Well hello there! Three months of completely dipping out....sorry about that!
Let me explain.
Something happened to me at the start of the year. A revelation that I had been lied to, and deceived by someone I cared for, and who I had cared for, for many years. Their deception was massive, and something I couldn't share with many people because whilst I was hurting, I still wanted to protect the person and didn't want to expose them.
Our friendship had been deteriorating for some time, and when I looked back at their irrational outbursts of anger and constant toxic comments, that truly made me feel like I was the problem, knowing what I had finally been told, made it all make so much sense.
But then came the anger. How could someone I poured so much into, think so little of me, to have made me question my moral compass and my worth? I lost all sense of who I was, I became withdrawn, and i lost a huge amount of weight, because I tried to control the way I felt by refusing food and excessively exercising. I was emotionally, spiritually, and mentally broken. Also...I was so concerned for the person in question's well-being. Even after everything. And then I would get even more angry that I felt that way because they didn't show me any concern. It was the most destructive cycle I have ever found myself in, and I completely lost myself for a while.
A couple of months into the cycle, I realised I needed to do something. Not just for myself, but for my little boy. Because whilst I tried my best to shield him from it all, he would catch me sobbing at night time when I thought he was asleep, and he had noticed the physical changes, and the fact I didn't eat dinner with him anymore. His fun mummy had vanished. The guilt I felt was huge.
I put myself through some counselling sessions to work through how I felt. I started swimming in the estuary 4 times a week, swimming forced me to eat for the energy. I journalled non-stop. I listened to music. I journalled some more. I made my peace with the deception, and I made my peace with losing my friend.
Then I noticed I was laughing more. I noticed how strong my body had gotten from the swimming and exercise. This made me feel so confident in my skin. I noticed how little I thought about the situation that had triggered my sadness in the first place.
I spent months, bathing in that feeling. Laughing with my friends, and having weekend adventures away with my son. Making new friends at the beach, studying. I laughed, and danced, and I realised I had found myself again.
That feeling of having gone full circle was so powerful. I even started dipping my toes into the dating pool again (and I learned that internet dating wasn't for me at all. My colleagues could tell you some stories! Haha!) I had fought so hard to get back to the happy place I was back in, I wasn't completely open to letting anyone get close to me, or to my son.
But then, when i wasn't looking, I met someone who made me pay them attention. We danced that awkward dance of trying to work each other out in passing for a couple of months. We would talk in the street for hours, and I was pretty sure we both felt the same, but the scared/hurt part of me didn't really want to feel anything for anyone, so I didn't do much to pursue it. He had his own things to work through.
But after a couple of months, we decided to meet up. We had already had some open conversations about the situations we were both in, so when I tried to bail out on him the following week he dealt with it like the hero that he is, and I ended up realising I was being a coward, swallowing my pride and turning up at the place he is staying at 11 pm that night to apologise.
Fast-forward to now, and we have been inseparable for the last few months and I can say, with complete honesty, that I have never been in a relationship where I have felt so comfortable saying what I am feeling, or what I want/need. I have never felt so connected to someone on every single level. And I have never felt so certain, so fast, that I want someone in my life. It's not a fairytale. We are both flawed. Still works in progress. But we are both on completely the same page, same line, same word, and not scared to have the difficult conversations that sometimes go unspoken. We dance, talk non-stop, laugh, break curfews, and make future plans, and I can't imagine being without him now. I have also never had someone look at me, and be able to literally feel how much I mean to them, without a single word being said.
And so I guess this is a tale of how things can go full circle when life goes wrong, but you are willing to put in the self-work.
If someone had told me in January that my life would look like it does now, before the year was up, I would have never believed it.
But maybe, just maybe, it is true, that everything happens for a reason.