When was the last time you did something that you enjoy? Working a full-time job can be a hassel. Working a full-time job and having other responsibilities can be even more of a hassel. Working full-time, having other responsibilities and being in a long-term relationship combined might cause you to forget to take time to do what makes you happy. My fiance and I have recently taken on a lot of responsibility of taking care of my 3 year old nephew, who is just the light of my life, and with the combination of working 40+ hours a week it can be a lot to handle. Now, I am not speaking for everyone, some people are able to juggle their life with no problem! I am not that person. I am one to struggle with making time for myself because I am busy taking care of others. Taking care of others is something I absolutely love to do but I also forget that maybe I need some care as well; selfcare. I realize that it has been quite a while since I have taken the time to sit down and write, to enjoy letting my mind express itself. I put myself on the back burner more than I should. I realize that I am not the only person who does this, so if you are reading this- make some time this week for yourself. I am going to challenge myself to spend at least an hour a day doing something that I love to do. Reading a book, writing, listening to music or baking. Those specific things bring so much joy to my life and I am going to demand from myself that I make a change. I challenge you to make a change; I challenge you to do it with me.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a huge topic for me, but I think it is necessary to talk about. This past year and a half I have grown more than I have my entire life. I feel like a completely different person, to be honest. I am proud to say that I have made peace with my demons. I have become extremely good friends with my ex and her wonderful girlfriend. I am proud to say that they have become some of my very best friends. It took me a while to get where I am at but I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. When you are feeling broken and feel like nothing in the world could ever mend you- don’t stop searching for someone who can fix you. I luckily had my sister and my very best friend to help me get through some of the hardest times of my life but I wouldn’t have been able to do it by myself. It is not weak to ask for someone to lean on, it is not weak to express how you are feeling. It is not weak to cry or be angry or frustrated. It isn’t weak to say what you feel. Each one of us has our own timelines of healing. Don’t rush the process. Take your time in your self-growth and embrace every moment of it. It can be so easy to push everyone that you love away from you, but don’t do it. Take them in, love them and more importantly; let them love you. I am at a peace with where I am in life and I hope that one day you all get to where you’re going. I know it’s been a long hard journey for me .Forgive those who hurt you, forgive those who have wronged you. Forgiveness is the key to self happiness. And even when they don’t think they did anything wrong, forgive them anyways because one day they will know. And they will grow to appreciate how big of a person you were for letting go of the bitterness and of the hurt and betrayal. Make peace with yourself. Make YOURSELF happy. Be who you love. And love who you beđź’•
Sometimes Love Isn’t a Good Enough Reason to Stay
“Please don’t leave, I don’t think I can do this without you,” I said choking back the tears as she was packing up everything she owned in our house. She remained quiet, refusing to explain to me what had caused this sudden change of heart. I couldn’t understand- just the day before she was telling me she loved me and wanted to spend the rest of her life with me and now? Now I am being iced out by a frozen heart. There was nothing that I could say to make her stay but I wanted so badly to do anything and everything I could to keep her.
As she was leaving she walked up to me, kissed me sweetly and whispered, “That wasn’t for you, that was for me.” With that being said she walked away carrying my heart with her, her kiss still on my lips. It paralyzed me. This was goodbye. I loved her with all I had and why couldn’t that be enough?
The answer is simply, sometimes love isn’t a good enough reason to stay. Weeks after she left I still begged her, “Please, come home..” Over and over I asked her, “Do you still love me?” I believed that if she loved me as much as she had claimed to love me before that we could be together and be able to work through anything. I wanted to be the one that she wanted to be with, after a year of being together I had grown this attachment to her. She was my best friend and my person that I went to for everything and now she left me with nothing. I loved her but that wasn’t enough to make her stay and I am okay with that.
You may love someone with all of your heart, you may be willing to go to any length for them but at the end of the day- if you are not growing as a person you’re not growing as a couple. You’re relationship suffers from being stagnant and that shouldn’t be a relationship you want to fight for. Our relationship became stagnant for a few different reasons. While I was putting my all into our relationship she was giving her heart to someone else. I was exhausting myself trying to fight for the both of us when really she didn’t want the fight. I should have put my feelings aside and have been strong enough to walk away. Instead I was begging for a person who had dragged me through so much over and over and I begged for them to stay every time. If someone loves you, you shouldn’t have to beg for them to stay. They should stay for themselves, not because you asked them to.
I should have been the one to walk away. Love is not a good enough reason to stay. Most importantly, guard your heart. It may feel good in that moment but it could end up haunting you for months past, even years. You’re worth more than a momentary lapse in judgement. Take in account that it’s not just your heart that breaks, it’s your mind. It’s your soul, it’s your feelings connected to everything you felt was what you had really wanted. But is it what you REALLY wanted? You wanted your heart to shatter in a million pieces and know the whole time that it could have been prevented? NO. You want peace. You want happiness. You want bliss. And this, this right here is not bliss. This isn’t happiness. Love yourself enough to stop dragging your heart through the mud and realize that you deserve more.
