sitting here processing this whirlwind summer as it comes to an end - so full of change..some amazing, some sad, some hard, some breathtakingly beautiful...and yet welcoming it all... which is new for me.
amidst all the emotion that comes with this, there is this deep dark place i go sometimes - in my head....of what it all ONCE was, and just exactly WHY it is what it is now.
the last few weeks have been trying. trying my patience. trying my heartstrings. trying my emotional capacity....and that being said...SO much of that has been really, really good.
i'm unwinding years of tangled up emotions - like a ball of yarn that has been tossed away...so beautiful, only too knotted up to use.
ideas of what that life was, creep in, and i get stuck in that deep dark place trying desperately to unravel it only to find MORE knots.
i have decided to spend some time with it this summer....embracing it, loving it, and finally understanding it...untangling the knots, being patient with the fibers and strands and even using my nails to really loosen those tough ones.
in existing in this space and time, the universe has aligned me with some crazy serious vibrations...scary and new - but good.
feeling very welcomed here in this space, and feeling like i would like to unpack and stay here for awhile...because amidst all those beautiful fibers, is where i belong.
so many years ago, on this journey, of love and life, and loss and rebirth, i was a wild and wide eyed questioning teenager...i wanted the world to know me....i wanted to move mountains, i wanted to kick ass and take names, but i had no idea why, or for what...i was seventeen...
i fell in love with a boy, who would later become a man, MY man...and i would bear our 3 beautiful children with him. and we would live happily ever after...i was SEVENTEEN. (insert rolling eyes and lame romantic music now if you wish.)
and life, well, it isn't always what you think it will be, and at seventeen i decided, under no duress i might add, that i was "BRYAN'S girlfriend." period and DONE.
i existed here...waiting for him to return from trip after trip, and defining myself by this beautiful blonde boy i had by my side.
we survived the test of time - and adolescence - sometimes i wonder now, if it was simply because so many people told us we wouldn't...
i became his wife, and took on the title of "BRYAN'S wife"... and we moved forward somehow while standing in one place and created three amazing little human beings, and i quickly became "mama al" my three beans beside me wherever i went - like a mama duck with her ducklings.
and while it sounds like things were moving along as they should, they weren't actually moving at all.
somewhere along that path of defining myself as all of those things, i had lost the ability to define myself as ME...i had no idea who i was...or where my heart existed...i was terrified to be defined as anything other than MOM. i hid behind my children - even in photographs...such a metaphor for where my life had landed...but it gets even worse, as so many demises do...
i chose - read that word carefully, because it is important. i CHOSE...to become "BRYAN's EX wife." and for several years i stayed right there - parked my ass on that front step, and wore that title right the hell out. i might as well have tattooed 'exwife' on my forehead.
i wrapped myself so tight in that ball of yarn and refused to move.
wandered in an out of a few relationships, always leaving because i couldn't exist in any space other than where i was..."exswivesville."
you guys know these women, they sit scowling at him, and possibly even at him's new "her."
no matter where he is or what he's doing - hating on his every move, and while in SO many scenarios, this is COMPLETELY justified, if one were to take two or three steps back...even babysteps, one MIGHT see, that the rest of the world is moving, shaking, making magic all around them...except in
i can't tell you the moment i decided to vacate that spot, because truly who the hell knows, but i'm guessing it was while sitting with a dear friend and pouring my thoughts out while she recorded me - i realized that it was time to unfold my achy limbs and climb OUT of that ball of knotted up yarn...i AM so so much more than an ex....
my self. see - even stands alone - in writing.
my SELF...that fire... that 17 year old fire...it sparked back up - until it was raging.- and every day it s burned brighter...dancing and growing...wanting to be felt....
i began defining myself again - as me.
...wandering into little head shops with dear friends and loving up on the hippie stank of patchouli (and not giving a damn what my uptight little town might think of me....) touching pottery, sitting around a fire that I BUILT, with dear friends beside me, cooking food - because i love to feed people AND their souls, and not apologizing.
anymore.
those scary and unknown vibrations have shifted to a place of love. embracing my life as a mom, a teacher, a daughter, a lover, a girlfriend (WHO HAS A GIRLFRIEND, and that is OKAY!!!) , a friend - a friend who has no boundries - and does NOT care that it doesn't fit your definition of fine....because yah know what...i am fine.
my SELF - is better than fine.
my circle of people is strong as fuck. so strong it actually requires i say FUCK. because I CAN.
i have the worlds BEST friends and family - (like i would marry them all and keep them on a remote island amazing) - and to be fair i don't even know where the line between friends and family even starts and stops these days...and that - THAT is magic.
3 AMAZING kiddos - like SERIOUSLY AMAZING.
and one hell of a woman by my side who loves the SHIT out of me every damn day, embracing our steps together and letting love in...because i can.
i refuse to apologize for my heart....my soul...my fire...my intuition...my magic...OR my chaos...because that my loves, is WHO i am.and if you are already here - you already KNOW that.
it's my self.
my WHOLE damn self....and i am finally letting it exist here - and now...
bliss and blessings your way my loves....
now carry on.
*a
