Learning to Let Go -

Today a very intelligent, insightful man reminded me of some simple rules of life.  He told me to write them down and live them everyday...his call came at a moment i was spinning into what i call the Vortex. The vortex is where my brain connects to a "hurt", a "lie", a "deceit"....or someone going silent in the face of a direct question...turning to "shut off" mode.
I used to know this stuff...it got lost in the last two years of "why?"...Why being the very downfall of my mental health...

1. It doesn't matter what somebody THINKS.
2. It doesn't matter what somebody SAYS.
3. The ONLY thing that REALLY MATTERS is what REALLY IS.

In essence...I know what happened I was there...YOU were not...I know what was said...YOU were not there to hear it...I KNOW the promises made and broken...YOU DO NOT...so that is what REALLY IS.

Truth is something i search for...I am not perfect at it...i was raised to be perfect...perfect makes balancing in truth very hard...you lie to yourself...it becomes your truth....but eventually I realized my truth thanks to my amazing store and the amazing people who came through my doors and the amazing women who came to work with me...no one who has met me in these last years was not told what i was and what i was going through.  What I was doing to myself...how i felt...the easier stuff first...the alcohol...the harder stuff later...the abuse...the hardest stuff last...addiction...if i fell off the wagon I said so...how i felt about you was not a lie....what hurt me was no joke...what mattered to me...was real...that I believed you...pure faith and from the heart...i may be a vile drunk, deep anger that often includes names of the past...things i must next work out...

Don't for a second think your lies did not contribute to the woman you judge today.  That there was no impact to me.  The simple act of letting your past go so we could have that bright future you so excitedly talked about or to live that "rare" chance we talked about having was not vividly real to me...why? (there it is)....because you sold it to me with conviction...you said it with such conviction...you held me with such conviction...using my entire name when you said you loved me.
The one thing that you could not do brought down your whole house of cards and my heart and sobriety i was working so hard to attain with it.  The way you said "I love you"...the horse ranch...all while ignoring her pleas for you "to come home to your wife"....saying i don't answer because it doesn't matter...the hell it didn't matter...I may drink but I am far from stupid.  My ability to see a bullshitter is finely tuned and yours would be too if you grew up as I did...the difference this time was I was weak and easy to prey on...so i held on unable to believe this was you.  Again, I KNOW WHAT REALLY IS...I was there...

What REALLY is?  The words i will never forget..."I will do it to shut you up"..."That not one promise made or action to be taken from better knee brace for me, get the doors back to save the house 3 times offered... and move in here..."would be an honor to live in a place you created"....came to fruition...not one.  Not a single one.
"Do you believe me?" - "Do you trust me?" - that tone as you said it...like "child are you listening?"...yes sir Mr. Cop...but as the weeks went by and the time came to ask what was happening with any of these things...treated the same as a child would be you snapped..."I'M DOING IT"...yet at 48 I am not a child and I know you had done nothing.  Time working against me because of your double life.  Again, weak...I was prey...I KNOW WHAT REALLY IS...you did not love me.  I was a past memory being relived...punished because I was not the same 'dream girl'...

I digress...this is what and who I am letting go of.  As I have said when you are weak...you are prey.  You are not yourself...you accept pain you wouldn't in a million years if you still believed in you.  I believe in me again.  What I do not believe in you is YOU.  I never knew you those short months.  I refused to accept it.  Now I do.  I KNOW you.  I KNOW WHAT REALLY IS...."ALWAYS"