Struck!

I am in battle with myself over so many things right now. I have so many things up in the air all at once. I feel like one minute I am on track and then boom. I am struck with the pangs of reality. I didn't get the job I wanted. I haven't heard back from the three I have some hope in, and have applied for a dozen more. Now I wait.
Reminds me of being little and waiting to open Christmas presents...the agony of the waiting was devastating. I spend my time waiting panicking and over analyzing and basically working myself into a frenzy. What the heck? I have to find calm in this storm that is raging around me. I need an anchor that lies within myself and not someone else.
I feel like I am in a tiny rescue boat with two precious children in tow. It feels awful. They didn't ask to be tossed out to sea. They don't deserve the effects of these raging waters. Little do they know it's my own tears we are drowning in. I can't get too scared. I have to get us to shore. I can't let myself be weak. I can't grab hold of the dangerous unknown boats that try and save me. No. I have to do this myself...for them. I have to be brave.
I went into this thinking I had a team. It was our decision. It was what was best. I was setting not only myself free but him too. We wanted to tread waters as friends and not let the other one drown. Is this the plan? Or did I miss a step? Did I jump in the water or was I thrown in? I can't even tell anymore. All I know is that the storm is getting bigger. I have been struck more than once. I have too much to give up...please please please Lord let me be strong enough to make it.

Real Tough...Real Rough

I have recently been forced to deal with all things real...some tough and some rough. Sadly those close to me are having to deal with those things too. My reality is different than what many may have wanted or expected, but it's not theirs to change or judge. I have made choices and I am at TOTAL peace with each and every one!
Where it gets rough for me is when my reality gets tossed in the mix with someone else's. I don't think this is fair and I am putting an end to it. I am ending a marriage; it's a done deal. I don't want to ask for prayers for healing for my marriage...those times have passed. All I want is prayers for peace and healing and friendship. This may sound harsh, but again this is my reality...one I have been living in and one you can't understand unless you could see in my brain or feel the wounds in my heart. I have been able to put all of that down and move forward.
My reality now is that God has shown himself more to me in the process of divorce than I have felt in years. I had honestly almost felt and practically believed I had been forgotten...not just by people but by God. Clearly that was not true. I now believe that the journey I took made me stronger by making me feel my weakest. It gave me appreciation for what I want and desire that I may not have had before. I am more compassionate to others feelings, perceptions, and circumstances because I have had an inside look at the horrors of tribulation and trials. I am more eager and anxious to love again where I thought I might be afraid. I am working on my inner demons that have haunted me since I was a child and am really trying to set them down. I have witnessed pain and I can be sensitive to it. I fought hard and I can appreciate others battles.
It's tough to have to hurt others in your own quest to healing and happiness. I can't be forced to carry someone's guilt, or to feel bad for their burden. We all make choices, we all have consequences. I don't desire bad things on anyone, in all honesty I would be happy to just all get along...leave the past at the door and try to just get through tomorrows. I know God has taken people out of my life, but I also know he has placed some in it...in his always perfect timing. I know it's tough and I know it's rough, but my reality is going from grey sky's and storms to rainbows and starlight. God didn't forget me...I needed to go through the entire journey to appreciate what was on the other side.

Real Heavy!

Sometimes I think we are so busy with 'life' that we don't realize how much baggage we are lugging around. In the past few months I have made more than a few life changing decisions. Each of them have a large amount of hurt or responsibility to be dealt with. Well as I have began the process of loading up all this new baggage I have realized I have way too much old baggage still upon me. Some lays heavy on my heart, some heavy on my conscience, some heavy on my mind, etc.

What I have realized is that I have become soooo used to trying to make everyone around me happy as to not disappoint or whatever that I totally took a backseat to anything for me. I have some stuff to let go of and allow myself to be freed from the heavy heart and the heavy hurt. So let's break this down a little.

My old crappy baggage is way too heavy, it's full of years of damage and quite frankly it gets in my way! I am not about to let this darn stuff ruin my chances for happiness. I can see it happening right now and even though I know and I don't wanna do it...something about this luggage is bound to me. Part of the problem might be that some of my new baggage hopped in this suitcase...so how do I possibly remedy this quickly? This luggage has a name: abandonment. It started years ago when I realized my dad left and he never looked back...I wasn't enough to look back at. This realization was made when I was young and although I tried to pretend I didn't care and was better off; truth is that this one event would lead to the heaviest of my burdens. The rest of my life I have watched loved ones come into my life and then want to leave. How can I not take this personally? Why am I so leavable? Why am I not enough?

