“Self-discovery requires getting lost. That’s how we learn about ourselves, who we are, what we are meant to give, who we’re supposed to meet, what we’re supposed to learn from them, and where we’re supposed to go. That’s how we become. If life went exactly as we planned or wanted, we wouldn’t change because we wouldn’t need to. And that isn’t life”
This one is going to be a long one, so I will break it up… Here is part one I suppose… I read this article where it was talking about being meant to lose yourself because that’s how we find ourselves… I never realized how much truth there is to that statement. It said to go through an exercise of finding the power in those fails. So here I go…
First the fails……
I lost my self when I married at 17
I lost myself when I birthed my first child at 19, and again when I birthed my second child at 23
I lost my self when I got divorced
I lost my self when I was in a toxic relationship after divorce
17 & married: Yes, this happen, my mom really signed off for me to marry a guy I had only been dating for a month. He promised me and her the world. The big words for me “move with me to Texas”. I did not love him, I knew that. I loved the idea of a new life. He was going into the military and the only way I could go was to get married, I figured “why not?” I had always known that I would leave my home town. I had always dreamed of traveling the world. Texas was not the world, but it was a way out. The first lesson I learned, people are really good at not being themselves. It was not even a couple weeks and I knew the mistake I had made. This was not my person… He was not my soulmate, he was not even my friend. He was selfish, angry and abusive with his words and eventually with his hands. I started a job as a waitress and started to put away enough tips to where he might not notice to save up to leave. The plan took a very different path when I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor with a positive pregnancy test. Yeah, I know, why didn’t you prevent this and blah, blah… well to be blunt I was married to a heavy drinker who did not take my request into consideration. Who would use me to get what he needed without thought of consequence. Anyway….. there I was alone with a life changing stick in my hand. What was I going to do? I had come from a broken family and I had always said I was not going to put my kids through that. Maybe he would change if he knew there was a little life on the way? Maybe he would look at me with kinder eyes. Second lesson, you, nor a baby can change anyone. And he didn’t… that first baby I lost, I had a miscarriage at 11 weeks. My heart was broken for the loss of that life, but I thought to myself everything happens for a reason. Perhaps it was the way out… nope I no way out… two months later I was pregnant again. This time I found myself on the kitchen floor crying to my best friend trying to find an answer. My life was now being turned over to another life… My first-born child.
First Born – She was born in the fall of 2003 and forever changed my life. I had lost myself, so I could help her find her way. I was a young mommy, we had to grow together. I grew strength because of her, I discovered what real love felt like. She made me see the world in a way I didn’t know exist. She helped me see that losing my way was what lead me to her. She reminded me every day of why I was there, right there in that moment being her mommy. It was major part of my self-discovery. Sure, maybe I didn’t get to travel the world anymore or draw at a coffee shop… but I had a more important role to fill. She depended on me to protect her and guide her into her own self-discovery. Here dad and I continued to have problems, I tried to hide them from her. It didn’t always work well. Once her dad came back from Iraq he insisted that we have another child because our baby girl was not close to him. Hence, he left when she was 4 months and returned when she was 18 months. He promised a baby would make him different, calmer, would save it all. The children were a great distraction from his terrible ways. They filled my soul and made me feel important and wanted. I didn’t want my girl to grow up without a sibling so I read all the books I could on how to conceive a boy so that I wouldn’t have to do it again.. In the fall of 2006 her brother was born. I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. It was a very euphoric moment, I hated his dad by that point and it was as if only the baby and I existed in that room. I was not going to let his dad steal another moment from me. The next three years with their dad would prove to be the most damaging and most life changing for all of us. I would lose myself even further in trying to keep my children on their path without falling off my own. Every day trying to hold on to the small bit of myself I could find so that I could keep going. My babies they were it… they were my path. They are why I lost my way, because their journey needed me in it.