Vulnerable

I often find myself thinking about what could of been, what should of been, and what will never be. I hate that. I hate regret... I try to live without it, but regret is like a cavity, and once you have it, it's there for keeps. I keep reminding myself that could of, would of and should of...are NOT, so why bother entertaining those thoughts. I guess some things in life are just enevitable.

Lately, I find myself struggling with what I could of done with my life. What chances did I loose, that I can't ever get back? It doesn't matter, I know. But curiosity is a bitch. I guess lately I have been questioning all kinds of things...

Pain mostly.

I've written previously about how much I fear it. Yet, I always find myself in the most vulnerable positions...
I often care about people I know will hurt me. I do things I know will never get me to the places I want to be, simply because they are convient and often tempting. I know that I have this overwhleming want to love. Once I love you, I will go to the ends of earth to care for you...reguardless of the fact that you will eventually hurt me. I once again, cannot help but question why? Why put myself in such a vulnerable position... to care so much for people who will eventually dissapoint me and hurt me. Why set myself up for heartach?

Can't a girl ever find peace?!

I was so incredibly consumed with loving my husband. I invested my heart, my soul, my future and my dreams into my marriage. I left a comfortable home, my family, my dreams of college, my full time job, and my common sense to run away, get married, be the perfect wife, and support his military dreams. I left everything I thought I was... because my heart told me too. Even when I felt my marriage slipping away, I invested my hope, my faith, and my trust into that man. I do not regret it. But in the end, I am left with nothing, except an amazing son and a broken heart. And don't get me wrong, I would not trade the broken heart for my son...but I would have liked to have seen a different outcome. Afterall, who wants a broken heart...lost dreams...and a failed marriage on there resume? (I wish I knew how to put the little line over that e so that looked correct.)

I wish I knew where I was giong with this. I feel scatter brained. My head is in a million places right now, and sometimes I just wish I knew the answer before the question. However, the question remains...

Do we put ourselves in vulnerable positions and know we will get hurt, or do we air on the side of caution and forget the journey all together?

I was trying to live my life on this new theory, that "You only live once..." But hell, who wants to live a life full of bad decisions, simply because we're trying to be carefree? I know I'll find a happy medium.. I'm just wondering WHEN?!

Cosntruction...

My blogs underconstruction for the time being. I will continue to post, however I'm just not sure what I want to do with it- design wise. I feel like everything in my life is changing, so why not this too?
I did change the title, and the webaddress (Yes again.) Please bare with me. I'm trying to find "my own".... Make a name for myself so to speak..(or litterally..)



...AA

Baggage

It's so hard to be yourself in a world full of let down.
Being vulnerable is impossible.
I refuse to tear down walls, that feel so nessicary.
I fear break down, I fear let down, I fear people.
How can you survive when you're so full of fear?
I want to love.
But I know I'll first have to trust....
And trusting doesn't come easy.

My entire life I have jumped in head first...
Fears and worries were packed away like old treasures.
I never bother to unpack.
I've lived out of an emotional suitcase for quite some time.
But now, these fears and worries hang politley in my closet.
Their the only clothes I own.
I resentfully wear them everyday.
I wish I could pack them away like old treasures..
But I need them. I need them to protect me, and to keep me safe from the world.

The pain of my past has controlled me, consumed me, conqured me.
I want to break free.
But how do you escape from all you have ever known?

I feel as though I am being cheated out of so many things.
And I'm cheating myself.
I'm holding myself back.
Fear has overcome me.
I want to trust.
I want to love.


I wish these issues would turn to scars.
I'm okay with scars.
Scars say "I have healed but I am forever changed."
Instead, I'm left with open wounds.
I'm okay with being changed...
I'm okay with remembering what the past has taught me,
I'm even okay with the occasional reminder that having a scar will bring.
But open wounds continue to bleed...
and I just want to heal.

"As we drive along this road called life, occasionally a girl will find herself a little lost. And when that happens, I guess she has to let go of the coulda, shoulda woulda, buckle up and just keep going." -C.B.

But, the question is....How do you let go?





Yours Truley.

Continuence...

I live to tell a good story....but where is my story going?

Life is a Story...

I live to tell a good story. Afterall, isn't life all about who you have become, what you have accomplished and what you have given back to the world?

I live to tell a good story...
But what if my story ends up being a tragic mess?
What if I'm lost, and my story feels dead stopped...somewhere between failing and failed.
My story seems to be a series of events I have shelved, to do some other day.
Some other day, when the time was right, and it was my turn to be, to succeed, to achieve.
What if someday never finds me?
I constantly struggle, wondering if I will ever be all that I have dreamed.
I wonder just how good my story will become....

