I have a proclamation to make. And I believe it whole heartedly. And here it is:
It’s all right to be messed up. There, I said it. It’s normal. Okay, maybe messed up isn’t the most correct term. But I do think, it’s alright, to just be alright. Its taken me awhile to feel like that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you should just be resolved to living an unfulfilled life either. I’m not one of those people who thinks “this is how I am, take it or leave it” but there is a small amount of wisdoms in that. I do believe you have to take responsibility for who you are. Your choices. Your mess. But also to take pride in the good things too. To try and take the steps to improve on yourself. I do believe you should always strive to be your best. But guess what? That best person doesn’t look the same everyday. I can only speak for myself. Some days I feel like I’m a total killer. Bills paid. House clean. Hair washed. School work completed. Eye brows plucked.
Boss.
Other days, homework never gets done, dead bugs are all over the counter top, dogs eat bread and potato chips cause it’s 10 pm and I’m out of dog food, and kids wear wrinkly clothes the next day cause I didn’t do laundry. But it doesn’t cloud my judgment of myself anymore. Some days are just shittier than others. And I deal with it.
I used to beat myself up. Constantly. When I say constantly, I mean it. I was incredibly mean to myself. There’s a lot of hypothetical reasons that float in my mind for the reasons behind this, but this post isn’t about that. My point being is that once I gave myself a break, a real break, and actually allowed myself to fail. To be sad. To deal with stress. To not be on my A game, or even my B game, to not struggle so hard to maintain appearances, to not pretend that my life was where it should be, that I actually started to feel better. To feel relief. Life isn’t always fair. And you hear this term constantly but it doesn’t sink in until, well, it sinks in.
2020 wasn’t fair.
There were days in 2020, that I felt I could feel an actual pull in my chest, like a heavy weight was hanging on too skimpy of fishing string. Too heavy to belong but not heavy enough to break. It just ached.
My heart was broken. My life was broken. Everything I once trusted and loved was removed and I literally had scraps of my life that I had no intention or even knowledge or know how to put back together.
It’s been almost a year since I separated from my now ex husband. It’s been quite the year. Heart breaking. Trying. Exhausting. But I also think was also my greatest year. I was able to become who I am now. And I’m happier. Incredibly happier. With who I am. With my choices. With where my life is headed. With who is in my life. And I’m proud of that. I have made it across the desert, burnt and broken but intact. I now carry scars and reminders of a life that is no longer a reality. But I made it. With my morals in place. My values readjusted. My vision, while before was blurry from dust and tears and wasted years, is now clear. And through it all, I’ve seen the beauty in so much. I’ve seen the great. I’ve seen the terrible. The ugly. I witnessed the hard and lonely. I still struggle with a lot. I struggle with if I am making good choices for myself. For my kids. For my future. Am I becoming a person to be proud of? Was I before? Am I a good mom? Am I raising my son and daughter to be people who will contribute to the world, and not be just takers? If I meet someone new one day, will he be grateful to have me in his life and vice versa? I don’t want to be a taker. But I can’t be all giver either.
I used to think I should be. And I would be upset that no matter how much I sacrificed, it never felt like enough. I can’t even give you an explanation as to what I was trying to give exactly. I just felt like I SHOULD keep giving. And that one day it would come around. Maybe that’s a trauma response to being in a neglected marriage. To feel that if I just gave an ounce more effort, a shred more understanding, sacrificed more, put myself one peg lower, cleaned better, worked out more, prayed more, educate my kids more, be more understanding, less needy, be more, more, more, then eventually I would be fulfilled? I would lay in my bed at night, and was filled with sorrow at unmet expectations and then so angry with myself for having expectations at all. Who was I to have so much in life and still feel rejected? To still feel like I needed something else?
Fear. Embarrassment. Loneliness. Self preservation. Self loathing. Pride. All of these things, I bound to myself and used as a buffer to keep at bay the longings in my heart that life was not as if should be. I used the excuse that other people have it way worse than I did as a balm to the heartbreak of living a half filled life. But what ended up happening is that I became numb to it. Not feeling anything besides dread, unmet expectations, and disappointment became normal. The color in my life drained away slowly, a little at a time and everything kind of became muted. It was hard to find joy. It was hard to hold on to good times because, to put it plainly, there weren’t many. I had replaced the things I held important and things that I wanted so desperately with the things of others, mainly an ungrateful man. His needs became more important than my own. And I replaced my wants and wishes with his in an attempt to bring some kind of joy to myself. But that joy never came. And I can’t even blame him. Sure, there’s a mountain of faults at his feet, but I can’t blame him for this.
At the end of the day, I was just sad. And our marriage was over. And my family would forever be changed. My life would forever be changed.
And holy hallelujah, Thank God it did.
Thank God for that heartbreak. Thank God for the misguided and hollow words and cutting remarks for someone I loved and trusted more than anyone else on the planet.
Thank God for separating my life from that pit of misery.
It’s so crazy to be grateful for such a heartbreak. But without that loss, I would never of known how much there was to gain. How much color and music and friendship and laughter and just fantastic magic there is still in life.
Still in me.
So when I look back, I don’t want to see a life with very few mistakes, and minor scratches and scorch marks. I want to see a giant canvas with craters and smoke and grief. And it’s okay. I’m okay with it not being all sunshine rainbows. I’m okay with it because it doesn’t make my life less. In fact, it makes it more. More compelling. More interesting. More adventurous.
I have to fight the feeling of inadequacy a lot. Not sure if it’s a Julie thing or a human nature thing. Since I’m trying to be kinder to myself, let’s chalk it up to being human. Sometimes, stuff just doesn’t work out.
Some days, they just aren’t great. And some days, they just are. Rhyme and reason dont always play a hand in what I see as good or bad anymore. Sometimes I choose that it’s good and that’s what my mind decides it to be and that’s what it becomes. Doesn’t work for everything, but we swing for the fences anyways.
Heartbreak sucked. It sucked the joy from my life and the color from my vision. It caused doubt and teeth clenching and weight loss and grief and pain and sorrow and total mind melt down.
But it also cleared the path. For joy. For sunshine. For opportunities. Like when a forest catches fire. There may be scorched earth and char marks. But you know what else? Now there’s space for new growth. Saplings spring forth and cover the ground in a green carpet of life and wonder. And now I need a machete to keep in from getting out of control.
So it’s okay for everything to not be okay. It’s alright for things to be a little messed up. I’m alright with not having everything figured out all the time. It’s fun to see how it plays out along the way.
Guys, there’s never any charm in perfection. Won’t you enjoy the chaos with me for a little while?
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