In the closet....

Sooooo after my little rant the other day, I started to be a little bitchy with myself. Started feeling like...."Geez girl, none of these people who read this lil blog get to hear the good stuff"...and I really did start thinking how easy it is for me to write when I need to vent but not so much when I need to talk to y'all about how I'm trying my very best to lift myself higher...soooo with that said....this post might sound so dramatic and tragic in part but it really isn't....it's actually a rah rah me....I've come so far!! K so I know I'm not the only one that has lived a moment in life that felt completely bigger than hell. A segment of time where you were certain that life was never ever going to feel good again and where the thought of getting in your car and driving away....like forever, seemed not only logical but also very practical.....that defining moment that is either going to BREAK you or MAKE you. Yep lived that. 1040 days ago the pieces started falling....my marriage was breaking and I had no power to stop it. Honestly....gosh....I remember saying to my bestie...."How do people keep on living through this....like it hurts to breath."...and she would just keep saying...."you just do"...."you just keep going".....but I also remember telling my other girlfriend...."Did you know that dolphins are the only mammal that can choose not to breath anymore? I wish I was a dolphin." Hands down these were the saddest days of my life. My visions of forever were gone, I was completely lost and beyond broken. I struggled to see the purpose of my life...tried to figure out where the heck to go from here...worried about how different my kids would end up being because of this....and loathed all things MEN....but oh my gosh....the best thing that came out of this is something that probably never would have come to be if things hadn't gone this way. See back then during married life and being a mom....I didn't have time to nurture a valuable relationship. I let it fall by the wayside to put other people first. Typical of most mothers, we value ourselves based only on the contributions that we make on behalf of our families. But when you find yourself in the middle of nowhere wondering how the hell this happened, sometimes you have to dig so deep to get out of it. That's what happened with me at least....I had to dig for it. People seriously think I joke when I talk about taking up residence in my walk in closet but for the better part of two months....I lived in there. I'd sit for hours in the dark... praying, crying, yelling at God, sleeping, wishing, and mostly dreaming of a place far from there....not geographically....but a place in time where the fractured smile didn't cover up a gaping wound......a time when I would feel sooooo far from wanting to live in a closet. I know why I moved in there....it's hard to explain it to other people though. The sadness I had felt so consuming, like it was penetrating every single ounce of me and when I was out in the world, too much air made me feel like I couldn't breath. I'm giggling as I type this, thinking that must sound completely crazy, but the truth of it is, I really had to make my world sooooooo teeeny tiny, so that I could dig for what I needed to find in myself. There have only been a handful of times in my life where I have felt that actual physical pain where your heart is....even thinking about what that pain feels like, gives me a lump in my throat and I had to do whatever it took to make that pain subside. Anyways....those two months in the closet....in that tiny little space....I grew. I grew in the relationship with myself...I grew into a place of acceptance....I craved to know myself....to really truly know this girl that I had neglected...I had tons of Runaway Bride moments..."Did I or didn't I actually like scrambled eggs?" "Did I like the Star Wars movies?" "Do I actually think a T.V. in the bedroom helps you sleep?" The answer to all of those is NO...but prior to this I would have said yes to them.....I grew in my faith...probably because yelling at God made me feel guilty and more than that...I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT FEEL STRONG ENOUGH TO GET THROUGH THIS ON MY OWN...I needed to have faith in something, or someone far bigger than myself, that I was going to get to the other side of this.....I grew, and I grew and I grew. I wish now that I had taken a picture so you guys could see it....my little fortress....the walls covered in sticky notes and ripped pieces of paper with words on them, a pile of blankets, books...some read a dozen times or more..poems I had printed off the internet...reminding of the ebb and flow that comes with living......my therapy book under the pillow....OH THE PLACES YOU'LL GO.....by Dr. Suess....this book became like a little lifeline for me...reminding me that this moment was gonna pass...no matter how long it took..no matter how dark the days felt....no matter how endless the nights felt.....it would pass at some point and that life is a constant mix of peaks and valleys. Don't get me wrong....while I was growing I was also raging. I ripped myself a new one in the beginning....carrying the weight of someone else's choice as my own. I convinced myself that I was nothing of value and that I had wasted this one precious life that God had given me. That's where the notes came in. At first, they just said a couple of words..."You are ok"...." You are good"...."You matter"....and over time they became longer....and after a little while....all these words became my testimony...I felt different...wounded but unbreakable....scared but brave enough to rise up and meet this challenge....the bitterness got softer and the grace got bigger. I grew in my ability to forgive people for the things they can't change. Oh my gosh, that probably did the most in helping me become ME. I wished a thousand times for life to have a rewind button, promising and bargaining with God that I would do it differently if he could just back up the train. Ultimately I knew that there would be no time machine and I had to figure out how to let go and move forward and I also knew that if I couldn't forgive, then I wouldn't be able to keep my eyes ahead of me, I would always be looking at what I left behind. When I packed up my little nest in the closet and moved back into my life, I knew that I would be fine. I knew that I was ready. I knew there would be countless moments when I would want to retreat to the closet and cry my face off. I knew I would stomp through puddles and find myself in valleys, but I also knew that whatever I thought I lacked in strength was there, waiting inside for me to need it and use it. Who knows where life is going to take me, none of us are guaranteed anything beyond this one moment....I'm doing my best to use these moments, to be a positive person to the people around me, to be a good mother, even on the days when exhaustion takes over, trying not to let my bad attitude about men and other things plague me, being the best friend I can be to my little circle of people, and absolutely being thankful for who I am, and how I've grown and changed. So far from perfect, with so much work to do....but oh my gosh....I'm doing okay...and I'm so thankful for those two months in the closet. That's where I got to take all the broken pieces of my life and recreate them into something new....I've talked about mosaics before,how sometimes what comes from the broken glass is more beautiful than the original...I guess time will tell as far as the opinion of other people goes.....but honestly....it doesn't matter to me if other people think I'm different or that I've changed for the worse or better.....I look at myself.....seriously I could cry...I'm so proud of who I am, and where I'm going and how brilliant I am....see cuz while people thought I was crazy...I knew what I was going to find in my little Narnia...I knew that's where I was going to find myself again.....