I feel as thought, I have, for quite some time put my life on hold.
And it has not been for nothing, but for the most part, it has not been for ME.
I have put myself on hold for other peoples hopes, others dreams, and most importantly others needs.
I can't say that I mind. It is who I am. I would gladly help another, at no benefit to myself.
But today, I would like to help myself.
I would like my story to be solid, and strong.
I would like it to be inspirational and entertaining.
Afterall, no one likes to read a boring story.

I drempt as a young girl my story would entail marriage, and chidren...a big family.
Most importantly a happy family.
I wanted to be someones wife, and someones mother. I wanted to make people happy.
I drempt of this amazing family that was strong as steel.
I never hoped to be twenty one, divorcing, and single parenting my one year old.
But sometimes we have to go through bad times to arrive in beautiful places..
And now I patiently wait..
I'm waiting to wake up and look out my window and find the beauty.
I need the sun to shine again.

Now, yes, I am well aware I must make the sun shine.
Things like this do not just happen on their own.
But give me time. I will get there.
For now, I am somewhat comfortable in the mush.
I needed this time to find peace and closure...
To quit blaming myself...to feel like a failure...
And then to self-realize I have forever done all I could.
I may have failed...
But it was not by choice..it was not by fault..and I will not feel guilty.

The sun will shine again.
I will find beauty, amidst my mush...
I will tell a good story.


*AA

Inconsistent

People always say life is what you make it, however I FEEL, life is partially what happens to you, and partially how you handle it. "We're a product of our up-bringing", but we're also a product of how we decide to live our lives after our parents are done doing their job. I've become a firm believer that even those with the worst childhood, can DECIDE to make the best of adult-hood. You do determine your fate, but your circumstances will always be a part of you.

I grew up the majority of my life without my father. Infact, I cringe when people refer to that man as my "dad". While he may be a father, he was far from a dad. My parents divorced when I was...three? Maybe a little younger, I cannot even recall. HE moved hours away, and rarely had the time to see us. It was always on terms of convenience for him. I grew to resent him with each passing year. Whenever I think of this man, I think of the most disapointing experience of my childhood. Said "man" was on the other line of my telephone telling me he was coming to get me. He was taking JUST ME. This was beyond exciting for me. My sister has grown up with countless medical conditions and for much of our childhood was the center of everyones day. Constant doctors appointments, care and concern consumed our lives. For HIM to be coming to get just me...well I felt special for the first time in a long time. As soon as I knew he was coming, I was done swimming, which happened to be my favorite hobby at the time. I had to of been nine or ten at the time. He wouldn't be there for six hours, but I waited intently on the couch with my bags packed. I didn't even eat dinner. Roughly five hours later HE called. He wasn't going to make it. He just couldn't leave work...or some nonsense that really hurt. The man owned his own business. Really...couldn't leave? You waited five hours to tell me? It was then I decided he was not a father. He was the kind who tried to call when you were in trouble. He once told me I was grounded over the phone...I hadn't seen him in over six months...was he joking? By age eleven it was set in my mind I wanted nothing to do with him, and at age tweleve I completely stopped calling him dad, stopped visiting even when it was convenient for him, and stopped caring, or so I thought.

The truth is, when your a little girl and "daddy" leaves, and acts as though you are a convenicnce, it hurts you, it changes you. I couldn't come to face this until I was an adult and really had the capacity to see what he had done to me. I wanted a daddy, I wanted to be loved and feel important, but it never happened. For the next couple years, I saw him only from the window of my hosue while he pulled up in the drive way to pick up my sister, when he FOUND THE TIME. I was okay with that. I wanted nothing to do with a man who found his children to be a convenience.

I married my highschool sweetheart at eighteen. Our relationship had always been rocky. He joined the army two years prior and had just returned from a fifteen month long deployment, in which our relationship was even rockier. For the most part, I spent everyday that I was his wife, doing all the things I felt a wife was supposed to do. I cooked, I cleaned, I did the laundry, I laid out his clothes, I left him sweet love notes in his ruck when he had to go to the field for days on end. It never seemed to be enough. He spend much of his time working, and the rest playing poker at the bar. I faught with him over it, but ultimatly I settled. I settled on the fact that this was my reality and I'd rather have my husband at the bar playing poker and drinking while I sat at home, then not have him at all. We had a child a year and a half into our marriage. And the day my son was born I could think of nothing other then the fact that I hoped my husband would be the kind of father neither he, nor I ever had. I knew he was an absent husband, but I prayed to God he would never be an absent father. I convinced myself I could deal with being home alone while he was out, as long as when he was home, he was the best damn father he could be. I could endure the lonliness of deployments and bar nights, so long as my child was happy with his father.

