Liberating

Liberating: to set free.

That is the best descriptive of my life this past year.

One year ago, I felt stuck. I felt suffocated. I felt lonely. I felt sad. I felt anger. I felt disappointment. I felt failed.

Today I feel liberated. Sometimes still lonely, still sad, sometimes angry, I'm sure I'll be disappointed but it all feels different when accompanied by liberation.

After many attempts to save my marriage, I decided a year ago that it was time to let it go. It is the best decision I could have made for myself and my little family. Everyday I am challenged by that question-- was this the best choice for your family? In the end, my answer is always the same, yes. No one said it was going to be easy. No one said it was going to be smooth. But it was what was needed.

That's the thing, I feel like I'm actually moving forward.

I feel like I'm taking deep breaths of fresh beautiful air! I'm no longer holding my breath feeling suffocated.

My life was suffocating me. Don't get me wrong, I will never regret my life choices. I was lucky to truly have loved someone, had a beautiful miracle of a child, and grew tremendously from all the lessons of life. But let me just say this, today I feel free.

I let go not because I no longer loved that person, I admit-- I might have loved them less-- but nonetheless I loved him enough to no longer hold him hostage in this failed arrangement of a marriage. I mostly let go of the idea of being married, it was not worth it, at ANY cost and especially not at the cost of my child.

The day I knew it was time to let go was after an argument-- full force screaming match-- I came upstairs to find my child scared and afraid of his surroundings. I was responsible for that. As much as I was trying to protect my child from danger, I was the one that was putting him right in the middle of what felt like a nightmare. That look on his face is engraved in my heart forever. I vowed that day, it would never happen again.

My child saved me.

Saved me from myself, saved me from my failed marriage, saved me from making the choice to stay and repeating the cycle for him, saved me from my suffocation. I couldn't love myself enough to walk away but I loved my child enough. I could not stand putting him through a life of misery and arguing parents... for what. To avoid the shame. To not fail. It was a sham, it was failing, who were we kidding. I can't pin point exactly when it began to malfunction but it had gone on unnoticed for so long that it was our normal. It was not until I was out of the marriage did I begin to see the toxicity. On both sides. Myself just as guilty as I blamed him all those years.

Finally I can see clearly. I spent so much time blaming him that I didn't realize how much I had also changed in the marriage. After the end of the marriage, I felt free. (You might be thinking I mean free from someone/my ex) but I mean free from being a person who I no longer recognized, someone who was not very nice, someone who didn't dream anymore, someone who was confused.

I'm slowly finding myself again. Recognizing myself everyday. Becoming who I want to be, who I know I should be.

My child freed me.

Today I have a zest for life. I have a vision. I am excited about the next stages in my life. I can see a future.

It has been liberating, happy anniversary to me!