I dont have the energy for this particular baggage and yet I don't have the strength to remove it either. So now what? How can I remove this piece so that I dont panic and hold on too tight and force people out? Truth is I know I am my best version of me when I am confident and feel safe...yet that baggage starts to get heavy again and then I get scared and become in my opinion the worst version of me. I don't want this...my future doesn't deserve this.

I have to try...weak or not it's worth it to me to chunk this darn ridiculous amount of weight off of my life so that I can finally move forward possibly feeling like I deserve something, that I am worthy, that someone maybe fears my leaving as much as I would theirs, that I am lovable...I want someone to tell me just how stupid my dad was. How crazy he was. How he missed out on amazing and not the other way around.

This kind of stuff gets real heavy sometimes. I can't keep adding unless I start removing because it is ruining my life and I am over that...I am marching forward to happiness and greatness!

Getting to the "real" stuff...

Well, my reality has been sort of waved around like a flag at the Fourth of July. It has gone from here to there and basically up and down and all around. I have spent a decade in a marriage that is now ending and I am forced to answer questions like:
How? Why? Now what? What about this? What about that?

You know I spent soooo many years just choosing to do what I thought was right. I would let the heartache fall somewhere in the far depths of my feelings and march forward with an arsenal of hope, mind numbing distractions, false smiles, etc. heck I was so good at pretending my life was okay that I probably would have or maybe could have kept that up forever. But at what cost?

Now that I have been freed from the pretending I have walls that are coming down slowly. Where I had built a wall that said it was okay to never have passion, I have now seen it. The wall that said I have to make everything okay has started to come down and I realize I can't always make it okay. The wall that said I didn't need or deserve real love has fallen down completely and I know I want to be loved and I want to love. I want my girls to see real love...real friendship...real honesty.

I am trying hard to not be bitter. I am focusing ONLY on the blessings this new chapter will reveal. I have no time to focus on the past, the hurt, the what ifs. This IS my reality. I tried. I failed. I will get back up. I will keep moving forward. I will find strength somewhere. I have to keep believing that everything happens for a reason. Isn't that what you always hear when something terrible happens. Well...I have to believe that. Otherwise what's the point? Why keep going?

My reality may look broken to those of you looking at it now, but it is actually finally being mended from where it has broken for so long. I was just never brave enough to tell you. Now I am.

I am good. I am becoming stronger every day. I am happy. I am blessed.

When 'real' becomes 'reality'...

I love when I am having a great dream and it's so real I actually feel the emotions...but then you get woke up and you are like dang! You try to go back to sleep, but it's too late...your dream is over.
Then there are times I have had a nightmare that also felt real and left my heart racing, tears streaming, gut wrenching pain, and the sweet relief of being woke up can't come quickly enough. It's the welcome of reality that's so refreshing.

I have also experienced tremendous joy while awake so much so that I sometimes think I should pinch myself to make sure it's for real. I have also walked the path of horror in life where I would beg to wake up...that it not be true.

I recently lost a sweet friend who treasured an entire year of memories for me to cancer. She was my first college roommate and was a part of me growing up and becoming me. I felt great regret when I heard...why hadn't we stayed closer, I should have said more, I should have been there, etc. I felt all those things you feel when it's too late...

Kel passing made me aware of the fleeting moments before me. About how my tomorrow's aren't guaranteed. To love without limits. To take each day and make it count. I don't want to leave regretting or questioning. I wanna leave learning growing loving being loved and spreading laughter and joy. I lived too many days waiting to be woke up...now it's time to live and feel the need to pinch.

Let's make reality the best we can.

Really?

I am embarking on some new territory lately and find myself constantly thinking...really? Is this really my life? Was this really the plan? I find some things exciting yet terrifying at the same time. It's exciting to think of going back to work and yet terrifying at the same time. I am scared to leave my little kaytlee. I cherish every moment I have had home with her. She is an angel that has done wonders for my soul. I worry about what job I will find and how it will handle school activities for my darling Kynlee. I have been so blessed to be able to attend all of her school functions and take her everywhere she needs to go.
Really? Ugh.
But I am really blessed to have family here that will fill in the gaps whatever job I take uncovers. My mom is always up for keeping the little ladies or driving them to and from. Scott's parents are here and able to help as well as Scott's sister whom my girls love. So I am blessed. What if I lived far away from family with no help and no extra hands?
Really? Yes.
I am making changes and they are scary and the unknowns can almost make me crazy if I let them. I have to just take this one day at a time remembering its out of my control and that God will place me exactly where I need to be.
Really? This is hard.
Really? I need to believe.

