I was listening to some music tonight.  Was a great evening actually.  Love songs have new meaning when your heart is light and happy.  I was enjoying dreaming and being sappy and a song came on that I haven’t heard in a very long time.  It immediately made me think of my ex… for so many reasons… and not in a lovey sense either.

Here we are.
What is left of a husband and a wife four good kids
Who have a way of gettin on with their lives
I’m not old but I’m getting a whole lot older every day
It’s too late to keep from goin’ crazy
I got to get away

The reasons that I can’t stay don’t have a thing to do with being in love
And I understand that lovin a man shouldn’t have to be this rough
You ain’t the only one Who feels like this world left you far behind
I don’t know why you gotta be Angry All The Time

Our boys are strong the spittin image of you when you were young
I hope someday they can see past what you have become
I remember every time I said I’d never leave
What I can’t live with is memories of the way you used to be

The reasons that I can’t stay don’t have a thing to do with being in love
And I understand that lovin a man shouldn’t have to be this rough
You ain’t the only one Who feels like this world left you far behind
I don’t know why you gotta be Angry All The Time

Twenty years have came and went since I walked out of your door
I never quite made it back to the one I was before
And God it hurts me to think of you
For the light in your eyes was gone sometimes
I don’t know why this old world can’t leave well enough alone

It made me cry.  It made me wonder if in 20 years, will I make it “back” to the one I was before?  Would I even want to?  This song, really sums up the end of my marriage.  We were both pretty broken.  From Ben, from life, stress, work, finances, kids… combine that with alcoholism on his end, and work-aholism on mine.  It was hell to walk away from someone who I once viewed as my best friend.  And it took some time to heal from that.  To be fair, I’m still healing.  11 years is a long time to be with someone, it’ll be some time still I’m sure.

The last two have been, inspiring, healing, eye opening, shocking, scary, and a hell of a lot of fun.  I think I’m finally starting to learn and understand who I am, as just me.  I don’t yet know or understand all of me yet.  Or maybe I do, I just don’t fully trust myself about it yet.

Everything changes.  If I could turn back the years, I wouldn’t.  But I’d have never imagined where I am, as where I’d be.  Life is sure full of strange twists and turns.  Sometimes I look back and have to question… did all of that really happen?

It’s scary opening yourself up to someone new.  Very scary.  Especially when someone comes into your life that lights you up.  That makes you feel alive, and safe and strong.  I find myself tripping and falling on my face quite often when it comes to matters of the heart.  I trip myself up with my own stupid insecurities.  Mainly because of things that come from my past.  What sucks is that I realize all of this, and yet, can’t seem to stop it.  I don’t want my past to control my future.  I’m learning that I don’t like feeling vulnerable.  Which I think is kind of funny because facing vulnerability was why I started this blog.

I am so scared to be hurt.  Scared that because I have withstood so much.  And I haven’t ever really broken down from it.  I have moments here and there… but nothing like what I have seen with my family and because of that, I’m scared that at some point, another heartache, or heartbreak would land me in their shoes.  A place I desperately do not ever want to be.

So far, my solution to this has been to speak up about it, when I’ve got something weighing on my mind, which is difficult for me.  With my ex, I would stay silent.  I never spoke up.  There was never any point, it wouldn’t be heard. I know communication is the key to the very best, most successful relationships.  Speaking up has, at least I think, been working pretty well so far these days.  You’d think you’d get better at these things.  lol.

Ok – this may sound strange… but I think there was a shift.. in the way that I think about my world and life. After ben died… my world stopped.  I know people use that phrase all the time so it’s hard to really describe the gravity of what I really mean.  But I mean it literally stopped.  I felt like I couldn’t even remember how to breathe.  I walked around in a total daze for I don’t know how long.  Cars whizzing by, people getting their coffees and going about their day.  My brain could not compute.  And suddenly it clicked.  I am simply a cog.  A cog in a machine that was built to run in a way that if a cog stopped, the rest would continue and the machine would never stop.  I used to believe that one little person could matter.  That one person could make a difference large enough to change the world.  But from that moment in time, my opinion began to change.  Perhaps it was reality smacking me in the face.

If you want something… you gotta work for it.  No one is going to hand you anything.  You can work and work and work and still fall flat on your face.  IF it happens, you get back up and you plod along.  What will be, will be.  But if you want happiness… you create it.  If you want love… you give it.

I don’t know what is in store for me in the future… but I do now this.   I’m happier than I’ve been in a very very long time.  Life has it’s stresses, but I deal with them fairly well.  I’m learning to trust.  Myself, and the ones I love.  I won’t give up, and this time…this life is mine.  No one else will care about it all but me in the end.  The next chapter of my years… are bound to be the best I ever had.  And I can’t wait.

Goodnight Neverland.  Thanks for reading my ramble.  Here’s to a new week.