Life in pieces

If you know me in person you know that my life has been the messiest and craziest it’s ever been.

Every day has become a roller coaster of emotions due to divorce and custody proceedings, fears and attempting to calm a tumultuous sea.

My heart is so overwhelmed. My mind has had challenges or questions I hadn’t anticipated. My soul is hurt.

A high level of uncertainty is impacting every aspect of my life.

I don’t even know how often in a few months I will have my child in my custody. I finally have the baby boy I loved, cried for, and dreamed of for years and he might not be with me every day… it’s heartbreaking to think about.

The choices my (ex) husband made years ago broke my world to pieces a year and a half ago and have created aftershocks in my current life.

All I want is to be happy, safe, and have my happy little family with just some level of certainty.

Someday. Maybe someday.

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Tigers and Doodles

Seasons come and go.  Literally and figuratively.  Things are always changing. Each day is different from every other. Even when it feels like you live the same life every damn day.

You are the only constant.

Every new thing that enters your life can easily be viewed as an uncertainty. How you relate to that uncertainty has a lot to do with personality type.

When faced with new situations, some will be entirely thrilled and they’ll thrive because it’s how they are hardwired. Others, will slink back into the shadows and wait until they know it is safe and what to expect.

There’s no right or wrong way to handle things. I’ve had that exemplified in my life to an extreme degree recently. The challenges I’m currently facing in my life are those that many others have had to walk through, but the way I handle myself as I navigate this world is completely the way I will choose to – not how anyone else has or will.

So What

Life is a rollercoaster.
We all feel it. We all think it. We all say it. But that’s about as far as we let others into our lives sometimes. I’ve always prided myself on being open and honest about what I’m going through, but the last year has proven to be too challenging to open up with publicly.

In the last few months I have had some of the highest moments of my life so far, as well as some of the lowest. From seeing my child squeal with delight when I come into view to finding myself crying on the dashboard wondering what the hell happened.

Y’all. We never know what a day will hold until it’s done.

Yesterday’s affirmation was so appropriately timed I didn’t even know it until the day was over.
//My experiences make me stronger, wiser, and more prepared.//

They really do.
.
.
.
Especially when everything and nothing has changed.

Transition

tran·si·tion \tran(t)-ˈsi-shən

:  a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another

[Websters]

There are so many other words I could use to describe this season Bruno and I find ourselves in, but none of them do it justice.

For many months we deliberated on our future, where it would take us and when things would happen. Late last year things began to fall into place for Bruno to chase after one of his childhood dreams. One thing I’ve learned about being a wife is you really should support your husband, even if you don’t always agree or understand things.

As a result of Bruno pursuing these dreams, he has been 1,200 miles away for the last two and a half months. He made a few visits throughout the months but for the most part we have had a majority of the country separating us.
Why? He’s been trailblazing a new season in our lives – one that will bring us closer to each other. For all of February there were over 2,100 miles between us so I really shouldn’t complain about 1,200. Either way – it’s a lot of miles.

It may seem strange that we have physical distance between us as we approach this new season, however it has really made me stop and contemplate things. I’ve never truly appreciated him for who he is and all he does. There are no words that can express what he means to me and it is my hope that I will continue to grow in this appreciation and recognition when we are back to living together.

We’ve been striving, yearning, trying, fighting, pushing, and desperate to really come together in our marriage. Whether it was a result of the time away from each other or the fact we are moving to a new location, I feel like we are getting there.
Finally, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
We are blazing our path.
Our sights are set on a new place of dreaming and existing.
In just a few days it will all become a reality.

Persistence

per·sis·tence \pər-ˈsis-tən(t)s, –ˈzis-\

: the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people

: the state of occurring or existing beyond the usual, expected, or normal time
(Websters)

This – “do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people”.
How is it possible to only do things that are easy and accepted by others?

In one form or another, we are all persisting throughout our days. Whether our days are filled with answering phones, folding merchandise, answering to a higher authority, educating children or painting someone else’s home – we all face challenges and want to give up at some point.

At times I feel as though my life is wonderfully composed, but those moments are fleeting. My health, ability to be a wonderful wife, preserving my friendships, and attempting to maintain a healthy attitude around a two-year old wear me out. It doesn’t sound like much, but those are the areas in my life I am constantly persisting through.

I am not a robot, but I do my best to keep my challenges to myself. Why? I’m scared that if people really had the chance to see me worry and fight through as much as I do on a daily basis they will see me as a weak link, unable to handle anything more. But that’s not me. At all.
I may fight my way through my days, but at the end of each day I am a conqueror.
I am standing ready for more.
I am filled with persistence.

