Tag Archives: life

Hope

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“The princess locked herself away in the highest tower, hoping a knight in shining armor would come to her rescue. – I didn’t realize I could be my own knight.”

Amanda Lovelace

Little girls dream of their knight and shining armor riding a white horse, galloping towards you in a meadow of flowers, scooping you up, and carrying you off into endless bliss. If I could go back in time and tell my young self how incredibly ridiculous that even sounds… I wouldn’t. Being able to dream like that made me the loving, heartless romantic that I am; even if every relationship I’ve been in has failed. I used to be told that the things I wanted out of a relationship was nothing but a Lifetime movie special. As much as I cringed every time that was said to me, reality has struck; life isn’t always grand, relationships are hard, and marriage doesn’t always mean “to death do us part.” I guess I should have caught on when most of those Lifetime movies ended in cheating and murder.

I have been thinking a lot about the day that I walked down the aisle. 4 years, 11 months and 8 days ago. I had spent an entire year of working 100+ hour weeks, two jobs, for that one moment. I was beyond exhausted, but I couldn’t have been happier than I was on that day. If someone had told me that in less then five years I would be sitting in my one bedroom apartment at 5:00 AM counting down the minutes to the worst Zoom call of my life, I never would have believed them. I never thought that today would come, not in my wildest dreams.

Everyone has dreams and aspirations, goals, desires. I knew exactly what I wanted from a very young age. I needed to be a mother, and it was as simple as that. Raised Italian in every sense of the word – big family dinners, always with cousins and at family gatherings. I pictured myself married young, with 3 children before I turned 25 years old; 2 boys and 1 girl to be exact. I was going to work in the city, wear pencil pleated skirts with stiletto heels daily, manage a corporate company and come home to my loving family each and every night. Not a single one of those dreams became a reality for me. At 32 years old I have not lived farther than 10 miles from my childhood home, I have no children (unless you count the 30 pound fur ball still currently curled up in my bed), I have slaved – I mean, managed, my family business for 13 years and today.. well today I am getting divorced.

It is hard for me to put into words how I am actually feeling. In the past few months, the rollercoaster of emotions that I have experienced has been almost debilitating. One minute I would be at peace with the path that has unfolded, and another I find myself elbow deep in a bag of family size potato chips, hysterically crying about being 32 years old and having to start my life over. I have continually asked myself “what if” and prayed to god that I didn’t make the biggest mistake of my life by walking away from my marraige. I have doubted myself, hated myself, and punished myself so much in the past year that I don’t recognize the person I see in the mirror anymore. But today, today is the day I hopefully get some type of peace from my constantly racing mind and aching heart. Today I will sit in front of my laptop, staring at the man I thought I would die next to, as a judge declares us – not husband and wife.

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings…”

– Lao Tzu

They say when one door closes, another opens; if one thing you do fails, you will soon have the opportunity to try to succeed at something else. I have to whole heartedly believe this and tell myself that this isn’t the end, this is merely the beginning. Maybe I didn’t get my 3 children, successful corporate city career, or white picket fence that I always thought I would. Maybe that dream just was never meant to be a reality, maybe I was meant for something more. Maybe this heartache was meant for me, as a cruel horrible lesson of some kind. Maybe I was made to live it, endure the pain, and become 10x stronger from it. I have never been a spiritual type, although my grandmother is the most religious person I know, I have doubts. On days like today though I find myself praying to something, praying that this nightmare finally comes to an end and that I will be able to breathe again. The pain of loosing my family will never go away, and I know that, I would never expect It to. But after today, one door will close, and i’ll be walking towards the next open one.

Cause for Light

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“Life is what you make it”, “when life throws you lemons, make lemonade”, “you and only you can change your life, if you don’t like it, change it”. How many times have we heard these expressions and want to scratch the living day lights out of the person who decided to be witty enough to say them to you? You smile, nod, all while your thinking to yourself “Oh, just be happy, just change my life, I didn’t think of that! Thank you for you insight.” Fact is – truth hurts. And although you may think these people don’t understand because they aren’t walking in your shoes, I am going to fill you in on a secret. They are Right.

It has been a pretty dark Winter, in multiple ways. If things are going to hit your life, affect your every movement and thought, it might as well happen in the cold depressing months we call Winter. Looking back I can laugh, because I made it through, but it seems to be one thing after another that can leave our lives upside down. So when do we break free? When do we finally throw our hands in the air and give up concentrating on the miserable, suffocating things that have been happening in your life, accept them and find the light?

I will be the first to admit that I am the biggest pessimist there is. I complain constantly. I am exhausted. I have worked multiple jobs (several at a time), and over the past six years I have said a specific job was the cause of my exhaustion and I have dropped it, moved to another, picked up insane hours, and done a repeat cycle to my self over and over again. Then there is the mental stress, the family problems, and the financial instability that can completely rock your world. Life can throw lemons alright, so lets start making some lemonade.

“We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning the future, trying to predict the future. As if figuring it out will somehow cushion the blow, but the future is always changing. The future is the whole of our deepest fears and our wildest hopes, but one thing is certain: When it finally reveals itself, the future is never the way we imagined it.” – Meredith Grey “Scars and Souvenirs” (3.18)

I understand the worry about the future. You have dreams, plans about exactly what you want and what it will be like, and unfortunately, it never happens that way. My mother was married at 21, had my sister at 22, myself at 23, my brother at 25 and my last sibling at 32 (a little surprise). She had an amazing career at a young age making beautiful wedding gowns. The story goes that on her wedding day she was an hour late because of the swarm of people around her limo that just wanted to see ‘the wedding dress maker’s wedding dress’. I wanted to be everything she was. Fall in love young, find the man of my dreams, have a career, have a family, and all young enough to be able to live the rest of my life however I want.

