My past and my future, standing in between

As I mentioned, I get to spend a long glorious weekend with B starting Friday (posts won't be happening this weekend, and the posts to follow next week, well, will be edited for content....)

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr Day, and I'm off work. So, while I'm in Lincoln County, and in the area, I thought I'd take Monday and check out the town that will be our home in 4 months. I want to drive around, look at apartment complexes, maybe houses, check out where the schools are, the neighborhoods. I just want to start making it our home.

Tate informed me this week, that she would really like to take piano lessons when we get moved. Thank god for Batman, he knows people. He knows someone who can teach Tate piano. He's offered to hook us up.

He's offered to help look at apartments with us. He's offered to help me find a great job. He's offered to 'be there' for us when we move, as any good friend should. He's offered a lot. I will be moving to a town where I know absolutely NOBODY. B doesn't even live in the town I'm moving to. (when I say start over, fresh, I mean start over, fresh. Everything is new. Including friends.)

So, maybe I will say good bye to a part of my past this weekend (I hope not, but it's possible) I will also be saying Hello to a part of my future. Looking back at what has been, and is no more, and looking forward at what will be and could be. It's going to be an exciting emotional weekend to say the least. The very least.

Thank you for your concern, I'm going to be fantabulous

Can I just say Thank you to all of my readers out there who in the course of the past month or so have sent emails to me, asking me if I’m ok? I know that at times, my thoughts on here get pretty dark, and hopeless and depressing. But the thing I’m learning about me is, I’m a fighter. I don’t wallow in the darkness long. It’s no fun there.

I have been through hell in my personal life. For far too long I’ve been through hell. I have allowed too many people, too many unworthy, undeserving people to have too much power in my life. Made it easy to blame them for the shit going wrong in my life. But the truth of the matter is, it wasn’t their fault really. It was mine, my fault for not standing up and taking back my power, for allowing them to do what they did.

I have learned a lot lately. When my world fell apart I could have crumbled with it, but I didn’t. At times I stumbled, and tripped, but I picked myself up and kept going. I found a strength in my I didn’t know I had. My sister said at the time, that maybe we both needed to go through this, to learn some lessons. And if it was meant to be it would all work out in the end. I didn’t want to believe her then, but I see she was probably right.

I had to learn to fight my own fights, on my own, without having someone to lean on. If I leaned on him, he would have stepped up and helped, or fought for me, and it wasn’t his fight to fight. I had to learn to face my demons on my own, for myself. I also had to face my own responsibility, the part I had played in the path my life had taken. I had to own up to what I had done to end up where I was. That was not pretty, and it was not easy, but it was important and it was healthy.

I had to learn that if I allow them too, the demons in my head will continue to haunt me. I had to learn that they were voices from my past, and I am no longer that person. I had to learn how to wrestle the power away from them. I struggle with it still sometimes, but I am learning how to over come them.

I had to learn how to stay away from temptation. What you see isn’t always what it appears to be. I had to learn to trust what was said, verses what I thought I saw. Seeing was only part of the picture, the truth lies within the person. Sometimes too much information, interpreted the wrong way, is a very dangerous thing. I had to learn to not go looking for things because I would find what I wanted to support what I thought, instead of the truth. And the truth was all that mattered.

I had to learn to believe in what I know, trust in what I believe. I know in my heart of hearts some things are true. I don’t know how I know, but I know. Some things have just felt right from the very beginning, and things have fallen into place for those things to happen. Trust in life, trust in a higher power, trust in my heart, in my soul and in my instincts and I’ve been good so far.

I had to learn how to let go of the need to control life, and those around me, in my life. Ultimately I am the only one I can control, and the rest is up to the fates, to everyone else. Letting go and having faith go hand in hand. Hard lessons to learn, but I’m learning.

I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that even though I haven’t set foot in a church in a very long time, my parents did manage to instill a strong sense of faith in me. I have discovered the power of praying to my higher power. I have learned that faith is a powerful thing. I have learned that the answers to my ‘prayers’ may not always be the answers I want, but they are always the answers I need.

I have learned that promises made to myself are worth keeping. That promises I made to myself are hard to break. I have discovered that I don’t want to break them. I made a promise and I meant it when I made it, I mean it now. I made the same promise to Batman and to my daughters. It’s a promise I will keep until my dying day. No questions, no doubts.

I have learned to listen to my heart and my soul. That when I know that I know what I know, then it is usually right, even when I can’t explain it. I just have to trust my instincts, my heart.

I have learned to let the universe lead me where I need to be lead, and to let the universe get me there on it’s time, not mine. When I stop trying to control the world, life has a way of working out better than I could have imagined.