Sometimes love isn’t enough.
10 Year Old Me
I was asked a curious question by one of my very good friends “What would your 10 year old self think of you now?” It got me thinking, what WOULD my 10 year old self think of me now? These past few years I have been through a lot more than most people go through in a whole decade. But it is up to me as to who I became through it all.
My thoughts are this:
When I was 10 years old I remember being a happy, obedient, church-going, cheeky little girl. I strived to be the person that would one day change the world! I strived to be the person who knew right from wrong and chose accordingly. Along the years I have slipped up- made decisions that will forever impact my life and maybe not in the way I had always imagined my life to be. My ten year old self would be disappointed. They would see me as inconsistent, depressed and out of shape. Disappointed I hadn’t got my life together but at the same time they would cheer me on. Encourage me to get my life back on track and still love me for who I am, because tiny me didn’t judge anyone. They would tell me to prioritize better and that life flies by so fast. She would tell me to hold on as long as I can to the moments that I can never get back. In different aspects she would be proud of me, too. Finally I had started to become more outgoing and less shy. Finally I had started to stand up for myself when I was being shoved down. Finally I had started to embrace myself for who I really was instead of trying to hide that side of me.
We grow and we stumble and we grow some more and we fall some more. But that seems to be the rhythm of the world. It’s all part of living and learning and loving and leaving. It’s so important to stay true to yourself and to not let anyone make you want to be any less. Sometimes I want to be that 10 year old me again. But- life doesn’t work like that, we can’t turn back time, we don’t have a do-over. What we can do, however, is remember the parts that we loved about ourselves and embrace them.
Change
Change is inevitable. On a day to day basis the weather is changing, our clothes are changing, our emotions are changing. On a year to year basis our ages are changing, our jobs, maturity, our friends even are changing. Everything is constantly changing and the world would not be the same if it didn’t. The ONE thing consistent in life is CHANGE. It’s not always comforting however, when it comes to losing people that we love. No matter how much we want things to stay the same it. just. wont. Time follows it’s own rules. Things change at their own pace. That is something we have no control over. If change didn’t exist then we would become stagnant, never growing, never changing, never allowing ourselves to become who we are meant to become. Change means growth and for that I am grateful for it. I wasn’t always though; growing up change meant moving to a new town, going to a new school and finding new friends. Change meant leaving old friends behind and starting all over again. Even as an adult, change meant someone leaving, someone dying, someone going ghost in my life. Change doesn’t always mean losing who you are, it means taking that opportunity to become a better version of yourself. If someone decides that they don’t want to be a part of your world anymore then you don’t need them. Most importantly, don’t let their loss set you back. If you are struggling right now remember that it won’t always be this way. Take comfort in the fact that change is coming.
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Self-Happiness
A common question I ask myself is what exactly the most important thing in my life is and honestly if I had asked myself this question a year ago I would have given a name without thinking twice. The name of someone who I believed to be the love of my life, the keeper of my secrets, the owner of all that I held dear. But as I am asked this question today it isn’t the name of someone, it isn’t even a tangible object. The most important thing in my life at this very moment is my own happiness. I have learned never to place something as fragile as your happiness into the hands of another person. Your happiness is too delicate for someone else to hold and while it is everything to you, it means nothing to the one who has their hands around it. They have the ability to let it slip through their grasp and let it shatter on the cold hard ground at any given moment. Now just to be clear- in no way am I saying it is not important to trust another with such precious things I am only saying to not give them complete control. When you become so lost and so broken when your person leaves you- to the point of literally grieving their presence in your life- when you can’t preform daily tasks or keep up with your own personal hygiene..when as each day passes you dig yourself farther and farther into the darkest pit of self loathing it almost feels like there is no way to crawl out. That is when you know. That is when you know you have lost control of your own happiness. You left it in possession of someone who walked away and left it alone. Pick it back up, and fight for yourself back. While I am battling with self-love everyday, my self-happiness is most important overall. It’s a process and it surely isn’t an easy one but all it takes is a little encouragement from within and the support of the right people you surround yourself with. Surrounding yourself with people who knew where you were at emotionally and mentally and refuse to let you go back down that road again- are the people you need in your everyday life. At some point, it may not be now and it may not even be a year from now but at some point you will be okay. When someone walks out of your life- it won’t tear apart your world, not this time, because you are your own happiness. You are in control.
Purpose of Blog
Hello everyone! I have recently decided to start blogging, I am hoping to use this to get some of my thoughts out in the open and also to share my experiences as I go through this thing called life. I hope taking you on this journey that it will give some of you peace and just a reminder that you are not alone in anything that you do. Feel free to comment on any of my posts and let me know what is going through YOUR mind. Much love
Gab with Gabby 