2012 brought some of the biggest challenges of my life. As I grew as person and as those around me grew, many of my relationships went through inevitable changes. The biggest challenge that I faced was confronting the hurt that I locked away inside of myself. I realized that I, like many of those around me, took my hurts and did one of two things with them - buried them or acted out. My years for acting out were behind me and I was at the burying them stage. Truthfully, it became incredibly easy to bury the hurt when there was no reason to confront it. I smiled and joked with those who I felt hurt me & betrayed my trust, those who were supposed to support me, protect me & be there for me. Whenever I felt like that hurt was rising back up, I took my hiatus from those people. It was a fine line to tow and one that I am ashamed to say I did not traverse very well.
Unfortunately, taking a hiatus from people spilled over to everyone, even if they did not cause me harm, simply because I anticipated that one day they would. I withdrew and kept to myself, to the point where not even my husband could reach me. I had built a stone fortress designed to keep myself safe, only looking out from the turrets occasionally, ready to fire if necessary. As I look back, I realize that I lost a lot of people that I loved along the way and actually perpetrated the harm on them that I was supposed to be protecting myself from. When I first realized this dismal truth, I was incredibly apathetic about it, rationalizing all the reasons that various individuals deserved it. It was not until my behavior took up residence in my home and caused a rift between me and my husband, a rift that was visible every time I walked into my home, a rift that almost split us apart, that I was forced to confront what I had been doing for years. What I called protection was in fact separation. I spent so many years during my acting out phase pretending to be so hard that nothing phased me that people actually bought this farce. And when they bought it, I got angry that no one wanted to dig to find the incredibly sensitive, easily hurt, quick to tears woman behind the smiling face and ready jokes. In turn, this anger caused me to decide that no one should know who I really was and the easiest way to do that was to limit my interactions with people. The end result was really an abject loneliness.
2012 has taught me that communication, friendships & relationships are a 2-way street; we all bear the responsibility for failed and successful relationships and friendships. However, I have also learned that no relationship is 50-50 all the time and to imagine that it is is not only selfish but is setting oneself up for disappointment.
So 2013 is about learning to forgive myself, learning to deal with my hurts proactively and learning how to go through the process of forgiving others. I apologize and ask the forgiveness of those who have stuck by my side through some very trying periods and those who had quite enough and left. For those who left, I ask for a second chance to be better and I ask for the same open communication that I hope to give. This blog is dedicated to the love and relationships in my life. Here's to not bottling up emotions.
Let's love every day away in 2013 ;-)
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