Hi there. How is everyone on this blistering day? Kinda feels like sitting on the surface of the sun when you go outside, no? I’m one of those people who tends to get melty in the heat. Which actually makes perfect sense because as we know, I’m a sensitive gal. Anyway, enough about the weather. Let’s get to it.
Today I’m going to share the prologue of my book and the opening bit to the first chapter. While it is my nature to explain, I’m going to try and refrain providing additional dialogue. I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Maybe one day I’ll share the guts of my book with you. Maybe one day it’ll be on a shelf somewhere. Like the library. That’s the only bookshelf besides my personal one that warms the cockles of my heart. Well, that’s not entirely true. I love a good bookstore too, but there’s nothing quite like a library.
We can talk about some of this later, but for now, I’m just going to let you read or listen. Deal? Okay…
Prologue
As I’ve had the pleasure of working through some monstrous emotional challenges in life, I’ve become overly familiar with the most common responses to such events. Nine times out of ten, I have received one of the following two sage pieces of advice (read with sarcasm): (i) one day you’ll see this was for the best or (ii) one day you’ll be able to look back at all of this and laugh. It might come as no great surprise that I have not had either experience.
Profound grief and life upheaval are rarely followed by a sigh of relief or a hearty belly chuckle. If you are willing to do the hard work required you might get to a place of understanding and peace. But, the path you have to go down is not paved with humor and good will. It weaves through total darkness and shreds with the sharpest of brambles. It feels laborious and tedious and there is often no end in sight.
Furthermore, rather than looking back at past behavior with a smile, it’s more often accompanied by regret and humiliation. That was my experience, anyway. My path to healing, toward a better life, toward a feeling of worthiness, was fraught with profoundly painful self-revelation. I have never sugar coated or glossed over actual events as they occurred. I didn’t want to extend my misery or elongate my pain and I knew denial and living in a fantasy world, while easier, would do just that. I knew the process couldn’t be rushed, but I also didn’t want to purposefully do anything just to avoid the immediacy of it all. In a world that we all know seeks instant gratification, I made a different choice. One that I knew would result in long lasting, well-earned, and utterly satisfying change.
I found myself crying, a lot. I also laughed. I did not laugh looking back. Rather, I found joy in other places and with other people. What I went through made me a hell of a lot stronger but I wouldn’t wish any of it on my worst enemy. I am proud of how I’ve grown and who I’ve become but if I were afforded a do-over, I would have done things far differently. I wouldn’t choose to miss out on gaining a real awareness of how strong I am or my tremendous capacity for healing. But if I’m really being honest, I also wouldn’t object if some wizard offered to snap his or her fingers and erase the memories, the pain, the grief.
Actually, everything written on these pages is the truth, my real hard truth that I lived and learned, during the most painful period of my life to date. Maybe my story can help you or someone you know. If so, maybe it was all worth the pain; worth the path that led to experience, wisdom.
Chapter 1
“Everything is alright
If only for the night
I forgot what it feels like
Everything is alright
If only for the night…”
Glorious Sons,
“Everything is Alright”
Sometimes I have difficulty transporting myself back to the time before the pain, before the rejection; otherwise known as ‘the before.’ With great effort, I can distinctly remember the somewhat happy beginning of my relationship. However, I mostly find that soon into that exploration, my heart and my brain revert back to remembering and feeling the tragedy of it all. In time, I know that these feelings, these bad memories, will fade. I know because that process has already begun. That said, there was a time when, in the blink of an eye, my past became my present. In a flash, I would return to a time of the worst kind of heavy-heartedness and a profoundly and almost irreparably broken spirit.
My relationship story is not so unique but it is mine and mine alone. I met Matt in 2013. We were friends first and I was easily and quickly charmed. I was taken with his intelligence, his good looks, his ability to form relationships, his ambition, and his humor. I was so utterly enraptured, that I can’t recall if I pursued him or he pursued me. There were complexities surrounding our beginning but we barreled through them. We were quite simply two people who fell in love, so we made sacrifices for the betterment of us.
Well, that’s how it seemed at the time. Now I know better. It was never that basic and never that easy but I had to journey to hell and back to gain that perspective. I had to suffer immeasurably and question absolutely everything before I could understand anything. If I’m candid, I’m still not sure I understand but I am finally okay.
END OF BOOK EXCERPT.
That’s all folks. For now. That Glorious Sons song is a good one, so check it out if you please. These excerpts I’m sharing with you…they tell a story. A little one. A piece of one. Do my words resonate with you? Do they remind you of something from your past? Your present? I’m hoping not your future, but hell, anything is possible. I know, that’s a lofty statement, but fuck it. I want to be able to help you not jump into something that you’ll regret. Or if you get into it, let’s get you out of it, quickly. Deal? Deal.
Talk to you tomorrow.
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 