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Oh, a place called home. Welcome to it, let’s leave.

This is the first time I’ve invited anyone in for this - welcome to the journey. This will continue to be my outlet as I go through this transition period, becoming another version of myself. This isn’t easy to pull back the curtain for myself and I’m sure, others that love me. I admittedly owe no one an explanation but found that seclusion and fear of suppressing something was far worse than dealing with the face of my anxiety head-on. 

Let’s place the scene as it fades and I’ll tell you when we will plan the stage strike next. This is where I am currently and where I hope to go. 

I left four months ago, working on five, for the biggest change of my life. I had made peace with it, told myself that my only option forward was this one and that it was time, at all costs, to make this jump. My body began reacting in ways I had never felt in its frame, anxiety that literally felt like a heart being gutted from its home and the shocks and shudders of it through my bones that terrified me and sent me often into a spiraling panic.  In my desperation for the change, I had let a lot cloud my vision of what the future could be and rather, what I wanted the most. These last months or so have been a hard lesson that even though I’m nearly a third of the way through my life, I will never know myself as well as expected.

It’s hard admitting you’re wrong. It’s hard to trust yourself when you take a big dive knowing you want to swim the distance and then you start to bubble and slip under the surface. I was guarded against my own stubborn ignorance and ‘blah blah blah’d’ my way through advisement of my family and the person I love most. 

To put it simply - I made a monumental mistake in choosing this deep dive, this jump. I wasn’t happy in the situation I was in and chose to ignore the circumstances ahead of me, written off as ‘It doesn’t matter what waits on the other side, it will be good for me.’ 

And maybe that’s true, maybe this was what I needed to turn the crank to change my heart, mind and body into what it needs to be to survive the future. This wasn’t the transformation of a lifetime, however, it was a scramble to save a shoddy built structure on wet sand in a storm. 

I can not ever put a price on being here with him, on the chance to have a life together, the two of us dealing with the world all on our own and not answering to anyone. 

But this notion I had, a position I had ridden in on high horse admittedly - that life was going to magically make sense, that I was beyond struggling or settling for anything was so laughably false. 

I’ve spent most of my life watching myself through objective eyes, the imposter syndrome of sitting in a place feeling like you’re looking for the catch, the surprise because the general feeling is that you don’t belong. I’d only recently started to overcome that as an adult. I’d found my tribe. It wasn’t without breaks and rebuilt bridges. It wasn’t without the hurdles to jump to hold ourselves together and keep each other afloat. We all struggle a bit still with keeping our distance, but I think we’re overcoming that a bit now. 

I let my frustrations and impatience get the best of me. I ignored the advice of and disrespected my life partner who wanted the best for me and set us back in an immense financial way because of my insistence and naivety. 

My husband has been my lifeline, the air in my lungs and my reason to cling to sanity. I have burdened him and this new life together with indecisiveness and grief that I have not coped with and a spiral into one of the worst mental health crises I have ever thought possible for myself. 

It seems dramatic, but when a person who was already struggling to rebuild themselves cuts their primary lifeline, everything becomes dramatic. Even down to the lack of comfort foods and amenities that would take the edge off. I am not a person who can handle that. I am not as strong or stubborn as I thought I was.

People move all the time out of need, necessity, desire in all spectrum of reasons why. I wanted more than anything to live with my husband but didn’t fully inform or educate myself of what obstacles we would face and the toll it would take on my adjustment. As I broke down and lost myself in the grief, climbing out for my survival - the isolation had taught me I had never truly before been alone. I was in a place before that I could have overcome and worked harder for something better if I had tunnel visioned into running away from the things that haunt me. 

I am sure I have disappointed him, frustrated him and weighed so heavy on him as I gasp for air and cry for home. He is my home and safety, my only rock through this. He’s understandably hesitant, frustrated and sad about my state. Part of my anxiety lately is constantly feeling like I’ve disappointed him, angered him, let him down, that I’ve done something to spite his love and support of me and sacrifices for us.  I have been in a knee-jerk state of wanting to get back to America at all costs and steamroll down a path towards a future that we can have there, together. This hasn’t been the healthiest way to cope with my extreme depression as I don’t have a plan yet, haven’t taken any proactive methods to taking care of myself while I’m here or taken a moment to breathe through my grief.  He has suggested I go back home to my support system and family. It’s something I’m likely to do, although not without grief and disappointment in that either. I will not give in to ‘giving up’ on my future and my life with him, our lives together as one family and what I want to do with my career, education and future in my journey to give back to the world and the people I love that are in it.  I don’t know what lies ahead here, or what grieving or joy will come with it. It will be hard. I will have to work harder than ever before to become a better version of myself with more humility, more ethic to stand up and overcome and to fight back harder than I ever have in my darkest place. I have dipped my toes in those places again recently and promised myself I would never be there again, never in a place with darkness suffocating my flame, wanting my own light to snuff out. 

It’s not all about me now. It’s about my family. Our tribe. Finding home.  with love,  T.

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60

I’m not proud of myself for forgetting about this for nearly 2 years, and I cant believe its been that long in the first place. But I’m proud that I’ve pulled off 60 entries. Who knows how many will still be here unto the end of time.  

