Tis’ The Season
When you lose a relationship you’ve known pretty much more than half your life, it will get to you no matter how confident you are. I’ve known my ex as a friend since I was 17. We used to write letters (the physical ones) for five years as we lived in different countries. An easy friendship, it developed into a relationship after five years, both of us leaving our respective significant other.
He called me his Sally in reference to “When Harry met Sally,” his soul mate. Life takes place. We had a child. Life gets to you and then you find out he was having an affair. An affair where he referred to this new person as his soul mate. At that time, we had a relationship for over 20 years, basically more than half my life. Side note, I don’t believe in soul mates. Imagine my mate died, what then?!
To say the wind was taken out of my sails would be a serious understatement. My whole identity was taken away from me. My worth even. How I looked and all my capabilities suddenly disappeared although not related. It seeps into everything. I questioned my ability as a mother, a friend and an employee.
At my lowest, I remembered asking God to make me a better person and not a bitter person. I didn’t know how. It was just an earnest and painful request. Lauren Daigle’s “You Say” had a line that said if I was just a sum of my highs and lows. I then had to go and learn to love myself and make myself “better.”
I started with what I could control; myself. First area of control was getting well with my soul and rebuilding my relationship with God. Second area of control was looking at my fitness level. How do I get more energy? I needed endorphins. I remembered signing up for my first 10K. To this day, it is still more significant than the 42K.
I then looked at ways I can be a better mother and being present for my son. Next was investing further with my friendships, people who energized me and people I can energize back. I then looked at my finances. How ready am I financially in my prime working years and when I get older? Am I prepared for the unexpected?
Slowly, my courage returned. I then set new goals in terms of adventure and mental growth. I set a simple goal of seeing two new countries a year and a smile returned. I took up pole dancing because it made me laugh (I have since stopped because it’s hard work!). I wrote my first book and now I’m onto my fifth. How my life has changed in the last 10 years is immense to say the least.
And now as I get older, it’s about leaving a legacy and adding more value to the community in areas I’m passionate about like children, education, women empowerment and social enterprises. It had to take that pain to trigger that transformation to being better, not bitter.