Alone 2

Happy Tuesday:

How is everyone doing on this fine Tuesday afternoon? Survive your first day back to work after the weekend? I survived the day, but no work for me, and that’s okay. I do miss working, but right now, I need to take care of, not only my physical health, but my mental health. In the meantime, I’ll take advantage of my many blessings in life, one of which is, writing.

It’s a beautiful Tuesday and I’m loving being able to sit here and write. I hope that no matter what you are doing today, it’s a great day. Hey, don’t forget to send me a text, drop me a comment or give me a like. I love hearing from you.

I wanted to chat a little bit about the feeling of being alone. I have someone in my life who is so dear to my heart and she is going through a really difficult time right now. She’s struggling within herself and I know what that feels like. I know much of the time she is second guessing her decision all while trying to take care of her own mental health. I know she’s feeling caught between being truly happy and taking care of herself and the guilt of what that looks like right now. and of what she left behind. It’s hard when you choose yourself and want to take care of yourself before putting the needs of everyone else ahead of your own. “Putting yourself first doesn’t mean disregarding others, it means valuing yourself too.”-quoteslatest.com.

One of the hardest things, I think, especially for women in particular, is to take care of ourselves. When we get married, have children, become homemakers, or even homemakers along with having a job outside of our homes, we tend to keep so busy taking care of so much, we allow ourselves to fall through the cracks, but one day, for a lot of us, our world comes crumbling down and we can’t find our way back to what seemed so normal as we handled everything.

Life is so busy and as women, we take on more then we need to. Oh, we can do it all, I speak from experience on this topic, however, doing it all without allowing others to help us, we will at some point hit the wall and break. We are not put on this earth to be enslaved to our lives, we are put on this earth to compliment our partners, help in the nurturing and loving of our families and if we work as a team, believe me when I say, way more can be accomplished. More importantly, we don’t allow room for resentment about our partners to settle in.

I was taught and reminded almost daily that my place in this life was to be perfect. I was told it was my job to care for my home, my kids, my yard, the cars, the meals, the laundry and my job outside the home. I remember my mother giving me a book called the Total Woman. She told me to model this book so my husband at the time wouldn’t go looking elsewhere. I was told by my mother that he was my head, I was under his headship, he was basically the boss of our home, his needs needed to be met and that him having a full time job meant that everything aside from his job was my job. Let me tell you, I worked myself to the point of non-stop, from sun up to well past sun down, taking care of everyone and everything, except myself.

It was unheard of for my spouse to lift a finger, take the trash out or pick his clothes up off the floor, it was my job.

Now that I’m away from that, I look back and I can say this. I didn’t have the know how to be able to tell him that I was his wife, not his slave. Oh, I’d say things like, paint me a different color and call me your slave. I wasn’t meaning it as being prejudice, I was meaning it as how cruel it was in our world to ever have a person be a slave. The way slaves were treated was horrific and dehumanizing, but it’s something that sadly took place in history and I felt like a modern day slave.

I’m learning that not everything is my job and though I get frustrated when I ask for help now and the help doesn’t come, I won’t do it all anymore. A home is a place where you either live alone, or with others and within that home that is shared with others, the work should never fall upon one persons shoulders, at least that’s what I’m learning.

Sometimes when I blog, or work on my different books that are in the making, I feel guilty, like I should be doing more, but when I pray and ask God for his direction, he shows me that my writing is important, so, I need to buy out the time to treat it with respect, after all, I think I’m pretty good at writing and that gift has come from God.

I’m thankful that John doesn’t expect me to do everything. He always reminds me that it’s okay to not have everything just so. He wants me to take care of myself and in turn, I want to take care of him.

“Morning Word. Stop putting yourself last just so you can meet everyone else’s needs in life. You have an obligation and a duty to try to provide the best possible life that you can for yourself. People with the biggest hearts have a bad habit of digging themselves in the biggest holes because they are always putting everyone else first. Today is the day that I want you to start putting yourself first for a change. Today is the day that I want you to start doing the things that you truly want to do in life regardless of who you may offend. This is your life and you should live it how you want, not by other people’s expectations of you.”-@woodtheinspiration.

I am coming to realize if we start enjoying life and taking ourselves into consideration, we are happier because we are doing things that bring us joy. Don’t get me wrong, I was extremely happy caring for my home and my kids, that did bring me joy, but having to miss a basketball game for example, because my boys dad felt he should be at those games over me, I missed out on one too many moments in time I will never get back. The reasons I had to miss those games is so insignificant, most of which I don’t remember, and I’m sure he doesn’t either, but at the time, I allowed his needs to be put before mine and there was never a give and take, it was I gave, he took. Relationships are about working together and checking in on each other to make sure one of us is never feeling alone, like we are having to conquer this life alone even though we have someone sleeping right next to us.

When I left that relationship, I told him I didn’t want to be alone anymore. His reply was always the same. “What’s that supposed to mean? I come home every night. I put in a pool for you. I bought you a house, didn’t I?” Sure, he did all those things, and I appreciated them, but when it came to begging him to be my partner, my confident, he was absent. Sure, he came home every night. He’d come home, barely spoke to me unless he needed to vent about someone at work, then he would have me serve him his meal, after which he would leave his plate on the table, then pick up my tablet and go lay on the couch with his back to me. The pool, well sure, he allowed me to get a pool. He forgets, I worked too, but that’s where the division was, he always thought the money was his, and the work I did meant nothing, because my income was minimal.