Childhood Fears

Lying in bed a couple of minutes ago I was suddenly hit with a memory from my childhood. Barely any recollection was possible, however I could clearly recall that in the midst of an elementary school weekend church retreat, surrounded by my classmates and leaders that I saw 2-3 times a week: I was terrified. Terrified of being alone, forgotten, rejected, and that no one understood me. As I tried to follow the memory deeper; remember more of what I experienced or what happened, I came up empty. My memories of my childhood are very slight and 80% of the time are sad/depressing. It’s challenging to remember the good things I experienced, the carefree times that all children should have. Instead when I search my childhood for memories – I’m greeted with an overwhelming amount of fear.

How our childhood, and what we are capable of retaining from our childhood, affect our “grown up” lives is a bit unnerving. Those fears we experienced when we were 4? Yeah, they still show up in our lives when we are 24, 34, 44,etc…  In my own personal life, I tend to push people away – exert my independence as far as I possibly can, which sometimes causes me to injure myself. Teamwork? More like “how much can Danielle do without anyone else’s help-work”. At least I am able to recognize my lacking ability to rely on others. I’m afraid to ask too much of others only to be denied and rejected.

Even though I know that I will never be rejected by certain ones in my life… And even though I know that I will always have outstretched arms to run to for support… I still have these nights where all I can recount from my childhood is the fear of being rejected. My heart is and always has been very sensitive; that’s one thing that I don’t think will ever change, but maybe someday when I look back to my childhood I’ll remember the better times.

Follow Your Inner Moonlight…

Don’t mind my random ramblings…

Things are going well, in the full scheme of things. Yes, there are challenges – but that is how life goes. Tonight I am stuck. I have quite a few things to do for school, as well as personally, but it seems as though my mind is on vacation. At the least, it is preoccupied with trying not to dwell on the facts. The facts? The facts are things that are and cannot be altered. There are those which are good. And then there are those which are not. There are the facts which push you to grow. And then there are the facts which seem to stunt you where you are. Any and every part of life has its facts. With school, work, home, relationships, personal and other – everything can be broken down into one of these categories.

Finding the time to sit down and do my school work is challenging. Being motivated to write essays on topics I do not even begin to have any sort of passion for is practically impossible. Putting a project together on a country which I have already visited and didn’t necessarily enjoy is low on the list of interesting things to do. I know what I want to do, but I do not know how to get to that point. Without a doubt, I want to work with children in orphanages. Show them some sort of love and kindness – prove to them that there are people out in the world who truly do care and they are not alone. My heart twists every time I see parents who yell at their children calling them names or demeaning them in any sense. Sadly, I feel like I see that every day.

I’ve always been a great actress, and I feel as though that should be a requirement for my job. So many days I walk in and do not want to smile, talk, or be peppy and warm. All the things which are required to be a great employee in a major retail store. Work isn’t a place to bring your personal life in to, so I leave it at the door. I try to at least. Every once in a while when I’m not helping a customer I find myself feeling entirely overwhelmed and struggling to maintain my composure. I do though, every time. Because I am capable of handling anything that is thrown my way.

My baby puppy, Ava, will be turning two years old soon. It is easy to see she has not had the attention she deserves. It is difficult to give her the attention when I barely have any time when I’m at the house with her. I have found that losing two hours a day driving to and from the house has been detrimental to my ability to raise her properly, and also to accomplish essentially anything when I am at the house. It is “the house” and not “home” because it isn’t my home. I don’t have a home. I don’t have a place where I truly feel comfortable enough to relax, cook dinner, have “me” time. Since moving out of my apartment in Mechanicsburg in August 2010, I haven’t ever felt home. I’m not a person who can survive without a home – I need it. I require it. Otherwise there’s a lot of unrest.

On the outside everything looks great. Everything looks perfect at times. It isn’t until you get into the meat of things do you realize how many things are not even close to perfection. There’s a constant striving – striving to be the best daughter, friend, confidant, equal that anyone ever could be. I’m afraid to disappoint anyone. Every move I make I wonder who it will affect and how. Through this I’ve put myself through more stress than I ever should. This stress has truly taken its toll on me the last couple of months. Since the beginning of the year I have dropped a couple of pounds because I lost my appetite, and when I would force myself to eat I would get sick after only a couple of bites. On my tiny frame, a couple of pounds is impossible to miss. Especially when it’s closer to ten. Attempting to resolve and push my body back into something more normal is no fun, but it’s where I’m at.

It’s times like these that make it so apparent as to how desperately I need to dance, write or paint. Express myself in one form or another. After 25 years I still prefer to dance even though my body revolts as soon as I stop moving. It’s always been, and maybe always will be, the truest form of freedom I know.

And yes, I still say that things are going well in the midst of this. I have some challenges to overcome, some issues to accept, recognize and ultimately grow from and a lot of fear to deal with.
In some sense or another though that is all of us.

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” – Allen Ginsberg