LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
I am a single parent to 4 children, for a while it was 6 as I had 2 stepchildren. The children do not all have the same Dad and from this recent split I learnt two lessons.
You end up living with your ex weather you want to or not as the children are made up of half of them and half you and a lot of the personality is wired in to them for sure. I have seen it, and I have lived with it for better or worse.
I have been looking for love in all the wrong places. I have been looking for it outside of myself for so long I have neglected myself to such an extent that all I know about myself is that there is barely anything left.
My last relationship I really thought we had it right, I thought 3rd time lucky. It hurt so bad, it had terrible consequences for which in some way I am grateful. It made me scared to love again and that for sure is still there, but this is good as I know what I really need to do is have a love affair with myself.
In relationships I have compromised so much so my partner was happy that I betrayed myself more than anybody else could betray me. I neglected myself to a level that would equate to abuse if it was somebody else disregarding me the way I have disregarded me.
I was never taught I was worthy though, I always felt I had to prove myself, I had to modify to be accepted. Essentially, I have always been a giant book worm, quite happy reading and reading and learning and learning and what I learnt growing up was there was nothing attractive about that so best to hide it, my big boobs were much more of an asset apparently. The truest parts of who I think I am or have been, have been under lock and key just so I could fit societies expectations of what makes a woman desirable and attractive and its literally killed me, I have experienced my own personal soul death and honestly, I am yet to rise and rebirth. I am somewhere in the limbo, in the in between. I have made peace (I think) with the goodbye to who I was or pretending to be, but honestly, I am clueless as to who I am and where I am going.
I’ve made progress, we aren’t homeless anymore, we have a lovely house, and miracles happened every day to furnish it and decorate it, it was incredible.
I was always self-employed, I had to take a break on the account of not having capacity and not being able to practice what I preach (I was a health coach and holistic nutritional practitioner.) I have a job, it’s a rubbish job that pays terrible but it’s another foundation, and at the age of 44 I am going to University to pursue a degree in Social work.
All these things I think form the foundations of my future self that I am building, but deciding or being who I am without the layers and the labels is still unclear. It makes you feel uneasy, but not as uneasy as the years that came before it.
Nobody ever really told me what it was to love yourself, what it means, how it looks, it’s more than just words its actions isn’t it.
If you sacrifice everything you are and all the time you have for any cause outside of your own is that love or is that self-loathing?!
People pleasing has meant I have put others first always. As a mother and a single mother with no village to help her, I don’t know how to fit myself in to everything.
This time just writing this is a gift I give to myself, something for me, for no other reason that it is in this space I understand myself a little better, I see myself a little more and I love myself for doing this before I pay bills or something else that bores me to tears and consumes so much of my life.
Maybe bringing in my true self is about allowing it to feature more in the every day. Even writing this I still don’t know what that means.
I feel sad but I have hope and I know at this point all that can really be done is take the next step forward and in time who I am truly will be revealed.