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She understood that the hardest times in life to go through were when you were transitioning from one version of yourself to another.

Sarah Addison Allen (via dannnijay)

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she and the moon could always be found playing in the darkness.

Unknown (via asking-jude)

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Shelter

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There’s only so much you can do to hide from them. They know all of the locks and back hallways that connect your mind and your heart. 

Your memories don’t care if you hide traps and trip them up. You cover them. You run from them. They’ll find their way right back. They’ll chase you down and weigh your legs to the floor like iron, choking the relief from you. 

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A Life That’s Good

I have slept in a cabin on a mountainside I have lounged in a hot tub on a beachfront 

I have stood on many balconies and in many presidential suites overlooking the world’s cities with a drink in my hand  I have met many of my childhood idols  I call some of those idols my friends now I have worked with celebrity crushes  We’ve had 4-star dinners in 5-star hotels  I’ve walked historic streets and heard live music from local figures in hole-in-the-wall cornerstone bars and pubs and restaurants. 

I’ve road-tripped half 12 hours across the country in my own car, on my own time, with just myself. 

I’ve road tripped to the oceanside with my best friends I’ve had a big beautiful 3.25 ct engagement ring and wedding band put on my finger, in a beautiful wedding gown, in a garden on a perfect day  I’ve heard my favorite song played live in front of me by the artist that wrote it I’ve started a journey one day on one side of the word and ended that day on the other side of the world  I’ve seen the scape of a modern metropolis from 88 stories high.  I’ve stood in the courtyard of a castle built in 1066.  I’ve been blessed with many many highs in life, seen lights, and stars beyond anything I thought I’d get to  I’ve seen some of the lowest lows and I know many more face me, but I live every day knowing I have a life that’s beautiful, that I can never be grateful enough for.    

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One Year, 08

Let me tell you how I got this ring on my finger. Let me tell you how through unwavering unshakeable steel-and-iron-solid foundations in love can help you learn to love yourself in new ways and find peace with your flaws. It all started in January. I have this real distinct memory of sitting in a Panera cafe in the mall on the ritzy side of town. It was mid afternoon. I was sitting there with Shell. We were about to indulge some makeup fantasies at Sephora and Macys.  I remember looking down at my phone surprised to see the name in my messenger notifications.  He and I had talked on the phone before dad’s service. We’d chatted so much more frequently over the holidays about our lives and hopes and dreams. We’d always been there - on the fringes of each other’s lives but never like this.  Never so communicative or have given so much effort of ourselves.  I’d just started a new job, a simple retail position I worked evenings at 4-5 days a week. It’d been a good distraction, it was needed at the time it came to me. I needed a new sense of routine, normalcy, something to drive me to get up in the mornings and go, as well as an income to help me pursue future goals. 

I was on my usual drive to work one day, i appreciated the 20 minute drive to prepare myself mentally and ease into the work day. I’d had a lot on my mind. I’d been really tossing back and forth if I had feelings caught up in these engagements, conversations, was this a rebound? Was it romantic? Attraction? I’d nearly convinced myself not.  Near the end of the drive, I get another surprising messenger notification. It always surprised me. Never failed to.  “Tina, I need advice.” It was that one moment in all of time and history that hit me in the face with my own feelings, at risk of every chance of ever acknowledging or exploring this thought to come crumbling down, like it seemed to be,  that one message reinforced something I had tinkered with in my head for a lot longer than the few weeks we’d been in regular contact.  I loved him.

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Difficulty level?

Not sure where I’m at exactly, managing the grind of life. I’m making pretty decent grades, starting a new job I’m looking forward to and getting back on my feet financially, paying off some debt, throwing out some old stuff, cleaning up and reorganizing,  but im still so tired. and still so blah.  is this what depression does? 

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by David Cawthorne

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Loss

I am looking for everything again. 

Spending the search trying to comport myself in such a way that I can smile through the pain and appreciate the beauty of it. 

But what am I searching for?

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Your future self is watching you right now through memories.

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One Year, 07

I have a somewhat unique way of compartmentalizing memories and periods of my life mentally. I attribute music, atmosphere above all other factors.  The end of 2016 was a bit all over the place for me, and the odd atmospheric things I remember and used in my schema was the uncomfortable bed in the other spare bedroom, the odd lighting, the smell of cigarette smoke at my best friend’s house when I woke up in the mornings.  The trips we made to Sephora ingrained the scents of high end perfumes and makeup, the dark damp blue-grey of the sky in dreary Tennessee winters.  The new year had dawned and we were spending it on shopping trips and a new sense of independence that I hadn’t had before. Sleeping alone I don’t have issues with most nights but then I was still adjusting to it. 

The tears were just barely starting to lessen. The anxiety was slowing from its constant tense racing. 

The sun was coming out. Would I want to bask in it?  Where was I even going from here?  And why was my heart so caught up in someone I had not seen years or ever truly spent time with? 

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Bury me honest

Its hard not to harp on about dad. 

The grief still comes in waves and seemingly out of nowhere. I can’t fathom that it’s been nearly 11 months.  I’m sorry for so many things I did and didn’t say. I love you, dad. I miss you every day.