#maggiemayhem

Normally, I am a particularly private person and pride myself on keeping most people at arm's length when it comes to sharing specific details of my life. However, I woke up today with the desire to purge myself through my favorite form of release. So I will write. I won't be afraid of judgement or who may read this, or what anyone has to say about it. I make no apologies for my truths and how I got to where I am today. 

There was a millisecond, in the vastness that is my entire life, in which I was fragile. During what I now look back on as "the dark days", all I wanted was to be strong. I wanted to be a tower of serenity and calm without the outside world having access to the inner-most workings of my turmoil. I lived on shrugs and perfected the art of a blank stare. Most of my days were spent with family and trying to make as much money as I could to somehow feel accomplished. Then night would fall upon me and I could no longer hold on and carry the weight. 

I was always an avid lover of the moonlight and had a kinship with all the possibilities available to me after sundown, but in those days I was not equipped to deal with the dark thoughts that came when the sun hid it's face. So I frequented pharmacies for over-the-counter sleeping aids and tried to tire myself out with daily activities so that I may fall asleep as fast as possible. 

Although my days were filled with compassion and many well-wishers, my mind was not adjusting to the new courses of action I knew I should be taking. Instead of reading or going for leisurely walks, which had worked for me in the past, I simply tried to tune the world out. I wrote many of my dark thoughts but talked to no one about them. I spent hours compiling the perfect playlists for my every changing moods. Perhaps the largest consumption of my time had been wasted in simply laying on my hardwood bedroom floor, in a patch of sunlight trying to figure out what would become of me. 

Now, you would think I would be too embarrassed to share the details about the most vulnerable time of my life, but somehow I came out of it exactly the type of woman I'd always hoped to become. I see the beauty that came from those days of self-loathing. More so, it is my own personal form of therapy to write. Perhaps the most justifiable reason for this post is my hope that if just one person reads this and is somehow moved or can learn from my past then it was worth everyone in my life knowing what I've been through. 

I was in committed and very long term relationship for the better part of a decade. We grew up together and learned our version of life from one another. He was the first person to meet my family and I was the first girl he'd ever been with. We met in a blur of religion and young-minded foolishness, but those details aren't really important anymore. He had very strong views, which differed from anyone I'd ever known until that point. He was young-minded, as was I, and we were eager to teach each other about the knowledge of life as young adults just starting to blossom. 

We had many good memories and wishes for the future, but due to my young mind and having no knowledge of building balanced, adult relationships I found myself molding who I was becoming into who I believed he wanted me to be. I would catch glimpses of myself when I was with family or after a particularly good bath, but those moments became more and more far apart. There were moments, in those many years, when I tried to push him away because I knew I could not be with him and love myself as well. However, the fear of going out into the world and having to start it all again held me in place and shook the doubts away. I wore rose-colored glasses and put an emphasis on my relationship as the most important thing in my life. 

After we hit the five year mark, the questions started pouring in from every direction. When are you guys getting married? When are you having babies? Why aren't you living together? Have you guys thought about the future and where you heading?  I was afraid of such a permanent decision but even more scared of what it meant that I didn't have a clear path leading to any of those things. For the next year, we made very detailed and distinct plans. We decided to move in together, eventually get married, and begin our lifelong journey together. However, we never got past phase one. 

We moved into a small but cozy apartment and began making plans for how we would furnish our first home. I was excited about the move, as I have always been fond of new places and new beginnings. However, I knew a month after we had moved in that it was a mistake. We fought about minuscule things and could not adjust to the change. Days went by and I grew more and more anxious about what our current troubles could mean. 

On a Tuesday night I went for a drive with my sister, my soul-mate and the person who knows me more than any spirit on this earth. As I previously stated, I am very secretive about my life and specifically my relationships. I've always felt that if you choose to vent about your relationship to a large amount of people, or anyone other than your partner for that matter, you are opening the door for people to judge your relationship and openly give their opinions on it. So even though I am close with my sister and she is keenly aware of what my being is made up of, I did not frequently tell her about my relationship or the cracks in it. 

That night, I let go of all my previous beliefs and poured every  truth out of myself and let it spill out in front of me like a sickness. I told my sister about my fears for the future, how terrified I was, and revealed all the ways in which I was hurting. She was comforting and honest in her sensible way and gave me sound advice, "Tell him, just open your mouth and ask him what is happening with you two". I knew she was right. So that very night, I did. I bought up our fights and how unhappy we were. The night ended with our relationship shelved and me trying to figure out if we had made the right decision in parting ways. 

