I Can't Stand Another Lie

Writing has been on my mind for the last two months, and while I have physically written with a pen pieces of books housed in notebooks tucked away, my fingers have tripped over themselves typing a blog. Today, I decided there were too many things on my mind to hold them back from stumbling. 

Have you ever told a pretty white lie, because it was better than telling the ugly truth? I used to tell them to myself and let others tell them for me when they could not face reality.

The last two years, especially the past 12 months, have been hard. I could not tell you how many 'pretty white lies' were told on my behalf, because others in my life could not recognize an internal (and external) conflict needing to be addressed on a deeper level.

At times, truth, and ultimately reality, may not be easy to face, but getting facing facts over with and taking steps to rebuild yourself is crucial to moving forward. So, that is what I have been doing.

In the last month, I have started running more, eating better after eating cookie dough for almost every meal for weeks and all-around taking better care of myself and creating a space where I am most happy and comfortable. I stopped wallowing and picked myself up by my boot straps, as the saying goes.

Every day brings a new challenge and a new opportunity to better myself. If I have learned one thing from being alone - it is being kind to yourself will make a world of difference. I may never be able to fix or replace the misfiring and missing neurotransmitters in my brain chemically causing my depression, but I can be kinder to myself. Whether it may be mitigating the negative thoughts I have about life daily, replacing the self-deprecating statements I make toward myself with a positive one or taking the time to recharge when my body and mind say rest - I am doing it. I am by no means perfect; I still make mistakes. At times, I find myself being more negative than positive, but I push onward.

This time last year, I was disparagingly told I had changed. For a while, this upset me, but I have always had a solid sense of self and knew change was not bad. Taking the time to look back through the years referenced and identifying the ways I had changed, I was not upset with the person I was then. Adding an extra year of introspection, I am still not upset with who I am growing into now.

I have been in enough learning-lesson relationships (and therapy) to know, you can never function with someone else if you cannot function on your own. Until you unpack a piece of baggage, you will always carry it with you, traveling from place to place and person to person.

To say I could function on my own six years ago is a stretch; however, back then, I knew if I wanted a relationship to thrive and last, I would need to do a good amount of hard, deep soul searching and growing. So, over time, I did. I grew up. I became more pragmatic. I became more deductive. I became more rational. I stopped holding myself back from the opportunities in front of me and owned who I was in every sense of the word. I failed forward and took every mistake I made as a chance to learn. I saw closed doors as a loss for others and a time for me to find a cracked window elsewhere. I turned sleepless nights into productive mornings, and became a happier, more complete me.

Part of growing taught me I cannot control the actions or reactions of others. I had to learn to let go of my overbearing need to micromanage. Since, I have come to fully understand everyone must grow through what they go through, often without help.

Today, I am alone, and I am OK with this. My situation is not preferable by any means, but I have come to accept some things are outside of my control. I cannot fault myself for the pitfalls or pretty white lies of another.