Not Anymore

Happy Tuesday,

How is everyone doing this fine Tuesday morning? Good, I hope. It’s been a busy few days here for me. I was excited to be able to spend time with my aunt yesterday and being able to take her out to lunch. She’s been in skilled nursing for almost a year now, so getting her out and about a little bit was amazing. We went to Islands and she was in heaven. I could tell she was a bit tired, so after lunch, I took her back. She’s asked me to come get her again, so we checked with her nurse and it looks like I can take her for up to four hours at a time. After lunch with my aunt, I came back to the condo and did a little work and then I was able to go to dinner with some dear friends, Art and Laura. What a fun and amazing evening. It’s always so nice just hanging out with them. After dinner, they brought me home and I was enjoying my nice, quiet and alone time, that is, until I received a phone call from a family member, and this is where NOT ANYMORE comes into play.

“There are people that will only love you if you fit into their self-righteous box of judgments and ideals. Feel free to tell them to go shove that box up their ass.:-Brooke Hampton. For the first time in my life, I feel confident enough to let go of the energy sucking vampire that chooses to say mean, hateful things to me. I think in the moment he told me that I was the reason my dad left me behind as a child was the moment I woke up and realized, if I don’t agree with his every word, then he says mean and hateful things to me, and begins to tear me down and make me feel worthless. To tell someone who searched their entire life for their dad that he didn’t want me, well, that’s stooping to levels that nobody deserves.

The basis of this person’s anger towards me was simple. He was telling me that his son is always telling him that things will be okay. Things will work out, and his reply to his son was, no it won’t, it never does. Now, life doesn’t always work out the way we want and for some, life gives them more challenges than they sometimes know how to deal with, therefore, they tend to look at life as half empty, rather than half full. This person then went onto tell me that he hates the fact that I find good in most everything. He said I look for the positive, like it’s a bad thing. I told him that when I start feeling negative and like life isn’t going my way, I am blessed to meet someone who has faced trials, more difficult than mine. I told him that this past weekend I met a young girl who has faced so much adversity in her short little life, yet she told me that she will never give up, she will live each day to the fullest and when she grows up, she wants to go into the medical field to give back the same gentle and loving care that she received when she was in the hospital, fighting for her life.

As I write this blog, I sit here, wondering, is it wrong to hold onto a passion for life, especially after meeting someone who has battled so hard and who has had bad things happen to them? Sure, I can sit here and dwell on the negative in my life, but then, the Universe lets me meet someone who without knowing it, readjusts my thinking and helps me appreciate all the amazing things I have in my life. I believe strongly that having John in my life has helped me become a better, more positive person and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

It breaks my heart to have to say goodbye to this toxic person. I hate goodbyes. I hate knowing that until he can stop with the mean and hateful talk, I can’t have him in my life. I love this person, but there comes a time when you have to let go, because if you don’t, you might just find yourself on a downward spiral with them and then, you’ll be missing out on so many positive and amazing things. I truly believe that for the first time, I am calm about my choice to minimize any contact with this person without guilt. My eyes are open and it’s thanks to God that I am okay. I’m sad, but okay. It’s funny, when this person was saying mean things to me, I was able to not fight back, I just let him rant. I was able to control myself from retaliating when he was texting me mean and hateful things. Thanks to God, I was able to let go.

“I used to be afraid of losing people until I realized most of them were never really down for me anyways. Even though my loyalty and love for them ran deep, they couldn’t care less. So instead of being afraid of losing them, I fell back and watched them lose me. Growth.”-unknown. It’s a hard to let go, especially if they are family or someone you care deeply about, but when we can shift our mindset to not losing them, they are losing us, we begin to gain and find a stronger version of who we are meant to be and that’s the true moment of personal growth.

We need to keep growing in this life, after all, if we don’t, just think of all the amazing and wonderful experiences, good or bad that we will miss out on. I was listening to something this morning on energy sucking vampires and Dr. Northup revised the pledge of allegiance and I think it’s worth sharing. “I pledge allegiance to myself and to my soul for which I stand. I honor my goodness, my gifts and my talents. I commit to remaining loyal to myself from this moment forward, for all of my days.” Powerful, isn’t it? If we can’t even begin to see our goodness, gifts and talents, then we have some major work to do. We are all good people, and we have gifts to give others. No, not ones that can be bought, rather, ones that are from our heart, given out of pure unselfishness. We all have something to give, we all have talents and it’s when we can’t see the goodness in ourselves that is our wake-up call to start searching until we can see how unique we are and we matter and when someone puts us down, tells us we are a piece of shit, lashes out and says we deserved to be left behind by a parent, that’s the time to reflect and realize, we didn’t lose them, they just lost us. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out of my life.

It’s certainly time for me to pledge allegiance to myself. I met a woman the other day at a ceramic painting class and within moments of meeting her and talking to her, she looked at me and said, “you have a beautiful, creative mind, use it.” I couldn’t decide how to paint my project, so I asked the instructor if she would pick my colors. Not a bad thing, but what this lady was trying to get me to see was, I have a brain, a creative one at that and all I had to do was, trust in myself, after all, there is no wrong when it comes to art, it’s all in the eye of the beholder and let’s face it folks, God certainly used his imagination when it came to blessing us with all the amazing, unique and wonderful gifts we have in his creations.

Not anymore, at least I hope not. I have to work towards honoring myself as a person who matters, who has something good to bring to the table. I have gifts to offer, don’t I? I know you do, so, not anymore. I can’t allow energy sucking vampires to rob me and make me feel like I am fungus under their feet. Moving on and becoming a better me requires me putting in the work. Peace, understanding, love and compassion, those are just some of the positive qualities I want surrounding me.

I hope you all know and see your worth, and kindly reminders such as the ones that I was given in the quotes that were posted moments after I began doubting my existence. It’s because of such reminders, thanks to you, I can write about my experiences and find the good in them. The good that came from being told how worthless I am, opened my eyes to seeing that, I don’t deserve to be talked to like that, no matter who the person is, family or not, especially by family. I’m not losing him, he lost me. I want to continue to see my glass as half full and not half empty. There are so many amazing experiences left to have, lessons to learn and obstacles to overcome, but hey, if life was always easy, how boring would that be, and sadly, we might miss out on the gift of appreciation for what we do have.

Well guys, I have some other writing to get done, so for now, I’ll be saying, until next time, Love Life++