“If I hadn’t known suffering, loss, sadness and all the other crap life slaps out, I wouldn’t be a writer, because I wouldn’t have anything to write about. If I had a perfect life, I would never have had the chance to hurt but then to grow and experience more, feel more, be more. I like to think of pain as my heart just stretching out.”(The Truth About Everything)
A fellow blogger wrote to me recently telling me how much my blog entries have improved within the last few months, heck! even my intelligent computer science grad brother started reading recently telling me how much he has loved reading my posts lately. I was told that my life seemed too perfect and the entries seemed phony after awhile. A lot of people had no idea what I was going through. I remember growing up and as some of you know I had a rough childhood with my birth-mother. She taught me not to ever show fear, or not to ever cry, because crying is a sign of weakness. She was physically and mentally abusive most of my childhood mostly for no reason at all and I was always taught that everything was my fault. She would punish me for things that I never did so eventually I had to learn to suck up all that pain and swallow my tears along with my pride just so I wouldn’t get hit. My mother was afraid of ever, I mean ever being perceived as less than perfect and so all of this pain I may have felt was unable to ever be shown in the public eye. I learned to smile through my tears.
How can someone write the truth of life if we are only showing the perfect side of things? I got raw this year. From October through the beginning of January I shared with you my secret and that I had a problem and I want to be clear that this is MY problem…and some people think that talking about sobriety may be a bad idea because people may think you’re trying to make yourself seem “better than” but that’s not the case…drinking isn’t a bad thing if it doesn’t cause problems in your life. I mean cheers to that! But my story is different…I had to get sober because when I drank I never, ever stopped. I was lacing up inner demons with that liquid courage to take on life…while it was breaking it instead.
I only wrote about the good things because I was taught while growing up that perfection is key in this world. Anything less than, like I wrote earlier, shows weakness. Even if you’re completely failing at anything, don’t ever let anyone know. Keep building bars to protect yourself so that eventually you’re in your personal, secret cage where no one can hurt you more than you’re mentally doing to yourself.
Going through what I went through was what brought me to who I am today. I believe that falling down, breaking apart, and picking up the pieces and glueing them together created art….much better than the phony original piece that was a lie. I glued back my life and soul together to create perfect imperfection in which life is now filled with endless possibility. The past is replaced with genuine smiles and a loving family that thankfully stood by my side eager for this new chapter that they knew I could handle when I didn’t quite understand it on my own. So sometimes pain is just a way of stretching out that beating heart inside of all of us. If I never went through what I went through, I really wouldn’t have anything to write about and share with you, or have the ability to help others grow as well. When we grow, we help others grow because even though we are all different, a lot of our stories and fears are quite the same when you lift up all the bullshit.
Two weeks ago I was sharing four walls with ten other women trying to explain these very stories I’m telling you now and today I am on an airplane flying home from Hawaii, where I’ve been the past week, now home to Washington happily celebrating another Seahawks win where we get to go back to the Superbowl! Hawaii was the best plan after a 3-month journey shifter. I got to see my grandparents and uncle and explore the beautiful island with my family. Here are some pictures from the trip or you can visit my Instagram or follow me on Facebook for more. Here’s to stretching our heartstrings ❤️
