you get the love you need.”
_{-Author Unknown, found on a wall inside Inxpot, Keystone, CO}

Maybe love isn’t what this hopeless romantic had always thought it was. I grew up with this vision of what true love looked like, and, of course, it was shaped by love stories I devoured in both novels and movies. I wanted to be swept off my feet by somebody who just understood exactly how to make me happy and speak to my heart the moment he looked into my eyes. If he’s my soulmate, shouldn’t he already know everything about me? Shouldn’t it be that he’d never hurt me? Wouldn’t it be eternal bliss, every second that ticked by after meeting him?

I honestly believed that incredibly unrealistic version of true love. Damn those love stories, creating a world that’s honestly only fit for fantasy. And poor guy who would ever fall in love with me – what kinds of shit expectations are those?!

A friend told me last week, after reading my last blog, laced with words born from pain and jaded discontent, that she thought love between two people was far more like two circles, separate at first, slowly coming closer together until they begin to overlap.

Over the past week, after thinking, processing, mulling things over, journaling, and talking with others, I’ve decided that I did, in fact, have it all wrong.

True love is when the other person understands they’ve hurt you and they break down in the middle of a very public place because they’re overwhelmed by the understanding of the extent of that hurt.

True love is not only understanding how the other needs to be treated in order to feel love, but actually leaving their comfort zone and putting in the intention and effort to make sure the other feels loved in their own language.

True love is thinking of the other first, and sometimes even sacrificing to put their happiness above your own.

True love is including the other into your own world, shedding walls and baggage, in order to be completely raw and vulnerable – which is probably the most terrifying thing in the world to do.

My soulmate is the one willing to put in the work. The one who decides to study me like I am a course he wants to ace.

This. This is true love. It takes work. And ever so much understanding. And grace. And, did I mention work? It isn’t easy. It isn’t effortless. And to have that expectation is foolish. And then it leads to frustration and disappointment.

The better you understand how someone ticks, the better you can love them. And that is the true beauty of love, I think. To see my partner mold to my needs because he’s learned who I am, and how I am…that’s a thing of beauty.

Soulmates decide to grow together, to lean in on one another. It isn’t that one will never hurt the other, but that when they do, it’s seen as an opportunity to deepen the love. It’s a lesson then learned, where layers of old pain can be shed, and the soul is bared.

Love is realizing you want to be so transparent that your partner is capable of seeing all of you – the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly – and you don’t run away from that, despite how scary it is, because you know you can trust them with every bit of you, past, present, and future.

Soulmates don’t give up on each other. True love doesn’t turn away from each other. No matter how ugly it gets. Because these types of partners consistently choose one another and understand that together, they can conquer any challenge.

I’ve weathered quite the storms in my life – and again rode some rocky waves quite recently that once again left me jaded. I’ve waited to receive the love I’d always hoped I’d one day feel, and honestly had begun to lose hope it could exist.

And you know, perhaps the love I’d always dreamed of having, that effortless and immediate love I thought could exist, is actually best left for the fairytales. This may not be the love I’d always wanted, but maybe that’s because this is the love I’ve always needed.

You know, there just isn’t any guidebook for how to deal with trauma. When you see someone going through something difficult, you sometimes *try to* put yourself in their shoes. Sometimes people make judgments on how the other person is responding or how they would do it differently. Other people seem rather fascinated and can’t even begin to understand how the person is coping “so well.”

In reality, you just don’t know until you go through it – and even then you have no idea how to process life.

For me, I’ve been processing by choosing to escape. I haven’t wanted to face my reality because the rare moments where I couldn’t avoid them were crippling. So I did what I could to bury it further. The pain from the discovery on March 17 has really, quite honestly, been impossible to bear.

But I think it was because I was trying to face it all at once. I thought I had to eat the elephant in one bite, so to speak. I thought I had to look at my pain, all of it, and try to process it as a whole.

That idea was beyond overwhelming. To think that I had to try and understand what was going on inside my head, to sit down and pick apart the betrayal and agony one layer at a time until it had all been chewed up and spit back out, was inconceivable!

But I thought that’s how it was supposed to be done. Just face your fears, right? Why wouldn’t the same idea apply to facing your trauma?