Infact, even after the divorce papers were filed and delivered, one day he would love me and want to fix things, and the next he would hate me. Sometimes he wanted me back, and sometimes he wanted to put a knife in my back. I found myself on a constant emotional rollarcoaster, and it wasn't until reacently that I COMPLETELY stepped off and decided I had- had enough. More inconcentiencies.

Here I am a thirteen months past the birth of my son and I have never felt more like that twelve year old before. My [ soon to be ] ex husband lives in TN, and my son and I in Michigan. He was deployed just a month after baby bear was born. And returned just past his first birthday. Since then he has been in Michigan once. He spent a couple hours with our son the weekend he was home. He is coming back again this week, and I am anxious [and less then overjoyed] to see how much of an effort is put it. I know he has good intentions. But unfortunatly I don't think his intentsions always show. He loves our son...he really does. But I'm not sure parenting is at the top of his list of priorities. It seems that he too has found time with his son to be more of an "at his convenience" kind of thing- Which of course was my worst fear. I don't want this cycle to repeat itself, but I'm not exactly sure if there is anything I can do to change it. I am the best mother I can be. My son comes before anything in my life, and I would never change that. However, I know first hand what it is like to have an amazing mother and an absent father. There are some things money cannot buy, and two awesome parents are one of those things.

Now that I am "seperated" from the man I have invested seven years of my life with, I find it so hard to trust anyone. Every man I have given my faith and trust too, have eventually dissapointed me, broken my heart, and abandoned me. I feel as though this is my fate, and I wish there was a switch I could flip to end this madness. My wall is up. I feel like there is no reason I should ever let it down. I feel like letting people in, will just lead to repetition of let down and hurt...and let's face it, who wants to be set up for pain? [Unless it's a tattoo of course...]

So my question is this...
The msot important men in my life have always made me a convenience, let me down, and eventually left. I find it impossible to trust, and even harder to let people in. When does this stop, and how do I learn to trust again? At what point do I get to forget this hurt and move on to find someone who will never make me feel this way? Do such men exist? Is there something wrong with me...? I want to be able to open up and trust again, I don't like feeling permanently damaged. I constantly find myself questioning the sincerity of people around me. Words are so easy to say....but to mean them...that's another thing. And I want someone to mean them.

I can only hope as my journey continues, I find the power to knock down my own walls- open up, and trust someone again. I am the kind of person who loves with everything inside of me, and I do not want to watch another man DESTROY everything inside of me. I'm trying to figure out how to make the correct choices, so that my childhood no longer depicts my adult-hood. Best wishes to me, huh?

Oh well, that's my thought for tonight!

As Always,
AA

Closing in on closure

So I haven't been posting these last couple months like I usually do. I think that I have needed to find a little bit of peace on my own before writing about all of this. This entire process has been a rollar coaster of emotions, and I have finally stepped off. It took a long time for me to decide to give up on hope and let go of all I had pictured for my family, but I am to be where I am today. My life has finally hit the calm after the storm, and I have amazing people in my life making me smile and keeping me strong every single day. 

While I cannot say I have found closure, I know that I'm on the right path. I have let go of the anger that has kept me from healing...but most importantly I have given up on believing the person I have known all these years is still there. War is a hard thing. It's hard on the economy, it's hard on the soldiers, and it's hard on the families. Most importantly it is hard on the minds of everyone involved. Some people go to war, and come home CLOSE to the same person they left, some leave and come home completely different. Regardless, no one comes home exactly the same.
On that note, I need to be the best me I can be, and I cannot keep worrying about saving him. It's not my job. I need to save myself. As most of you know I have struggled with the guilt of how war has changed him, the guilt of letting go, the guilt of breaking up my sons family, and the guilt of not "fixing" him. I can't do this to myself anymore.


I guess this leads us back to my Kenny Rogers song, which has been my "go-to" for the last couple months.
KR says it best.
"Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep"
.....
"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away and know when to run
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done"
The truth is, you can make a winning situation out of everything. No matter what you're handed in life, you can either choose to win with it, or loose with it. But you HAVE to know when to walk away, you have to know when enough is enough, and when to give up. I'm taking my deuces and peacing out. I fold. And I consider it a win. Sometimes the best thing you can do is look out for yourself, and stop worrying about saving everyone else.

I know I keep posting that I will blog more, but things have been hectic and I feel like I'm not writting like myself lately. Hopefully I get myself back in all of this.

AA