Of course that didn’t happen. I left my house at 17 to live with the love of my life. The first long term relationship and it ended due to the disgusting heart ache of substance abuse. I firmly believe to this day though that the break up is what made us both strong enough to move on in our lives and drove us to want more and to better ourselves (see the lemonade there? I’m trying). Then I escaped to another great guy, but again, didn’t work. For some odd reason that break up was even harder, but after a few weeks of crying and doing nothing but working (truly what I do best) I went out to drink my sorrows away and met the man of my dreams, my now husband.

My point to rambling on about my love life is to bring back around my point to my earlier statement. Every life “hiccup”  can be looked at two ways. I could say that I wasted seven years of my life dating the wrong men for me and ruining my plans of being a young successful mother, or I can look at it as if I didn’t go through the roller coaster of relationship disasters I never would have met my husband. AKA – lemonade.

So what is the key to releasing the stress of life? Always being optimistic and looking at the glass half full instead of half empty? Sure. But most life situations won’t be settled that way. So what is the key to the stress of life? One of my brothers taught me grounding. When you are freaking out IE: crying, stressing, ready to pull out your last follicles – you just stop, sit, use all of your senses… touch – your chair, the floor, your clothes, smell – the room, the air, hear – what are people talking about, who is around you.. and you continue this with all your senses and when you are done your heart rate is lowered and you’re done freaking out. I laughed when I first heard this, but then I tried it during one of my emotional melt downs and it actually did work, for that moment.

I honestly believe that the key to life’s stress is – none. There is no easy answer and everyone has their moments. Life’s key… the answer to all problems, its just all in how you deal with it. So while some people can sit in a chair and calm themselves, others prefer the follicle pulling method. Either way, you have to believe.. you have to remember… this very moment, the moment that is making your skin crawl and your fight or flight reaction screaming to run for the hills, tomorrow it will just be a memory, next week, you might not remember it, and next year it will be obsolete.

Just Let it Go

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“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” – Carol Burnett

There is a time in everyone’s lives where there is nothing you can do but let go. Almost like an epiphany comes over you and you instantly decide to change your life for the better. Career change, relationship issues, family feuds, friendship queries, or simply the life and path you are currently traveling on is not what you want; nothing is worth your unhappiness. I know, easier said than done, but I promise you, the second you build up enough will-power, or the moment where the pain that continually eats you alive has become unbearable – releasing will be the best feeling of your life.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition” – Steve Jobs

I never want to look back on life and regret anything. I firmly believe that all past experiences and situations were put in front of every person for a reason. Some reasons are more clear than others, sometimes faith in any type of higher being gets difficult to believe in, but at the end of the day, at the end of my life, I want to be able to say that nothing stopped me from living the life I was put on this Earth to live.

So the question is, how do we let go? How do we handle situations that are out of our control, but need our control in order to get through? I have personally learned the biggest lesson of my life this month. Sometimes it is okay to just let go. Sometimes its okay to just say “screw it” and let go of all the negativity in your life  – because this is your life, and you only get one to live.

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain…. To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but to embrace it.” – Kevin Aucoin

When to Say When

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“There’s something to be said about a glass half full, about knowing when to say when. I think it’s more of a floating line, a barometer of need. Of desire. It’s entirely up to the individual, and it depends what’s being poured. Sometimes all we want is a taste. Other times there’s no such thing as enough, the glass is bottomless…all we want it more”

We are all human and when love is involved life gets messy. There is no better recipe for a disaster than thinking with your heart instead of your mind. People grow, every day, which means they change. They become more comfortable to show imperfections, more comfortable to say and do whatever touches their lips, completely bypassing the brain before hand.

My question today is, when is love enough, or is love ever really enough? Enough to stay, to keep on trying, all while knowing you’ll feel each potential hole struck along the way. At what point do you give up? Do you raise that white flag, throw in the towel and say “I gave it all I had, and it just didn’t work.” How do you make your heart stop loving, knowing that the pain of walking away will be unbearable and doing so will be hardest decision of your life?

“There is always a way when things look like there’s no way. There’s a way to do the impossible, to survive the in survivable. There’s always a way. So if I can offer one piece of advice.. Today if you become frightened instead become inspired.”

Life is an amazing thing. Some people don’t have the ability to live it, others take advantage of their ability. We only get one chance at this journey. One chance to look back on life, smile, and say that we had an amazing run, no regrets. I believe everyone has it in them to make the right decision, some just have to dig deeper to find it. A great man once told me “If you can put your head to your pillow at night and sleep, then you are doing something right in your life.” So what is making you not be able to sleep at night, and how do you fix it? You know the answer, and its never easy, but you were built with the strength, and its time to use it, its time to start living.

 

Paths

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I believe that we all have paths that we are supposed to follow in life. They are unknown to us, but planned before we were even created. Through life we ask ourselves why certain things happen, how everything is supposed to happen for a reason, but something’s are just too horrible to believe someone actually planned it to be that way. People who pass before their lives were ever really able to be lived, acts of terrorism, car accidents… the list could go on. Can we really say that everything happens for a reason? I only know one thing for sure, that we are exactly who we are today because of our past. We learn from our past, we grow. And when the path seems to get narrow and rocky and there are so many turns you aren’t sure which to take, you sometimes just have to go with your gut, take the path your inner-self chooses, or better yet, don’t go down a single path that is in front of you, just start walking and create your own…