Changes
What a day to update my blog. The snow is falling gracefully onto the top of the White Mountains, the air smells like snow, and the wind is carrying the gentle cold I missed so terribly in Virginia.
There have been a lot of changes over the past couple of years. I have moved 3 times, worked as a quality chemist, began the divorce process, and enjoyed watching my daughter grow. I have learned some very hard lessons, lost myself, and discovered myself. The most growth I’ve ever done has occurred in the past 17 months. The reward of change and healing has been well worth the pain.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is boundaries. Boundaries are for mental safety as much as they are for physical safety
To my beautiful fellow savior souls, we need boundaries the most. We want to help those in need and fix the unfixable. Prior to, and just after, filing for divorce I was much more vulnerable that I thought I was. I was afraid that I would end up alone, afraid of the judgements people would cast on me, and afraid that life would never be the same. The fact is, all those fears were relevant because I faced each one.
I was alone and needed to be. Just because I would be alone for a short while didn’t mean I would be alone forever. One of my friends told me, “You haven’t dated in almost a decade. You don’t know who you are anymore. Don’t rush anything and figure yourself out. Just do you.” As much as I did not want to hear that, I knew he was right and I think about this advice almost daily. I am so different than I was before dating the guy I married. I was a student when I met him, young and full of dreams. He was my lab partner and best friend. When your occupation status changes to mother, priorities change.
Judgements were cast, of course, and there are a dozen or so people that do not speak to me anymore. It helped to sort out those that were meant to be in my life. Another one of my favorite quotes during this transition came from my best friend’s husband. She and I are best friends while her husband and my ex are close friends. In determining how they would deal with this separation he declared that the side they would choose would be my daughter’s. I hope that everyone facing a divorce involving a child has friends that will always choose the child or children.
I will never be the same.
I had to learn to put up boundaries with my own thinking. I had to stop the negative thoughts, the depressing thoughts, the ideas that I would forever be alone. That since this one relationship did not work out, I would never find one that would.
Boundaries for other people are important. More so with people you care about than those you do not. This is where the savior soul comes in. I learned that helping someone else is not worth it if it is hurting my mental health. No matter how much it hurts and how hard it is to put up that wall, it needs to be done. Mental health comes first because because when I’m not happy, it takes away from the joy that my child should be seeing. It wears me down and that isn’t good for her. I learned to shut out people I care about to help myself, and that was something I never thought I would be capable of doing.
I’m not the same. I’m stronger. I would not have made the progress I did without the four friends that saved me. Two were there from the beginning. My soul sister and my bees knees of a guy friend stayed close and had my back through everything. They knew to reach out to me before I even knew I needed someone. They know how to talk to me and know what is best for me. Two new friends came into my life at precisely the time I needed them. They are my soul connections that I met at work. Towering over the entirety of the company, they are intimidating and fierce. They called themselves the brute squad, they were my protectors, and they helped me find my confidence. Those friends, I love them to the moon and stars.
As the dust begins to settle and I find myself getting into a new routine, I keep hearing the question “are you going to write another book?”
I absolutely am.
