Hello dear reader,
It's been a long time... These little posts got me through some dark times, but how was I know how long those dark times would last? Or how I would continue to break apart, break apart, and break apart some more but still stand?
I've struggled between my need to over-share, my need to protect myself from those who have used this blog in the past to celebrate my weaknesses and failures and my need to protect those that I will always love, but who are also a big part in this long, dark chapter in my life.
I started to become someone that I barely recognized. My heart was breaking, literally and figuratively, and I forgot what it was to laugh, to feel a smile creep onto my face, unbidden. To have muscles not in pain. To only recognize the largest of panic attacks, because anxiety wasn't just my best friend, anxiety was now my real and true life partner.
I'm leaving this chapter behind. But this isn't a hallmark movie, where the curtains fly open, birds sing and the sun shines in. This is a slow story of healing body and soul. Muscles that haven't relaxed in years, are finally learning to be loose and I find myself smiling and looking people in the eye. More comfortable in my skin than I have been in years. Ending my marriage was the hardest, most heart-breaking decision of my life. Ending my marriage and living in dread of what the cost of that decision could mean to someone that I will always love, well, that has fucked with my heart and mind more than I thought possible.
My FH (former husband) and I separated in September, 2021 and I bought myself a new house, and started a new life, in September, 2022. Still linked to my FH, still finding myself choking back sobs of sadness and regret, still having nightmares and panic attacks about what might become of him, I've inched towards strength and regaining my resilience. Will I ever be as strong as I once was? I don't think so - but maybe that is as it should be. Maybe all that "strength" did was keep me rooted in an unhappy, unstable, caretaking role where change was the enemy.
I forgot about the other Lisa - the one that I used to be - the one that was passionate and charismatic, and loved change. Stay in a job for more than five years - NEVER - BORING. Embracing new experiences, new friends. Instead I hunkered down, pulling tighter and tighter into myself trying to ride out storm after storm after storm. Just a facsimile, a shadow. Cortisol levels climbing and climbing, pushed beyond fight or flight.
The storms never stopped coming, and I would battle the waves, yanking and pulling and struggling to get everyone out of the water. With less time between each storm, and weaker each and every time.
It was about 16 months ago that I went in to my Doctor for a cough, and he sent me to a cardiologist. I thought, what nonsense is this. But he was right, the chronic stress, high blood pressure had taken a toll on my heart. Still I couldn't conceive of change - until my friends finally broke through and woke me - and I started making grown-up and hard choices.
Terrible choices that still give haunt to my sleep. But now I find myself also having lovely, pleasant dreams of a different future as well. A future filled with laughter and love.
So, after a "burnout" break,
I am stepping back to life, to my job, in 2023...
But...
But...
I'm going to resolve to protect Lisa better this time around. For reals.