Playing It Safe

Hi, my name is Terralyn. I've been sober for almost a year. My drug of choice was safety.

If there was a support group for people who were afraid of living, I could have been the facilitator. 

I'm not suggesting I haven't had my share of fun and adventure. I have. I really have. At some point, I lost that want to jump, and I made myself a sweet little net to carry around to fall into when risks scared me. 

I lived fearfully...and that's not really living. 

I was afraid of dying, losing relationships, going new places, being alone, saying 'no' to people, pain...the list goes on and on. I became an anxious monster who sat in her cave and watched life happen around me while I ruminated over the lurking danger around me. I carved the days in the walls to mark the time to remind me that hiding had kept me alive and fairly hurt free. (at least that's how I viewed it)

I wasn't alive. I certainly wasn't free from hurt. I was dead inside except for the fire of anxiety that burned every day. I was consumed by it. I clung to to it like a child clings to their favorite blanket. I'd cover my eyes to the world with it. 

In an instant, my life turned upside down and all the false security I had been surrounded by, was suddenly gone. Poof. Gone. It walked out on me and I became a crazed woman. I remember days of crying so hard from my fear that my heart literally hurt. I didn't eat. I didn't sleep. I didn't create or destroy. I gave up on myself so completely that I was accepting the worst as the outlook for my future. I felt I was nothing. I had nothing left. 

So many people live like I did. They bide their time by taking a back seat to their own lives. They put blinders on and accept what lies their eyes can see..not the truths all around us when we turn our head to look at them. 

The risks I take now may seem inconsequential to many..but I am just learning to live again. A year is not very long. I have years to make up for. 

Living is not always the grand displays of adventure that we are shown in media. Sometimes, it's a quiet whisper, saying, "do something uncomfortable today." For some, that could be as simple as choosing to get off the couch and moving their body. It could be saying 'no' to people in your life that prey on your fear of being unkind. Sometimes living is choosing to get up every single day, even when it feels like you can barely get a sock on one foot before your pain starts to remind you it's still there...waiting. 

I'm not a victim to anyone. Please don't misunderstand. I was a victim of my own choices and inaction. I created the hell I lived in. I took life's traumas and weaved them into sweater. It kept me warm for short periods of time. 

Here's reality. We are never truly safe and any choices we make based on the lie that we are safe, are based in fear and not love. Love of yourself. Love of life. Love of living. 

So, today, I choose to continue to make myself stretch a little more. I choose to welcome the unknown and wonder at it's ability to change my world in ways that I could never expect. I wake up and start each day with curiosity. I choose to embrace the bumps and bruises and dust off and keep going. 

I choose to risk it all...because I am alive.

I blew that cave up and watched it crumble as I walked away.

Codependency-In Which I Finally Open Up About My Marriage

When Kendrick and I split up, I got a lot of:

"I never saw that coming!"

"You two seemed like you had the perfect relationship."

"You were like one brain in two bodies."

The dissolving of a marriage is never easy. I doesn't matter why or how it happens. It's just a huge mixed bag of emotions to sift through until you reach the bottom and realize that sometimes, it's just better that way. Sometimes, it takes a long time to be able to say that it's better. And that's OK. Once our ego settles down, we become open to hearing the positive things that can happen after a separation. It's all about accepting and growing. 

My marriage was anything but perfect, in hindsight. I don't blame anyone for it. I don't regret it. It just wasn't the picture postcard that it appeared to be to others and often, to us. There were amazing times and memories, but there was also a lot of codependency on both of our parts, and it imploded. 

Codependency is a sneaky jerk. It can be so easy to follow that urge to just lose yourself in love, to share every moment together, to give up stuff that your partner doesn't like...

To lose yourself completely to another person. 

At first, codependent relationships feel safe. "This person loves me so completely, that they have given me all of them." There's no room for mistrust because you live and breathe the same air at all times. It's safe feeling. That feeling of routine and knowing what to expect can make us lose sight of what living truly is. 

After you feel safe and secure, the suffocation begins. Your expectations for one another are so severe that the person YOU are, gets shoved down deeper and deeper. You find yourself wondering why you feel incomplete, like there is something you want but can't figure it out. That feeling exists because the relationship has put you in a position to give up on your own goals and hobbies. Sometimes, for so long, that you actually lose the desire to pursue them if it means independence. 

Your entire world gets exponentially smaller. And so do you.  

After thoroughly suffocating the self right out of you, things explode. We are not meant to live like that. It is not a healthy love. 

