Just for a few fleeting days...

Last week being spring break we started the weekend out with some family coming down to pick up Jared for a visit, which was a whole other processing stinging experience in and of itself, and when last Monday hit the boys and I completely shut off the world at home. I have had zero ability to cope and tolerate people and being in this town the last two months. My therapist says it’s because I am extra raw and vulnerable. The level of being able to put on the blinders and have tunnel vision to survive has gone tremendously down since court in February. I am triggered more than ever and have a barely there short fuse for things I see as wrong doings towards others or myself which is literally every time I go out here.

And I was soaking in it just being us 4, it just being the boys and I. I needed this. We played games and snuck out for sonic happy hour and hurried back home again with their favorite songs blaring on repeat for nap times and cuddles in pjs and underwear and more games and late nights and late mornings them coming in and snuggling into bed to sleep in with Mom. We mowed the yard and had picnics on the porch and talked about girls and what nudity means and nude beaches, and life, and good dreams and nightmares and found out Conner wants to live in China and Caiden wants to take a vacation to New York City. And we talked about religions and connections and spirituality and morals and good and evil and why there were bad people in the world and spiders.

I forgot about life, about people here, about my mess of a family, about the people that don’t understand or don’t care that support my abuser, about the pain, about all the crap Sam and I have to work through as individuals and in our relationship as we work through our seperation. I forgot…just for a few fleeting moments; hours; days.

And then with a trip to OKC, and upon bringing Jared back home and upon entering back into the routine of life we have here this week it has all hit with a vengeance once more. I want to stay hiding but I can’t. My bed begs for me to wrap me back up in comfort and ignore the undeniables for temporary fleeting time. My soul is tired and no matter how much sleep I get this week my body just keeps screaming for more. And I believe at this point it's merely responding to the weariness of a different kind of tired entirely. When it feels like it takes a weeks worth of my willpower to be there emotionally and mentally for the kids to get therm breakfast and off to school. To make myself go on a run because it’s the one healthy coping skill I have I can use. When I have to use that weeks worth of will power to force myself to eat something. To stay away from the bedroom so I don’t crash into bed again. To write emails to clients and be excited about what deep down I am really passionate about but depression has for the time stolen away from me. And when I finally crash at night I wonder what I am going to do in the morning because I used up my already low tank into the negative over simple daily tasks and things that should be life giving.

Why do I share these things? Share my darkness? Because I know it’s okay not to be okay now. I know that while I’m afraid of the darkness I am not afraid to go into and even though I want to shut the world off most times I don’t want to really shut off connections I could have with others. “The middle is messy and dark but you have to go right through it. There is no other way to live. You must die a thousand deaths to live.” - Brene Brown

Because I am not wearing a mask and pretending life is amazing when it is not. Because I am not playing the games anymore I was raised in and raised to play. I know being vulnerable can bring misunderstanding and hatred from some. But I also know and have experienced vulnerability and human nakedness breeds connection and truth and unbreakable bonds with other raw and real souls that do understand and love.

“I am not less afraid of the dark. I just know that if you are willing to go in there is beauty in it. I’m afraid of vulnerability and being emotionally exposed. But I have been in there before and I know the beauty of it. And I know the choice is going in or standing on the outside of the dark my while life and hustling and pretending for my worthiness. And standing on the outside…that I am not willing to do now.” Brene Brown