I've been thinking about and experiencing a lot of growth and change lately.
So let me introduce myself. My name is Erin, and I'm a walking contradiction. Atheist yogi, Bleeding heart liberal, who got married in fucking cowboy boots because I love all things country. A gypsy soul who doesn't want to leave home. Maybe that's why I read books with such a hunger, I've visited so many places and met so many people in the pages that I've read. The girl who almost had to pull over to the side of the road while having the most profound moment of growth and forgiveness she has ever experienced. This happened while listening to Praying by Kesha, of all things. But I think that in itself is perfect and what life is all about: growth and change.
All of these quirks and odd things that make me me, are little bits and pieces of experiences: they come from the love, the pain, and from the people that I have loved and picked up and absorbed along the way, and that is so God damn beautiful.
"We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves" is a quote by Lynn Hall and I don't even know who she is, and I've never read any of her work, but I probably should because this quote has always resonated with me, and I think it is so beautiful. I think we should always continue to grow and change, it's one of the most beautiful parts of life, embrace that shit. How boring would life be if we just all stayed the same? None of these extra, beautiful layers and textures? Our lives are tapestries, no two the same, and every one beautifully woven with happiness and pain, heartbreak and love.
Some growth, like these pieces we pick up that make up our character is easy, it just happens. But the growth that I want to really talk about it the type of growth that really requires us to examine the parts of ourselves that maybe we don't like so much.
This growth is scary, it's hard, and it is necessary but so worth it. On the other side of this growth is the good stuff. It is maturity and humbleness, humility, peace and relief.
Often as we approach this growth, we fight it. We dig our heels in, and hunker down in the familiar. Our routines, and our distractions. These can be anything really: vices, clinging onto a person or place, even if it is poisoning us. It can be avoidance in general, which I am particularly good at. I like to take all of the feelings and uncomfortable things and tuck them away in what my teacher calls the "fuck you box" for me this box it tucked neatly away in some deep part of my brain, a special place I have designated for all of the bullshit I don't want to deal with. The stuff that I think is easier to avoid, but the truth is it's not any better this way, because no matter how deeply you tuck it away, it's still just sitting there waiting. Always trying to fight its way to the surface, screaming and demanding attention, and to be acknowledged. It's those thoughts that creep into your mind at a moments notice, the ones that make you immediately nautious, anxious, and guilty...all the bad feelings that make it hard to breathe. The thoughts that as quickly as they surface they are gone because we frantically cram them back down.
So often I wake up and I feel awful all day and I don't know why. Then it hits me at some point during the day, it's all this shit trying to come up. Screaming at me to acknowledge and do something about it. For years I would shove it back down, maybe by changing the subject in my brain, sometimes keeping myself too busy to think about it, sometimes with alcohol, sometimes with books, a lot of the time with books. I read 65 books in the last year of my marriage because I couldn't quiet the voice in my head that was screaming at me to just get on a fucking plane and go home. I couldn't leave, could I? my marriage was awful, but it was familiar. What would I do if I left? It reminds me of a quote that I'm going to fuck up right now because I'm on a plane and can't check it. But it's the one that goes something like " the hell or devil that you know is better than the one that you don't. We are terrified of the unknown, we crave security and stability and I think that includes who we are, even our flaws and faults. Even if that security and stability is horrible and comes with a price of depression, abuse, and misery.
The choice to leave my marriage was hard and I dragged it out for so much longer than I should have, and that is a mistake that is mine to own. If I'm being totally real and honest, I never should have gotten married. It was a mistake and just the next step in a situation that I clung onto out of fear, manipulation, and the need for that security. So I dug my heels in, even though my heart was screaming at me to run. I ignored it and went with the devil I knew, the safe bet. I know now that what I went through is probably the most costly, but most important lesson I will ever learn, and a mistake I am absolutely sure I will never make again, and I value this lesson. But I will always wonder what if I had had the courage to refuse to settle for and accept unhappiness and refused to settle for the familiar? What if I had welcomed and embraced the opportunity for change and walked away the moment I woke up and realized I was so fucking unhappy? What would my life be like today if I hadn't spent 8 years that way? Man, I'll always wonder.
I have made peace finally with the fact that the past is the past and I can only move forward. So now i try so hard to listen to myself when a part of me screams for attention and tells me it's time to clear something else out of the fuck you box. It hasn't been easy, it's fucking hard. Sometimes I still dig my heels in and act like a fucking brat, and sometimes I cry,. That's a lie, I cry all the fucking time now. But it's crying that is healing, it's getting all of this bullshit out and it's therapeutic. And it's necessary now more than ever, as scary and hard as contraction and change is, I know now how great the feeling is on the other side. I actually crave now the relief and lightness that I feel every time I am able to recognize some shit about myself and call myself out on the bullshit and start to make the changes. It doesn't always work right away, most of the time it doesn't. There are things I continually work on every day, old habits break hard but I will keep doing this work, but it has already made my life so much better.
I am sitting on a plane right now next to a man who has made me happier than any other man ever has, and it is the healthiest relationship I have ever been in. Looking at him now, I can't help but smile because he is just so selfless, kind, patient ( god knows he needs it because I'm a handful) and he makes me laugh every single day. I hope that I make him as happy as he makes me everyday. I will continue to do this work everyday and try and be a better person for myself, and for all of my relationships, especially my relationship with myself. How can I be kind, honest,loving, and fair to anyone else if I can't be that to myself?
It's funny because I've always been good at reinventing myself on the outside, and the first few layers. Maybe it's because I'm so sensitive, and it's been so easy for me to absorb all of these little pieces along the way. But now it's time to dig deeper and heal all the way, it's going to take time, but isn't time really all we have? Time to become more of who we are?
