Gifts

“Gifts have ribbons, not strings.” ~ Vanna Bonta

I have been struggling the last couple of days. The lizard brain has been loud and in that process it has filled me full of fear and sadness. All the happy that I had found, the confidence and belief that things would be OK seems to have vanished. I was looking through my images for something to post today for the letter G and I ended up scrolling back quite a few years. Seeing some of those images bought tears to me eyes. Oh to go back to being that person again, happy, confident, content, loved. I would give anything to be that again.

Sometimes I don’t even know who that woman was. I look at her and think, oh my love, if only you knew what was coming. I want to shout out and warn her. Watch out, this will trip you up, it will rip everything apart. It will bring you to your darkest hours. Don’t let it. DO NOT GET ON THAT PLANE. No matter the pull or the desire don’t. You will live to regret it. It will haunt you and change you and not for the better.

But I can’t warn her. I can’t go back. No matter how much I wish I could. There is only now. Who I am today. A changed woman and not all of it in a good way but also not all of it a bad way. I know that and oddly in some ways I am OK with it.

I have as a result learned the things that are really really important to me. That it is easy to get sidetracked but that way lays danger and ultimately heartbreak and loneliness. That poly or ethical non-monogamy only works for me in a very limited way. The idea of having multiple partners, exploring with all sorts of people, it seems fun and liberating but mostly it is not. It made me lonely and unhappy and just highlighted everything that I had lost and missed so very much. I have no appetite for it. I am not good at the casualness of it. Despite being good at sharing and being able to love and commit to more than one person I need the commitment and the closeness of a proper bonding otherwise it does not work for me. It feels hollow

There are other things I have learned about myself but mostly it has bought into stark focus how happy I used to be and how unhappy I have been the last 3 years. Hopefully, maybe, I think there is a route to changing that. Not going back but going forward to something new. I certainly have gifts in my life that I treasure and love one of them being Lilly. But also Michael, my children who have turned into fairly functioning adults, my adorable doggo who I love so very much. My house that I absolutely adore. There is so much I am grateful for and focusing on that rather than on the mistakes I made and the regrets I have is important. I am not always good at it. I struggle with feelings of guilt and shame and a nice dose of self loathing at times too. That is not always easy to quieten. As I said at the beginning, the lizard brain can be loud and powerful. But I try (Michael would say VERY trying but don’t listen to him) I persist. We move. It will all be OK. Always remember the gifts of today.