I can go on and on, but what I want my readers to realize is this. Even though you live in a house with someone, does your treatment of or the lack of treatment towards the other person, make them feel like they aren’t important. Do we lack the ability to display simple affection towards that person? Do we fail to even toss them a scrap of appreciation? We need to think about our actions towards those in our homes, in our lives. Are we making others feel like they aren’t important. Is our house a home, or our home, simply a house?

I know we all have different love languages and that’s fine, but recognizing that and not only working on giving our partner what they need, but wanting to give our partner what they need is the key. I was so alone in my marriage. Sure, we had good times, but never alone. We were always surrounded by others, and that’s what kept me going. I loved the community of family and friends we had, then one day, he decided no more. I wasn’t allowed to venture out and join quilting classes or go to a craft store, or whatever made me happy. My work load was becoming even more and I would have continued doing it all, if only I felt a glimpse of love from him.

We have the right to be happy and we have the right to choose to contribute to someone else’s happiness. If we love someone, then their happiness becomes just as important as ours. When we fall in love, we want to do everything for our partner, and if they truly love us, they want to do everything for us. It’s a wonderful partnership, it’s a beautiful journey when both partners see the value in putting themselves first, because ironically by doing that, in some weird way, we put our partner first. It’s this amazing circle of love where we treat each other with love and respect, allowing our wants and needs to be made known. We don’t put ourselves on the back burner, and our partners won’t allow us to even think of doing such a thing. They see our value and they help pick up the pieces when we feel overwhelmed and out of control. A loving and committed partner will most likely always be so entuned to our needs that they remind us that we matter and it’s okay to take care of ourselves. They want that. They need us to take care of ourselves, because in doing so, we are never pouring from a glass half empty. We are replenishing ourselves, giving ourselves energy to give back.

I remember, my ex hated kissing, always said it was for the birds. Even a peck on the cheek was out of the question. I craved to be kissed. I just wanted that connection, but it never came. I used to beg him to kiss me, I’d ask why can’t you kiss me? That lack of connection caused me to spiral even more of unworthiness.

One day, right before our divorce was to be final, he called me up and said he’d been thinking. He said in the most matter of fact tone, “I’ve decided I want to kiss you.” I asked why now. He said, “because I want to.” My heart broke even more. Because he decided he wanted that, now kissing was okay, but for many decades I begged him to kiss me to only receive, “kissing’s for the birds.” It was too late. My heart had already broken and I vowed never to return to a life of loneliness. I didn’t trust his words, because his actions never showed it would be different.

I never wanted to be alone again. I’d rather live alone rather than live in a relationship where I felt alone. The loneliness of being with someone who makes you feel alone is a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Being alone by choice, that’s empowering, but being in a committed relationship and feeling alone, that sucks!

“No matter how far along in your journey you get, those moments will still come. Those moments where your eyes fill with tears, your heart fills with sorrow, and the memories and absence take your breath away. Those moments DO NOT represent weakness. Exactly the opposite. Those are the moments in which your strength is defined.”-John Polo.

I think what many fail to realize is simple. If you don’t show up in your relationship, when someone walks out the door, they’re done (usually). When we fail to show up in our relationships we’ve vowed to always nurture and care for, we’ve already taught our person they can do it alone, and usually, they can. They will find the strength of being alone. The same feeling we’ve left them to feel even though we came home every night.

The kids will grow up and leave the nest. They will live their own lives and that’s the wonderful circle of life. The person standing next to you as your kiddos venture out, is the person who deserved to be invested in. The kids are an extension of your love and hopefully the best versions of each of you, but they are going to create their own lives, and hopefully, even though you’ve raised kids together, you created a life of dreams and hopes with your partner.

Many empty nesters wake up one day, look at the person they’ve spent a lifetime with and wonder, who are you? Nurturing the most important relationship in the world, never happened. That person who is opening the door and not looking back, they are the person you made feel lonely even though you lived in the same house.

Make your house a home. Fill it with love and maybe kissing is for the birds, but if your partner needs that, then why not make them feel like their needs and wants are valued in your eyes. Why not help your partner put their needs and wants into the equation of life, the life you are building together? Why not help your partner, rather than dumping on them. Help your partner see the importance of taking care of themselves and believe me when I say this, if you do that one thing to remind your partner to take care of themself and be there so they can, they will in turn, do the same for you and then some. That’s just the way human nature works.

Feeling alone is a horrible thing to feel. Nobody should feel alone, and if you are on your own and alone, you still have your relationship with your creator. You can talk to him any time and I do hope you have friends and family in your court who have made you feel as though you can call them day or night, for whatever reason. That’s so important.

Do the things you love, take a hike in nature, read a good book or take a long drive to anywhere or nowhere. Just find your happy place and embrace it. Create a world of life, because even if you are alone, you don’t have to be lonely. You are wonderfully made and unique in your own right. Embrace who you are and get back on the path you were meant to be on, and until next time, I do pray, you Love Life++