Returning To Me

I am not sure who the ME that is writing this in this moment is quite yet 

But I know I am different – As I am picking up the pieces of myself I disconnected from along the way

All the things that held my old self together are no longer….

The last place I called home

The state I lived in the last 10 years

The husband I have been with for 20 years

The family unit with our 2 boys we had built

It has all fallen away over the last 9 months and I am just now coming to catch my breath. 

And boy is it ever catching my breath.  

I moved out of state 9 months ago with my boys, the only way I can describe it is the weight of what I was living could not be sustained. I had become a shell of myself. I would look in the mirror and not recognize the woman looking back. Where had she gone? When did this happen? Was she ever really there in the first place?

A parallel picture flashes in my mind as I remember seeing this in my own mother growing up. An artist, though I never knew she had an art minor until I was a teenager. I saw her crumbling under the unlived life, the overload of expectations, carrying the burden of others and here I was…seeing the parallel of her in myself that I witnessed growing up that I was coming to terms with having a similar experience. 

Inside of myself lived a deep inner critic and self betrayal was my form of survival even though, deep down, I knew the recipe was self love. I knew the equation was to merge with all that I already was but had slowly forgotten and betrayed.   

In reflection, I don’t know that I ever came fully to the table of life. When I chose my marriage, my husband, this life I was stepping into – it was a saving grace – It was everything I didn’t know how to do or show up for in myself, I found someone that chose me and wanted to do it all for me. Yet over the years the nudging of a life unlived ate at my heart. 

There is no blame here. I often wanted to blame and find a moment to finger point  – 

But here I was walking into my old home 9 months later, with all my things I left behind, the home that I had carefully curated – and seeing him standing at the top of the stairs waiting to greet his kids and maybe me too? I rushed by him to use the restroom after our long drive and he must not have known what I was thinking or feeling. I wanted to be cool as a cucumber but walking in the house that day stirred up something that I thought was gone. The grief I had set on the shelf to cope with this massive life change, dissolving of our marriage, was now full blown in my face. When I saw him a few minutes later I asked if he would like a hug? A quick embrace trying to create this new dance. I didn’t stay long as I had plans to stay somewhere else but as I was leaving, this full realization that this life with him the last 20 years is officially over and I didn’t know how to start to sift through all these feelings awaiting me…..