Acceptance

People perish during transitional phases. In Scoresbysund they would shoot each other in the head with shotguns when the winter started to kill off summer. It's not difficult to coast along when things are going well, when a balance has been established. What's difficult is the new. The new ice. The new light. The new feelings.
- Peter Hoeg

The new life that I'm starting. I am officially declaring a new beginning for myself. Sure, sure, sure... I've got some old baggage that still needs unpacking but that doesn't mean I can't start again. And my therapist and I are beginning to touch the nitty gritty of what's been creeping in underneath. Underneath all the motives and reasons.

And with my new beginning, I'm giving away other new beginnings. I will no longer feel guilty for what I haven't done or how I'd dealt with things in the past. I'm letting go of some of my old ways and embracing new. That's right... I made no plans for my Friday night and I am perfectly ok with this. I am not lonely nor am I alone so why should it bother me if I stay in, doing what I want to do, in my own space.

I don't want to take crap anymore and I've made progress. I know I have because I confronted several of my fears this week and as I asked the Soprano I know, what do I have to fear?

Can someone hurt me if I don't give them the power to? Sure, they could kill me or torture me but I've been there, done that in some ways. Learned alot from it. Ok... I haven't been killed but I've faced my own devastation and survived it. When you go to sleep just thankful that you survived the night, you have some insights that just weren't there before. Doesn't mean I can't be open and vulnerable but if I'm coming from a good place and not hiding beneath the rubble of my old life anymore, what do I have to worry about? What can they attack besides my sense of security? But what security is there? Only that which I can make for myself. Nothing else is guaranteed and even the people who love you most will sometimes knock you down. I've got my zen place and it's time for me to move into it. To love it and embrace it. To give up some things because they simply don't provide for me what they used to. To take on the beautiful gifts and challenges that are put on my path. There's always something to overcome but the last few years of fighting have landed me here. And it's time for me to just wake up, ignore the bottle and just get real.

I have to take care of myself and that's all there is to it. I have to do what's best for me, whether other people can understand it or not. I need to prove to myself that I can be this person who's been scratching the surface of herself for so long she almost completely forgot how much she likes to bake.

New feelings are scary. New approaches to life should be welcomed but they are not. It's easier to stay in a rut, to stay where you know because life can knock you down. However, it's up to you to get back up and say "that's enough... I've got a life to live". Hiding behind booze, learning about the quirks of my disorder, accepting that the disorder is here to stay and feeling all the hurt has done me much good, even if going through it was bad. Accepting myself and my own limitations is tough but a very real part of being human.

For goodness sake, the man I adore barely knows a real thing about me... mostly because I just kept trying to be something else... someone I thought I wanted to be... because maybe, just maybe I'd have a shot of getting my life cleaned up that way. What looks clean from the outside is sometimes very dirty on the inside. How that works, I'll never know... it's impossible to convince oneself to be anything but who they are. No matter how hard one might try.

I did not perish, I just learned how to live.

You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do what we gotta do, to survive. - Tupac Shakur, Changes

I want to survive and begin to really thrive.