Finding My Heartbeat After a Breakdown

I cannot believe that it is already May!!! I don’t know where the time is going but it is clearly not waiting for me to catch up. Every now and then I have to remind myself to pick my head up and look around to take inventory of my life. Life has been quite the rollercoaster as you all know from my posts this year, so I feel compelled to bring you all up to date.

Still here!!

Still choosing joy but it has not been easy. I’d be less than truthful if I painted that superwoman picture. I have been getting my butt kicked yet in the end I’m winning the war. So then again, maybe I do have an S on my chest. But that S is for SUPERNATURAL. That’s the only way I can process these victories against the attack on my life and the peace that I’ve gained.

Coping mechanisms vary from person to person. Specifically, as women I think we do our very best to cope with our heartaches and internal wrestling matches as best we can. We may never reveal them but we are fully engaged. We’re born into this world as predetermined super women but sometimes there isn’t enough in us alone to do so. We need help. We try all kinds of things to help us keep up face and push through. I think this is why Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky” resonates so well with us. We try everything. I tried everything to get me through this year. It wasn’t until I finally broke and had my eyes opened that I realized I was doing exactly what the enemy of my soul wanted me to do. Lose my whole mind but not realize it because I was trying any and everything I could to suppress my true feelings: to drink it away, shop it away, cry it away, and even love it away. I forgot that flowers need both the sun and the rain to grow and most importantly they need a little dirt!!!

I started this blog to be transparent and ask the hard questions in hopes that I would encourage women to do the same no matter how different we may be. At the end of the day we all will experience some pain and we have to realize that if we aren’t careful we can do ourselves a disservice by trying to be so strong. So strong that we become oblivious to just how weak we are. For me the mental strains of it all was too much. I will always empathize with those whose mental state is at risk for whatever the reason may be. I do not take for granted my ability to recognize when I am losing  my grip. The most fragile flower has strength in it to grow and endure simply because that is the way it was designed. We are fragile flowers who were designed to endure hard times, nurture by nature and rebuild what has been broken. It is not always a walk in the park.

It was not that I was not being honest or my life was a lie based on what I displayed. It was very accurate. I was still living. I still had to function at a high level despite my emotions. That was the deception. The calm before the actual storm until things got progressively worse. I had nights of endless crying, longer party and drunken nights of not even remembering how I got home and days of utter confusion. Nothing was making sense and as a result I held so much resentment towards myself. If you think getting over resentment towards someone else is difficult let me tell you!! This all occurred before I came to my senses literally. I had been holding my breath in a battle for my life in every capacity. It’s not easy for me to acknowledge that I let this go this far because I had been trying my best to keep things in perspective and keep my expectations as realistic as possible but I failed. I failed big time. It’s like when you have a good idea but poor execution. It just won’t work.

The butterfly could never accurately describe the cocoon experience. Therefore, no matter how much of my circumstance were known or I could’ve shared, what I was experiencing was warfare to say the least. There is nothing pretty about war of any kind. I didn’t just let my guard down, I took it off. I forgot that I have three enemies: the world, the devil and the flesh. You may be reading this and will disagree and that’s fine. I respect everyone’s position on these matters of spirituality. But as for me, I forgot about this old flesh. I was prepared for the world and its devices, and the devil and his attempts to steal my joy, but my very own flesh (this includes the heart and mind) was getting the best of me on the battlefield. I had lost all control.  I forgot just how strong it is. I forgot that pride comes before destruction. Sometimes we have to break. Sometimes we have to go too far.

In early March I booked a trip to Seattle to visit one of my girlfriends mid-April. I had no idea the timing would be perfect. A few days before the trip I got real honest with myself. I had some time of reflection that showed how much of the truth I’d distorted, how much pride had lifted up in me and how I had forgotten that everything I receive in this life, even my suffering is mercy. Some people leave battles better and some leave the battle worse than they were before. We all leave seeing things differently.

During my time in Seattle I visited a Tulip Festival. Tulips are my absolute favorite flower. I walked an entire field and beheld rows and rows of red, purple, white, yellow, orange and some multicolored. It was the skittles of Tulips and the most beautiful thing I had seen in a long time. This was no small thing. It was a reminder to never forget what joy truly is. What makes me happy and how much of this life I live is so good. I had won the war. It came at a cost as they all do but the reward far outweighs any casualty. I found my heartbeat in a field of flowers and finally took a deep breath.

Rejoice in the victory today!

Be Blessed

B