I won't bore you with the details of how messy the break-up became but suffice to say, it was dreadful. If the break had been clean, it may not have been horrible, but it was not. It was filled with nights of angry sex and the comfort of familiarity mixed with guilt over knowing it was not right. We were not right, but we had grown so accustomed to one another that parting ways proved more difficult than necessary. Then, with the quick-pace which it takes to kick someone in the gut, he slipped away. It confused me to be so hurt that he was attracted to someone else when I knew in my heart we were not supposed to be together. I suppose it was a childish emotion to be upset that he, too, was ready to leave me behind, but was as scared of leaving the familiar as I had been. After two months of living in a confusing cloud together I finally packed my bags, left him the apartment, cut off all contact, and moved into a new place with my sister and cousin to try to heal. Coincidentally, the three of us were going through break-ups at the same time and so we sought comfort in one another and tried to help each other figure out what our plans would be for the future. 

I wasn't ready to see many people because I frequently felt they were looking at me with pity in their eyes and caution dripping from their mouth. Everyone seemed too afraid to be strong with me, for they saw me as fragile and on the verge of some sort of breakdown. I chose to stay home instead of have people look at me with questions in their eyes that I was not prepared to answer. 

It was during this time of solitude that I met D. We began a friendship based on my need for companionship from someone who had not known me during my former life and who would not hold who I had been against me. He knew what had happened but didn't ask me things I wasn't comfortable talking about and spent endless hours listening to every dark thought that passed my mind. He also distracted me when I didn't want to talk or think, when I just wanted to waste some time. We would only see each other late at night when I was sure no one would see us going for drives or sitting on his porch. We began watching comedy specials on his big screen TV and we would stay awake all night discussing our lives and our hopes. Due to the fact that I had no romantic expectations for us, I was able to be my genuine self and began to reconstruct my ideals about what I really wanted and who I wanted to become. 

I knew that my journey to rediscovering myself as an adult would be difficult and long since I had not been alone and solely accountable for my own actions since I was a teenager. A month after I met D, inspired by our talks of strength and new beginnings, I booked a flight to a small island in Florida to finish my healing alone. I did not want to become dependent on another person to make me strong. My desire was to do it on my own, that way I would know I was going to be okay. I was sad to leave behind my new friend, but I knew it would be good for us to both have time to venture out into the world on our own to find our separate forms of happiness. As D had also just come out of a long-term relationship he had not been connected with his former friends in quite some time and needed to become happy with himself and his direction in life once again. 

I left on my solo adventure and spent two months laying on the beach, writing, reconnecting with a cousin I hadn't seen in quite a while, and enjoying being somewhere that no one knew what I had been through. I would frequently video-chat with D about his daily occurrences and how much of a good time he was having reconnecting with friends and getting settled into his new routine of bettering himself as a person. I regaled him with stories of late-nights on the beach and how much better I was doing. I spoke to my family everyday and began reaching out to old friends to assure them I was doing better and would see them soon. 

When I returned that spring, I went to have coffee with my sister and an old childhood friend. We caught up on our respective lives, and I told them all about my trip. My friend looked at me with surprise and told me that I had changed. "You look good! You have a tan but it's not that. You're glowing from inside. You're clearly happy and it's an energy that's pouring out of you. I haven't seen you this happy in years." I took in her compliment and realized I agreed: I was happy. 

My happiness did not come from a new relationship or from dating, which I had slowly begun to do, but from myself. I had finally found the things in life I truly enjoyed and was unapologetic about pursed them. I had found the strength to stand on my own and decided to reexamine my goals in life for my own happiness. 

That was a little over two years ago, and I am pleased to say that I am still as solidified in my own personal pursuit of happiness as I was back then. These days I am in a relationship with D, which is the sweetest surprise that came out of the entire ordeal, but I remain an entire person on my own with no desire to change who I am for the person I am with. D is free-spirited and requires little attention in the form of catering to his needs or building our lives in his vision. He allows me the space I require to be the person that I am and tries to understand how my past has affected me as a person today. He is far from perfect, as am I, and it is far too early to think of our future as planned out entirely but I have learned that it is okay to just be. I enjoy planning short-term goals together and spending time allowing someone to re-solidify my belief in love as a positive attribute in my life. 

I learned so much from having my heart broken. I now feel like I'm in a private club with all the people who have had their hearts hurt as well. All the sad songs I hear on the radio or anytime I read a book I had previously read now holds an entire new facet that I had previously not understood. I do not wish the pain I felt during that time on even my worst enemy, but I would not take any of it back. It helped me to become a strong and balance woman and changed my views on love, life, and acknowledging one's self-worth.