After rereading my Shattered post from two years
ago that came up on Facebook, I have to admit I've come a long way. I shared a
story about the conversation my mom and I had after I broke up with my fiancé.
She told me that the real reason we didn’t work was due to the fact that I
didn’t have the ability to be vulnerable, and that the wall around my heart was
so high I wouldn’t let him in. I wrote:
“Everything about my upbringing is living proof of how people
can't be trusted. I honestly don't know if I will be able to fully let anyone
in but I'm trying. In that same conversation my mom told me that I don't need
anyone. I told her I need her, I couldn't live without her, or Emery or Rudy.
She said, "No, if I pissed you off bad enough you could live without me
and I've seen you live without Rudy." Harsh? Maybe. But I didn't have
anything to defend myself with because she was right. I don't want to be
someone capable of being alone. I am aware of the way that I am and the flaws I
carry because of the cards I've been dealt and will use that knowledge to
improve. I'll be better than the person I was yesterday.”
Honestly, even after I realized what I was doing, I didn’t think
it was a habit I was strong enough to break. I pushed people away before they
pushed me away, it’s how I was wired. And because I didn’t believe I was strong
enough, I wasn’t. But one day something amazing happened; I let someone in.
I’ve always believed and expressed how I feel about people who use
those really terrible things that happened to them as an excuse for making even
worse decisions, and it hasn’t changed. Especially now, because what I once
believed with my whole heart to be true because of what happened to me, wasn’t.
I shared the deepest, most sacred parts of myself to someone, and instead of
scaring them away like I pictured would happen so many times in my head, they
loved me more for it. I learned that by holding onto all that anger and pain, I
let it define the things I was and was not capable of achieving. I let them
define my happiness, and the moment I took ownership of that, my entire world
changed. I changed.
I still don't have all the answers, and I'm not going to sit here
and tell you that there aren't days where I question everything. But what I do
know, is that the second I stopped letting that little girl- the one whose world fell from underneath her- hold the controller to my life, I stopped being that
girl who was capable of being alone.