And do you know how absolutely and genuinely terrifying that is? And I mean “terrifying” by its exact definition: “causing extreme fear,” as Google’s dictionary says. “Extreme,” guys. Not just regular, run of the mill fear, but extreme. Again, thank you Google dictionary for defining “extreme” for us: reaching a high or the highest degree.

I had reached the highest degree of fear and was sprinting away as quickly as I could. I was never suicidal, thankfully, but I didn’t want to live this life. I wanted, desperately, to run away. So I could pretend that this wasn’t my reality. How could this be my reality? How could I ever trust again? There are, I’m sorry, were, two men in my life that I blindly trusted. My dad and my now ex-husband. How could he do what he did, day in and day out, for almost a year, all while coming home and complaining about what an awful wife I was? And let’s not forget about how he sat in marriage counseling and complained about how awful I was there, only to turn around and tell his Ashley Madison lovelies all about our therapy sessions.

Yeah, I wanted to run. Far and fast. How could that have been my life?!

At first, I thought I could handle everything with grace. Of course you should give grace to those who least deserve it. Well, that’s all fine and dandy when you’re in the denial stage of grief. There wasn’t a ton of grace to be given during the anger stage! I don’t know if you can see the hashtags on my blogs, but if you can, and you take a look back, there’s a definite moment where I stopped using the hashtag “living life with class and grace and muscles.” Because I was only living life with muscles.

I was angry a lot of the time, which I preferred to sadness. Sadness shut me down. Sadness made me want to hide under the covers and never, ever move again. Anger, though, anger made me feel alive! I could still laugh when I was angry. I could put up a front and live in the moment and feel free of my reality.

But, that’s not exactly the most healthy way to live…

Like I wrote in yesterday’s blog, there’s a distinct shift occurring within. I couldn’t pinpoint it yesterday but I can today.

The last 2 months, while wild and fun, have still felt empty. I have felt so empty and I have been trying, in vain, to fill that void.

But when the wild and crazy calmed down, I was left feeling emptier still. I’ve never done ecstasy or Molly but I feel like my last 2 months resemble what I’ve heard those highs – and lows – are like. From what I understand, when under the influence, you feel euphoric. But then when it starts to wear off, the coming down from it is one of the worst things ever.

That’s how my life has been. I have a blast going out with my friends, or going out on dates, but when it’s all said and done, my reality is that I’m still alone, trying to process a trauma so great that it has been both exhausting and crippling. And simply too excruciating to face.

There has been very minimal light and the darkness definitely won for some time.

But I had the most amazing session with my therapist Thursday of last week and he gave me permission that I don’t have to face my reality all at once. What?! I don’t?! Oh, my goodness, halle-freaking-lujah!!

Do you know that I felt about a million times lighter after that? I can just live. I don’t have to sit down and spend hours – or days – doing nothing else except focusing on sorting out all the emotions! I can walk through life and just live. And when something triggers me, I can feel sad. I can honor that emotion, that moment, process it for what it’s worth, and then move on. I don’t have to linger there and go deeper and try to understand how it applies to the 34 thousand other layers of pain. I can just process that piece. I can eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Life. Changing.

Friday night was like my grand farewell to the last 2 months. It was probably the wildest, most uninhibited night I’ve ever had. And probably the most fun.

Saturday morning I awoke with a distinct shift in my mindset.

I want more.

I don’t want to feel empty anymore. I also don’t feel the need to escape anymore. Now that I know I don’t have to swallow this elephant whole, I am no longer terrified.

Guys. I am no longer terrified of my reality.

I fully understand what this means for me…it means that I can finally begin to heal.

And that makes me smile.

As I write this, it is June 17th. At 6:08 tonight, while I was out with my girls for dinner, I hit the 3 month mark exactly.

It makes me laugh to think it’s only been 3 months. A lifetime has occurred in these last 3 months! And I’m sure I’m in for a million more changes and ups and downs in the next 3 months.

There’s no doubt my mindset will continue to flex and change as the time progresses. If nothing else, I give myself permission to continue riding this wave, to allow it to guide me through this next phase. At least now, I am facing the challenges ahead unafraid.

This elephant will be eaten – eventually. And I’m giving myself permission to do so one nibble at a time.

Tag: reality

Love in this Life

Eating the Elephant