We are meant to be free. We are meant to live our lives, possibly side by side with another, but still independent. Some people can ignore this for a long time. I certainly did. I had a traumatic youth, and Kendrick made me feel safe in many ways. I clung to that. Same for him. 

It took our relationship ending to finally have a head clear enough to see just how wrong it all was. To see how wrong I was to hand myself over to another person and essentially give up my own sense of autonomy.  

It took me breaking. It took him breaking. It took our relationship breaking. 

I can only speak for myself, but it was what I needed to shake my life up. I needed to wake back up and take my life back...for me and no one else. 

I know many of you have wondered and have waited for this kind of post. I understand curiosity. I also hope that you realize that I don't regret the marriage or it ending. It is another chapter in my life..each chapter helping to create a life's story. 

I am much more aware now. I am free now. I have healthy boundaries now. I wouldn't change that if the opportunity was there. It took me a while, but I got there. And that feels fucking amazing... Every single day. 

Longing

I have a longing so deep that time threatens to stand still for it...and it often feels like it does. I watch days pass as my yearning grows stronger and stronger. 

Patience has never been a strong characteristic of mine when it comes to knowing what I want. I'm not talking about material things. I rarely long for anything material. It's not what drives me. I long for the things in life that add to my happiness. Love, affection, growth, and momentum.... peace.

It's hard for this logical planner to sit back and see what's in front of me, know that I want it as part of me, and know that I either can't have it or I need to be patient. It's right there. I can touch it and feel it..imagine how it would be to have it. 

Not yet. Maybe not at all. 

It's not easy to hear that internal drum of my heart chanting, "yes, Terralyn" only to have the universe say, "not yet, Terralyn." It interrupts my dancing. It pervades my thinking and makes me feel like a toddler in a toy aisle. "I want that!" The internal tantrum, only able to be hushed by reality. 

Reality can be a cold hearted bastard. So much of my thinking comes from imagination..but reality requires truth and an exactness that is so precise that it jabs at my heart with it's long finger and mocks me. It tells me to shut down my imagination and face what's in front of me.

And I do. 

It's painful sometimes. I can't have everything I want. Sometimes not without a lot of work and sometimes not at all. I know.. I know that not everything I want is realistic..it doesn't stop me from yearning. 

It's right there within my reach. My fingers brush against it, caress it, touch it for a moment.

And it's flown off again like a playful butterfly. 

For now, I have to learn to be patient. I have to quiet my mind and heart to the point of exhaustion from the struggle of it. I know it will make me a better person. It will make me appreciate what I have. It helps me stay in the present moment.

But sometimes, I just want it now. 

And like that toddler reaching for a toy, I am told, "no."

Tightrope Walking

I have never touched freedom as much as I have this year. I have become a bird who's clipped wings have grown back. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't express my gratitude for it by stretching them and using them. 

But with freedom there are always periods of sheer madness. It can't be helped. Just like light and dark are needed, freedom and madness go hand in hand. 

I have moved myself into a space of loving and living more. My days are full of creativity and an honesty that most shy away from. 

The madness comes because my willingness to open myself up to the world leaves me vulnerable. The love that has touched me has left me with feelings ranging from elation to acute grief. 

Yet, I can't stop. I can't stop flying. I want to suck every ounce of feeling out of my days. I want to experience it all. Even the hard stuff. I know it means growth. 

I'm sometimes riding a fine line. I know this. Sometimes that line represents a joy that can't be replicated, and sometimes it represents a sadness that brings me to a breaking point of deciding how much more I can handle before I finally cross it into oblivion. 

People keep telling me how strong I am. I fucking know it. Believe me, I know it. I've stared death in the eyes on many occasions and turned my back to it and the lies it tells me to draw me in. But being strong does not make it hurt less. 

It's times like this that I'm grateful for my wings. I feel their gentle breeze and it pulls me back to reality and I let them carry me away from the ocean of tears and grief.

It isn't all dark these days. 

Sometimes, I do something completely out of the ordinary and let the craziness of it wash over me like a spring rainfall. I enjoy the small moments of adventure and impulsive decisions that start with no destination but lead me precisely to the place where I need to be most in that moment. 

I dance. I haven't danced in many years...but I can't stop my body now. From standing in front of a live band and bouncing up and down while I shoot up devil horns to letting my weightless body slice through the water in ways it could never on land.. I dance. 

