Positively Painful

"Laugh when you can. Apologize when you should. Let go of what you cannot change. Play hard. Forgive quickly. Take chances. Give everything you've got. Have NO regrets. Life is too short to be anything but happy!"

I want to share with you how I have recently “Faced My Race.” The race of: dedication, investments, emotions, involvement, connection, and faith in my relationship (can I get an Amen!). I hope what you take from this is the ability to relate, to be revived, encouraged, inspired and maybe even to change!

Eighteen months ago I met the man I thought I would marry and a week ago, that same man decided otherwise. Needless to say, I am in the process of healing. With that, I am by no means writing about my previous relationship to say anything negative, cast any blame and/or publicly share private information. I deeply value my previous relationship and I can honestly say that it changed my life. It changed me as a woman. So, I write to share with you the process of my change. How my pain is evolving in ways so empowering and that I have decided to see the pain positively (not easy, but doable). I feel like so many people can relate to my situation. However, some people choose to be: complacent, depressed, angry and stuck. We have all experienced something that seemed so perfect, and within days/weeks/months, it all changed. That’s life. Nothing is promised to us. That is why they say, "Never put all your eggs in one basket." If you lose the basket, you have no eggs and no basket. In the same way, you should never conform to one person. “Never put all of who you are into someone else." If you lose that person, you lose yourself. I am thrilled to say that I still have 100% of myself and know exactly who I am. That is the positive!

I am human and I would have to admit that in my days of healing, there are good days and bad days. I have learned that it is completely natural to go thru many emotions each day, sometimes even by the minute. I began in shock. I was numb. I had no visual emotion. That turned into pain/anger/resentment. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t ration the irrational. Within a week, I was devastated. The “routine” of my relationship was setting in and the realization that there were no: morning conversations, afternoon lunches, “cute” texts, long phone conversations, speechless moments, perfect weekends and effortless affection…the void was beginning to set in. I fought with time. Moment by moment, I replayed every second of “that night” in my head. This was painful. This is painful. And for some time, will continue to be painful.

I don’t speak in past tense, as if I don’t have days that I feel alone and miss what I had. I speak in past tense because I have chosen to put it behind me. To only take from it what is good. I choose to take control of my healing. My pain. My happiness. My life. I have slowly begun to realize that God is working in me. The end to that relationship was to make room for a relationship with God AND to make me, a better woman.

I am currently reading a book called, 9 Things You Simply Must Do to Succeed in Love and Life. Henry Could states, “You have to come to the end of yourself, because that is when a person truly gets better. When you face the fact that you are powerless, then you look outside yourself to find the power to do what you are unable to do. That is how people usually change, and it works.” As I spend time reading and trying to focus on the good, this experience is beginning to add to the testimony of my faith. The loss of love is an extremely hard thing to grapple with. To lose something/someone you can physically see and feel and flex my faith muscles, which I cannot see but can definitely feel, is stretching for me. Either way…Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about dancing in the rain.