Braver, Stronger, Smarter.

Seven and a half months.

“yes I’m ok” I lie into the phone, wondering if she knows. People are starting to think I should “talk to my doctor” it’s a nice way of saying “we think you’re fucked up.” Seven and a half months. The battle continues.

Somebody I used to know, by Walk off the Earth (my favorite version of this song)

Click to listen

A small and unimpressive shift.

Around December I started to come out of my coma. The fights seemed to calm, and I felt the parts of me that were hidden within begin to emerge once more. When thinking back, memories become crisp again as if I had simply been asleep since August. Something inside of me came back to life, and while singing along to the lyrics of “somebody I used to know” I pushed away the feeling in my heart that knew something big was coming.

I looked at myself in the mirror, how thin and sad my face looked. I looked older now, wrinkles lapping at the edges of my eyes. I somehow believed that it was me who was ruining this. I hadn’t been enough before so how could I be enough now. I worked so hard to ensure that everything was perfect. How I hate that word. I created a blog to display the crafty projects I did around the house, I took up photography, and immersed myself in anything creative. Blake only cared because it gave me something to do. This was the beginning of a giant wave slowly building inside of me. Yet the more I did the emptier I felt.

I began thinking that I was in the wrong career; perhaps this was the source of my unhappiness. Perhaps I simply needed more friends, or more hobbies. For a small while we all believed that the lack of these things was the reason I was so terribly sad.
Isn’t it strange how your whole world can shift and not a soul notices it? A small and unimpressive shift which somehow manages to change the very essence of who you are. Sometimes these shifts come in the form of a thought, a near death experience, a movie that moves us in an inexplicable way, maybe a friend who we run into after many years, or a family member being a little too honest. My shift came with time, building and building like a wave, until one day, I was completely different. And everything was exactly the same.

I had lost so much of myself over those last months, I had gone from someone so confident to someone who could hardly look her superiors in the eye, I had somehow forgotten all of the things I had once loved about myself and life. When I noticed this shift in December so much growth had already taken place. I realised that something wasn’t right, that I wasn’t ok, I just hadn’t figured out why yet, even though it was right before my eyes.

I believe that when we fail to listen to that feeling in our soul, that “uneasy, something just isn’t right” feeling, the universe takes over and sends us bigger messages until we can no longer ignore the obvious. My messenger came in the form of Mark, sweet sweet Mark, the very duplicate of myself in a very handsome package.  He was a co-worker that I had worked with for the past four years, I had never seen Mark as anything other than “Mark who worked down the hall”. Until through a series of fortuitous events we were brought into each other’s lives.

It began simply and innocently a strange electrical chemistry that flared violently between us. I denied the feelings that started to develop and convinced myself that I was simply reaching out to a friend when I felt alone, a feeling I was far too accustomed to feeling. I would simply push a button and was instantly consoled by Marks gentle and affirming voice.

Over those next few months, Mark gave me a beautiful. He made me remember what it was like to feel again, whether it was the guilt of talking to him, the anticipation of seeing him down the hall, the thump of my heart beat in my chest. I hadn’t felt anything for so very long, and the thrill of feeling anything other than numb was exhilarating. He made me feel beautiful again, feel as if I was worth something, anything, to anyone. He made me feel as if I deserved to be happy, and ultimately made me feel really and truly what the lack of "feeling" had done to me, how hollow and empty I had become.

Mark was a catalyst in my life, he was the strength I didn’t have, and he was the voice that said get up when I was just too tired. He was the voice that said you are strong and beautiful when I didn’t believe it. He was everything I needed.

Letter to a childhood love and friend.

Don't be afraid to look at the things that unsettle you in life, God/the Universe has put them there to unnerve you, to shake your life up enough so that you can grow and see yourself from a different perspective. What I've learned so far is that this life is ultimately a way to learn to quiet the mind long enough to be able to truly follow your heart; people are brought in and out of your life to help you to reach your self, to help you to love as purely and truly as you can...because that's when you are most in tune with the universe, that’s when you are that part of yourself that connects every living being, the part that is life, the part that is eternal.