Reality Bites

There was always a debate in my marketing classes. I would ask my students each year whether the media mimics society or if society mimics the media. It's a tough call. I see both ways but I would say nine times out of ten its the latter.
There have been a few movies that I have seen that punched me in the gut with reality. 'White Oleander' is one...it was one movie I left thinking wow...how could that have seriously got worse. What more could any one person endure. Even that film though eluded to a happy ending. Another movie/book was Nicholas Sparks 'A Walk to Remember' within its portrayal of undying teenage love and devotion was the reality that you can't always love or pray the evil of cancer away.
I feel like typically us regular folks are working towards or looking for what the media has so clearly and repeatedly laid out for us. We measure successes and such along this high lines. Really only few people can ever meet or even get close to that.
My favorite place in the world is New York City. Why? I guess because I spent an entire childhood on a farm admiring its glory through movies and Christmas parades. I was a little nervous to finally go and see it myself for fear it wouldn't be what I wanted, but New York City did NOT disappoint. It lives up to its hype, and maybe that's why I love it so much.
In my life I am discovering that I don't always know what's going to happen, how my story is going much less how my story will end. At this moment it feels like those movies that leave you punched in the gut. Right now there are very few parts of it I can look at and say...I am blessed. Mainly because there are big parts that need mending and healing. Those are the parts that today I feel like bite.
It's like I said before...I have to remember when in a valley I 'have' to keep going to ever reach a mountaintop. So if ever you have been in my shoes please share the wisdom, and if not be thankful that you have a reality worth making a movie about. :)

Real Life

It's hard to imagine that life isn't always funny like a sitcom or always lovey like a love story. I have had to really come to terms with my 'expectations' of life. My life.
I am victim of the things of this world...I want the 'picture perfect' life. I want the dream marriage where it's full of passionate love and heart-gripping devotion. I want the perfect children with perfect health and brains and athleticism. I want a great job where I am happy and achieving something. I want the nice home with all it entails.
How horrific is that truth I just laid out? I mean really...it's disgusting. I know it's yet sometimes I still want it. The truth is though...my life is its own type of perfect. With all things there will be problems...in my marriage with my children my job hunt my home. Really the only thing I truly view as perfection are my girls. Their beauty and overall being in my opinion is perfect! I know they don't mind all the time and that they have inherited all my yucky illnesses, but they are perfect. It's only in them that I really see God. I see the gift they are and the greatness of his miraculous ability to create life.
What I need to do is take down my expectations from what I have seen in movies or on television, or read in books and take a look at the truth around me. I have to realize I can't meet those expectations and neither can anyone else in my life. I need to focus on the reality of my purpose and role here on this earth. It's not to achieve perfection but to love the Lord and help raise children to Love the Lord.
Real life is full of problems and imperfections. Real life can sure be funny and it can sometime be romantic, but real life is ever changing and will enevitably have valleys and mountains.
I am struggling right now to embrace my real life and to understand when in a valley I must keep going to ever reach a mountaintop.

What's this?

So I think all little girls are misled. We are set up to expect fairy tales from our earliest years. We are told of 'prince charming' and all his saving ways. Then when we are older we are scolded for dare having a thought that we aren't the ones to save ourselves.

Do you see where this is just a bad idea? Yet, here I am reading the same stories to my kids and tucking them into bed with the 'hope' of fairy tales. Why? Why not read them the news or the statistics regarding divorce rates, college graduates, chances of making the team, unemployment rates, cancer statistics, so on and so on? We don't do it because we know that reality will come soon enough and so we participate in the endearing protection of that sweet innocence that will all too quickly be robbed of their perfect mind.

It's tragic really.

I am devastated by my own discovery, but the thing that truly crushes my heart is the waiting and worrying over when their fairy tale world will be 'reality stricken' too. I would almost give my own life if I thought it could keep them from it. As you will soon discover...my mission is to keep them in a fairy tale as long as possible for fear of what will happen when they are no longer.