and the band played on.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d have fought so hard for a deeper knowledge of myself and the world around me if I had known what that would mean.

It’s not that I’m unhappy with the results of the work I’ve done, nor am I lamenting, necessarily. It’s that a lot of the things I thought I was working to preserve ended up being the things I said farewell to.

The life I choose today isn’t at all what I thought it would be. If I’d have known the end result without seeing the context in between, I may have just decided to leave well enough alone. Had I left well enough alone, I may never have seen the tenacious nature of my spirit for what it is – persistent beyond all reason in whichever direction it selects.

I am getting ahead of myself here.

They say growth doesn’t happen where we’re comfortable, but I have come to find that growing doesn’t often leave us comfortable after the fact, either.

I have found many revelations to be quite distressing, honestly. The real kicker being that you can never un-know certain things once you know them, and in turn…  Awareness often brings about a choice we didn’t realize we had.

Do I want to go on this way, or is there a change I want to make?

It is one thing to keep ourselves in patterns of self-sabotage we haven’t recognized yet. It is another thing altogether to stay in those patterns once we do know they occur.

Because inaction is action in it’s own right.

I have lived much of my life heavily basing my self worth in earning others’ affection. This is something I attempt to do by giving every last ounce of my energy to acts of service, ultimately leaving nothing for myself.

I have believed myself to be devoid of assets outside of my usefulness at any given moment and I struggle to this day to really understand what I have to offer as a friend or a lover.

But, maybe that’s irrelevant anyway.

I was recently told that I deserve to be treated carefully and thoughtfully, you know, rather than what I’ve always accepted and allowed. In that moment, amidst a great deal of thoughts and feelings, I heard a very distinctly different perspective than I ever remember having before:

“Maybe that person is me.”

See, I’ve been long aware of my  trauma trigger events and even the behaviours that result from them. That’s never stopped me from acting out when things get really hard, though. I have a very difficult time regulating my emotions in moments of crisis and moments of crisis come at me hard and fast.

This is amplified exponentially within my interpersonal relationships because I have rampant attachment anxiety.

And so it goes that I’ll face some kind of a triggering event that kickstarts my spiral and I get increasingly frustrated with the hamster wheel I’m living.

Failing to quell the feeling that I am not enough, sooner or later I seek reassurance from something outside of myself to soothe the mounting discomfort.

I very rarely find it.

Instead, I have expectations that are left unmet. I place my mental wellness in the hands of another person, setting them up for failure by expecting them to fix a problem inside of me they didn’t even create.

This is not about casting blame for how I feel on anyone else. It is, in fact, the opposite. I am finally able to take responsibility for the choices I’m making and the unrealistic expectations I’ve been holding.

I have work to do. And that is always true, no matter what I learn or who I become along the way.

The first order of business is to show up for myself in all the ways I wanted others to. If I’m responsible for treating myself with kindness, and I’m in charge of protecting my feelings, I have to make difficult decisions about who I open up to. I have to be ruthless about where I put my time – and where I put my heart.

I need to prove to myself that I am capable of doing the things I want done. I need to show my kids that we can alter the circumstances we find ourselves in if they’re making us unhappy.

Waiting for my hero, my white knight, my prince charming to gallop in and right all the wrongs in my heart… It has taken me down long and winding roads of disappointment and distress. I have found myself repeatedly asking why I am not being treated the way I’ve treated others, why it is that my feelings aren’t honoured.

It’s because I’m repeatedly spending my time with people who either can’t or won’t care for me the way I want them to.

They say if you want something done right you have to take the reigns or something.

So here we go.

Giddy up.