I talk to people from the heart. I let them know how much I cherish them..even if they can't really hear my intention or aren't prepared to hear it. It's not about having my feelings reciprocated, it's just letting them know that my love is freely given. No expectations. 

I know there are times that my behavior may confuse those around me. I ask you to imagine a trapped animal who has lived in a cage for years and has been set free to the wilds again. 

I must run. Captivity is my greatest fear now. 

Desire

You'd think that the lesson of not getting what you want would set in as a child when we are often told, "no." Yet it doesn't. We get told that, in different ways, as an adult.. all the time. 

Here's the thing.

Desire never stops. Wanting never goes away. We never completely learn how to master the art of contentment with what we have in front of us.  It is a basic human emotion that can't be quelled by sheer force. 

It's OK to desire. 

I know that's an unpopular belief among those who believe they are Zen enough to shut down all human wants. To that I say, "Congratulations, you've successfully stopped being a participant in living your own life." 

Desire is a driving force that helps us to keep growing, changing, loving, learning, enjoying, trying...

When we try to shut down desire, we essentially tell ourselves we aren't worth the effort it takes to see that aspiration through to the other side, whatever outcome that may be. 

We are hurt so much in our lifetime. We think, as humans who are hurting, if we could just let go of our own wants..the pain will stop. It doesn't. 

When I lost Charlie, I thought that if I could just stop wanting a different outcome, I could find peace. I beat myself up for it constantly. It was a war in my head of trying to accept that it was OK to want him to be alive and an enemy army that told me that I could never heal if I always wished he was still alive.

I will always wish that there had been another outcome. I can't see how I could love someone and not want them alive. I can see the beauty in what has happened as a result of his death. I can be thankful for that beauty and the changes in my life that have moved me into a space of loving more in the moment. 

But I can never stop wanting him alive. That's not a matter of discontent, it's a matter of wishing he, himself, had a shot at living a life that he was capable of and wanted. 

A loving desire can and should make us see past ourselves and look at our desired subject as something or someone that has value. Without want, the world and everything and everyone in it becomes dull and useless to us. It lacks color and vibrancy. 

Synonyms for desire are words like: eagerness, enthusiasm, yearning, burning. These words spark my imagination in ways that make me take action. They can take a mundane life and turn it into an open space of possibility. 

I desire. 

I desire a life that keeps me curious. A life that makes me get up every day and try harder. A life that is filled with love to the bursting. A life where creativity reigns supreme. 

A life, that at the end of my time, I can look at and say, "I desired...and I lived as much as I could as a result." 

Catharsis

We use cathartic skills to cope with life's challenging thoughts or feelings. Usually in flux, it's using tools as we need them. Catharsis is purging of emotions through release, and the result is usually a feeling of freedom from them. 

I just keep purging and expressing. Sometimes, to the point of exhaustion. I write, sing, talk, wail, create..all cathartic things, yet I still feel like I'm going nowhere fast. I know this isn't true. Some days, I can see I am making strides. I try to honor those small signs of healing. 

Universe, what is it you require of me? What is it I am supposed to learn? How to cry until I am voiceless? How to hurt until I eventually become scarred over enough that I am unphased by it? It's almost like you're preparing me for something greater. I am a boxer with their coach, and I have to swing until I land the perfect punch. 

Some days, i want to shut down my heart and mind, crawl into my bed and sleep. But no matter how much I feel like that, I don't do it. 

I pick myself back off the fucking ground and I stand in the fire some more. 

I can't even begin to hide my sadness from others. I try, to save them from feeling the need to protect me..which I don't need. Sometimes I hide it because I know other's are hurting more than I am and I am giving them that time to just express without feeling like they are adding to my own pain. Everyone deserves that.

But, my ability to contain it is eroding. 

If I could paint a mental picture for you, it would be an image of a person with their chest a gaping wound..screaming. 

In all of this, I still can't shut down my heart to newness and wonder. I have a curiosity. I still want to jump in, feet first, and absorb every little scrap of living, that I can. 

So here I am. Raw from the pain. Tears running down my face. My soul seeping from my pores.

And I scream at the universe, "what else have you got for me?!" 

Bring it the fuck on. 

I'm not bullet proof, but I'm fairly certain I've proved I will get back up and stand there and take the beatings you give me. I may rest for a moment, but life is too short to hide. 

I just have to remind myself that I am not weak.. I am actually quite strong. Even when I'm on my knees and sobbing. I am holding on and I know, with all of my heart, I will stand again.