So much more than giggles...

I was on the phone tonight processing my emotional hangover.  The first call was a lot of listening to some one who I love and respect more than I ever thought I could.  More on W in another entry.  The second call was a more heartfelt one, honest and open…fearful and teary at times, echoed with the light hearted giggle that says, “you are not alone.”

I listened a lot tonight, to W & my gorgeous friend Holly, but the key thing I heard was, “unlearn to unlove.”

The most natural thing in the world for us is to love and allow ourselves to be loved in return.  What happens to us, usually as young children, is that we are taught though a less than desirable experience, that loving someone is scary.  They might leave us we fear.  Or die.  Or not love us back.  So we harden our hearts into coffee like masses (blackness) and disallow anyone to really permeate the membrane that we call caution.  By doing this, we turn to cold shadows of people who say, “I love you”, and write kind words in birthday cards, but do we mean it? 

We have spent our lives learning to be hard, strong, and independent.  We have learned to unlove.  We have turned our back on our God given state of loving human beings, and given up our Heavenly instinct to adore, nurture, and cherish, because we are AFRAID.

I have learned that living in fear is wrong.  That there are steps I can take to recover from that “seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.”  However, when the tools are presented to me, in a perfectly wrapped blue book, what is preventing me from picking them and putting them to work?  More fear.  Because to change my current state of blackness, hardness, and unloving state, is terrifying, not to mention hard work.

I don’t have the answer (to life the universe or everything else), but I do know that if I really truly to LET GO and trust my gut, I have a chance to returning to the innocent state of bliss and serenity that I once was that allowed me to LOVE.

Once again, I have gone on long enough, and as a result I have no idea what I was trying to say.  But I loved and I got hurt and because I got hurt, I got scared and now I have mastered the art of unloving.  I am starting to realize that perhaps unloving needs to be unlearned. 

This is my commitment, I will jump in, head first.  I will follow my gut and I will start letting myself love again.  And as it happens, I am certain that things will hurt again, but I was reminded tonight, that through the tears I will giggle.  

Wake up, cry, work, cry, don't sleep, repeat - then pray

It’s been a while since I blogged...April 12^th of this year...I am not sure if I still know how to write?  I do know that when my life is this full, my head is this dizzy, and my heart is this swollen, the words flow freely; here I am, trying to create literary genius one poorly organized blog at a time.

When I got sober I was told that God will always give me what I need when I need it.  Not when I want it, or in some cases, not want it.

I can assure you I didn’t want 6 weeks of zombie like motions, tears, sleeplessness, and rage when I broke up with X.  I promise you that I didn’t want to stop golfing, watching baseball, and sleeping in my bed because it made me think of him, but I did.  Even 5 months later, I am not sure if I was in love, or if my co-dependency was in full force for the entire time I was with X.  I know that the wrench twisting my heart every day was hopelessness, and I know that the weight in my stomach that left no room for food was fear.  I’ve decided that they call it a break up because when you are so fully invested in another person and when you leave them (or they leave you), you are physically, spiritually, and emotionally broken.  If you are completely enamoured with one individual and you have based your entire adult life around them, you are beyond broken.  You are catapulted into another dimension where you are certain you will never smile, laugh, or love again; and where trudging though the day and forcing a smile requires so much effort that a mid afternoon psychotic melt down is essential. 

I remember weeks of going to work in baggy jeans, baggy t-shirts (malnutrition will do that), and ballet flats with my hair in a disgusting dirty pony tail.  I vividly recall turning out my light, praying for sleep, and being able to remember every inch of X’s skin and every swell of every muscle.  That was normal.  And disgustingly painful. 

Despite the grief cycle working EXACTLY how Google (and my shrink) said it would, I was not prepared for the anxiety and hurt that took up most of my waking hours.  My shrink assured me I would be on the upswing in 6 weeks and suggested I start practicing Step 11.  I responded, “Oh, I don’t do that.”  Which clearly explains how spiritually bankrupt I was. 

However, when I had enough of letting the obsession and disease run my life, and I realized I was incredibly close to picking up a drink, I got on my knees and somewhat doubtfully asked God for help. By day two of praying again (because it had been over a year), I got honest; crying, yelling, wiping my face so I could go to work, and then coming home to do it all over again.  I faced the fact that God took away my fear of being sober, my obsession for alcohol, and my selfishness because I humbly offered myself Him; therefore, why wouldn’t He take this away too?

“This is an action program”, so I worked myself to the bone to renew my shattered spiritual condition. I stumbled, many times; tried dating again; cried, yelled, threatened; smiled – finally.  And now I smile often.  Every day.  I finally understand what it is like to have a bad minute, not a bad day.  I have latched on to hope and have turned my back on guilt, shame, and remorse.  I have decided my life is mine and it will be lived.  X still crosses my mind, and even sent me a text this morning, but when I start to feel sad, lonely, hopeless, scared, and completely unloved, I get down on my knees and work on developing the calluses that those who have come before me, and stayed, brag about.