I wrote this for you almost 3 years ago. I knew it wasn't the right time to share, but I wrote it for you knowing that one day it would be the right time. The path has been a bit loopy and all over the place, and I've been on a lot of side quests to find a lot of really incredible tools. Maybe not all these words will be for you, like a buffet, maybe just a few will be your favorites. But for others, these words might be IT. The thing that feels like a life raft in a turbulent sea. Something to hold on to while the waves are crashing endlessly.
I'm so deeply grateful to read these words my past self wrote. I feel inspired by that version of me, grateful I documented what I could see at the time was coming but had no idea how I would get here. And knowing that here is never really a singular location. I just knew there were things that needed to be done before I could fully be this person I saw in myself in 2022. I'm not even the full the version I saw myself becoming, but ready enough... which is maybe all we can ever be.
A few months ago my partner of nearly a decade shocked me with the announcement that he wanted to pursue a relationship with someone else and get a divorce. I was devastated and facing the loss of almost everything, or so it felt at the time. Not only the relationship I'd had with him, my spouse, my partner and best friend, but also the property we had been developing for years with the gorgeous views, the studio we had been building for me so I could work from home, the house we planned to build, the orchard we spent five years growing, all the future plans I thought we had been working towards together, the family I thought was mine too. I wasn’t given a choice.
After the initial shock and devastation I realized I did have a lot of choices. I started to recognize the agonizing pain for all that it was. My abandonment issues, my loss of family wounds, having someone else chosen over me - I was no longer anyone else’s number one human they’d save in a fire. My biggest fear came true and my amygdala got rewired. I survived. I survived the devastation of the hurricane who ripped apart my life. It wasn’t personal like a hurricane isn’t personal. A hurricane does what it does. I could be hurt and feel damaged, again and again, and I have. I can sit with the pain, tend to it.
I can choose myself over and over again. I can love myself and respect myself more than anyone else ever will. I can say goodbye to those that don’t. I can learn and grow and continue reaching towards new opportunities. I can embrace the mystery, sink into the unknown, open myself to the infinite amount of possibilities for goodness, life and adventure.
I’m nearly 42 and this is the first time I’ve never had a home. I’m not sure it’s an experience I ever thought I would embrace. The feeling of being untethered can be really destabilizing. This is why I choose each day to embrace the mystery. I’ve learned I can’t know what can happen. As much as there is the possibility for anything to happen, anything good and miraculous can happen. The possibilities aren’t limited to devastating things. I keep coming back to the amazing things I can barely dream about.
This is not what I chose. But is my ability to choose based upon my limited imagination? And what if the next thing is truly beyond my imagination. How often can I choose to not limit myself?
I can keep choosing myself. To care for myself, respect myself, nurture myself. I can choose the fast track to growth I didn’t see coming. I can leave behind what is no longer serving me and receive an abundance of unimaginable delight and love.
My capacity for love has grown. My heart being broken and nearly destroyed has only caused it to become stronger and more capable. I spent at least a week wondering if I was having a heart attack. I didn’t know I could physically feel that intensity of emotional pain. I remembered reading about women who die of “broken hearts”. I thought I was too young for that and I guess it’s true.
My heart’s capacity for feeling has expanded so greatly, in every direction. I’ve always been really sensitive and empathic. My heart easily hurt, and tenderness I allowed to be so vulnerable. I’d never learned how to really heal it though. I felt wounded a lot. Many poorly placed bandaids.
In the past few months it has felt like my heart has been crushed, stabbed, ripped to shreds and deeply repaired and healed. Old wounds have been properly sutured and healed without scars. I feel more whole. I feel more. I’m still wounded but I heal faster. I’m still damaged but I get stronger every time I choose to feel and hold and process the pain.
My heart is precious and I take care of it now. I choose me, I am my own partner, my own healer, my own best friend. I choose me over and over again.
I used to feel loneliness. A lot. One of those, lonely in a crowd of people kind of things. Since living on my own I check in with myself (a lot - depression is real in my biology) and I have yet to feel lonely. I’m alone, a lot. And I like it, it turns out. I like who I am, my own company. I suffer plenty and while I often wish there was someone to be there to hug me when I cry, I’m okay when all there is is me.
I wonder how often in my life the deep fear of being left, being alone, has kept me trapped, wings clipped.
And I wonder now if this is temporary. Will I succumb to the loneliness and seek out a companion who will just be there? I don’t think so. I am different. I am not who I was a few months ago. I like the person I’ve become. A lot.
I’ve used my pain to create beauty. I can transform my devastation into building something healing not only for myself but for others.
I can feel and process my emotions like never before and it feels like a goddamn superpower.
My heart beats for you dear one. For you that feels broken and in the dark. Feels like their world has been turned upside down and and can’t seem to right themselves. My heart has felt that pain, maybe not your experiences, but the excruciating physical pain that makes one think death might be near. My heart beats for you stronger than it did yesterday and the week before and the month before.
Each day I heal a wound, it gets stronger. Not scarred or damaged, more glorious and capable and fascinating. More filled with love and the desire to do great things in the world. To bring peace and healing.
I know one day I’ll share my life with someone again. I have no idea who that will be or what it will look like. I’m open to all the possibilities of love.The unknown is vast, filled with everything- all the fears, all the joys, all the love and the infinite space to expand beyond what I thought possible. Being in the darkness lets me see the light.
I am that space between with no name. Connected to all and nothing. I am a mended heart that blankets you in peace when you can find none of your own.
We are so small and soft, these human body beings. Capable of so much experience. It’s an opportunity to feel it all and experience it all. It’s fascinating and awe inspiring.