So, thank you for your concerns, and thank you for caring enough to ask. Yes, I’m doing ok, in fact, I’m going to be just fine. I’m just growing up. I am learning a lot of important lessons that will serve me will in the future. And I can pass them along to my daughters. I’m sure I will have more dark days, but I know there will be days of Sunshine too. It’s going to be an exciting journey, with a lot of lessons to learn. But I’ll be ok, in fact, I’ll be better than ok. I’m going to be fantabulous.

Steps

Small steps. That's what we're taking. Small steps back to each other, but not back to what we once had. That is gone. We will have to build new, start over, with the lessons learned from before.

Emails, phone calls, text messages, and now dates, real dates. He took me out to dinner last night. The last time we went to dinner, it was our last night 'together' as a couple. I knew that night it was going to end. Like I knew last night, we would start over.

We took the new car last night. He showed it off. Yes, it's not the Rocket, but it's nice, and it's B's car. I sat beside him, awkward, not sure what to do, what role I was expected to play. I wanted to reach over and hold his hand, or thread my arm through his, but was unsure if it would be awkward and forward and strange. He solved the problem, by reaching for mine, and holding it while we drove to town. "Thanks for coming down." he said, and gave my hand a squeeze. I smiled, and glowed inside.

We sat at the bar to eat dinner. We were the only 2 there for a minute, then an older gentleman sat down at the other end. His wife working behind the bar. We chatted with him, and the staff. Batman told them 'Thought I'd bring a good friend to dinner.', then leaned over to me and said "Is that ok?"
"Well, yeah, because it's kind of tacky to call me your piece of ass."
"Well, it's really more like I'd take my date out to dinner." he said.

He reached for my hand and held it until our dinner arrived. We ate, we laughed, we chatted with the staff. It was comfortable and familiar, easy and fun. He handed me the keys to the new car, said I could drive it home. I was reminded of the time he let me drive the Rocket for the first time. He told me then, "What's mine will eventually be yours, better get used to it. Drive it like you own it."

Last night was a mixture of the past, and the future mixing and mimicing each other. The past themes repeated in the future. Hope mixed with longing and memories. I'm not quiet ready to let go of the past, but I'm reaching for the future I see stretched out before us. I see him waiting there for me, to walk life's winding road, side by side. I know we will get there, a step at a time.

Fresh Starts, shedding the past, reaching for the future

Yesterday was rough, and for the first time, the tears that plagued my day weren't because of Batman. They were tears of sadness, tears of anger, tears of relief, the whole gaumet of emotions. But they are dried up and gone today. After all, it's a whole new day.

For the most part now, the fights in my life, the battles I faced, are over. It's just a matter of signing peace treaties now, and cleaning up the mess. I have finally cut my way free of the tenticles that clung to my life from my past. My life, is now, my life. The Slug and C1 can no longer control or manipulate my life. It is time to let go of the past, look to the future and start planning my new life.

I started yesterday. I started cleaning out my apartment. Throwing away dead weight, reminders of past baggage that I no longer need. I threw away 15 empty Captain Morgan bottles, left over from the young Knucklehead. I threw away an empty Mich Ultra beer bottle from the other Knucklehead. I even threw away an empty Jack Daniels bottle and a Black Label whiskey bottle from Boo. (God, I sound like a lush, and aparently, all my reminders of the men in my past was wrapped up in alcohol.) Anyway, they all went to the dumpster. Gone.

I have put all the momentos of my past in boxes, at least the important ones. The ticket from Daytona, the brochures from Hard Rock Cafe, Universal Boardwalk, Pat O'Brien's, the Mardi Gras beads. I have taken all reminders of all the men in my life and put them away. I no longer need them. I don't want to forget the memories and the things we did, or the places we went, but I don't need to cling to them, nor do I need to see them every day. They are my past, they are not a part of my future. I thought I loved them once, I was wrong. I cared about them deeply, but it wasn't love. My love, my life, is B.

I am cutting lose all the ties that have bound me to the past, achored me in pain, hurt, sadness, and have held me back from reaching for true love, and true happiness, and all that I can be. I am once again, shedding more layers of myself, saying goodbye to the person I was, and reaching towards the person I want to become. I am letting go of old hurts, past anger, pain, resentments, grudges. I am forgiving them, and myself, and I am moving on. I am not going to forget the past, or the lessons learned. I just will not allow it to hold me down, or hold me back, or control me any more.

I have a new life ahead of me. Free from the past, a new life that is mine. A chance to start fresh, and do it right. I want that more than anything. I can't wait to move to our new home, our new life, and start over. Sure it's scary and uncertain, but I know the girls and I can do it and we will love it. 6 months from now. Just 6 months.