From the Ashes, I will Rise

Sometimes I don't even know how I keep going, and then I look at my beautiful kids and realize that there is a reason why I am still here, why I wake up everyday and keep fighting.

Recently I was in a really horrible place. Starting over doesn't really even begin to describe what I have been forced to do, again. Although I'm not new to having to start over, it doesn't hurt any less when everything I've been working so hard for, just falls apart.

Being forced to start over, basically from scratch at 35, is something I never would have imagined for myself, but I have to look at my situation objectively as well. I haven't been the most motivated individual at times, and I have found that I lose myself in my relationship with my ex-husband. Since the day we met, this man has had an almost uncontrollable power over me, and despite many instances of, shall we say "poor treatment," and 15 years of heartache, I once again found myself having invested everything in him, and lost everything of myself.

When I finally left, I was in a relatively good place. I had a decent job that I thought would stick around, and I had found my own place that I didn't need him for. Should have been a win, right? Well, then I lost my job, and my sense of self-worth, and pretty much my sanity for a few days.

But then I woke up one morning and realized that the only person holding me back from doing something with my life is me.

Everyone has heard the saying, "When one door closes, another one opens" but sometimes in the midst of falling apart, and that door slamming in your face, it doesn't feel like any new doors have opened. In fact, it can feel like you're in a room where the doors and windows have completely vanished and you're just in a dark, black, hopelss, room with no way out. At least that's how I felt this time.

When you spend most of your life having to become your own light in dark situations, you learn to ignite a spark inside of yourself that feels like it is being built on watersoaked logs. But, where others are destroyed by the fire, I am born from it. I am a fire that can never be extinguished, and sometimes my fire is too hot for some people.

After being burned, time and time again, by some of the people closest to me, with each new burn, I grew that much stronger. When I burnt a bridge, I learned how to fly so I didn't need them anymore.

When you realize that the people who were supposed to be there for you your whole life aren't really there, it changes a person. More than you would think. I started learning how to read people, from the moment I meet them, in a way that isn't always helpful. But it has helped me guard against the hate and cruelty of this world. It helped me to learned who I can trust, sometimes unpredictably. I learned to create a world around myself that fosters faith and trust. Somethings I never felt I truly had before.

It was like my life before was a horrible dream, constantly waking up in a doorless, windowless room that I couldn't escape. A room I had created for myself, with all of the situations I had allowed myself to be in, time and time again.

So how do you get out of a room that has no windows or doors? You burn it to the ground. Then, like the Phoenix, from the ashes, I shall rise.