A Life I Love

A few days ago, my coworker came into my office and was telling me about how she met a childhood friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in years. This friend was asking about me and whether I was still active in the church and how my life was going after divorce and my coworker said, "Well, you know, she's just had a really hard life."

As she was relaying this conversation back to me, her last comment took me by surprise. A part of me was thinking, "Yes, I have! This shit has been hard and traumatic!" But there was a different part of me, the more healed part of me that was thinking, "Everyone has hard stuff. Everyone. My life isn't based on only the hard stuff. There is a whole slew of beautiful roads traveled and beautiful roads in my future."

And that's where I'm at today. 

I'm not fully recovered. I don't know if I'll ever make that concrete statement. But so much of me is doing so much better.

So much better. 

I was out with friends last night having dinner and shopping with my tribe of warriors whom I love and they kept joking about how I had also made plans later in the evening with another set of friends. And how tonight I have more plans with more friends.
And as I was thinking about this fact this morning, I felt an immense amount of love from my Heavenly Father because friendships have not always been my forte. I was bullied a lot as a child by people whom I felt should've loved and accepted me. It was extremely painful and I've held onto trauma from those days for a long time and wondered if I'd ever be able to have real friendships.

And I do. 

I absolutely do. 

My life right now---this is the life I could live forever and never regret it. I mean, I'd like a husband and possibly more children but I don't need that for happiness.
In fact, I really don't need anything for happiness. Just my attitude.

That's been a huge learning curve throughout this process. 

I used to get so angry and ask God why I was feeling so much resentment and sadness when I wanted to bounce back to my happy self. It took me a long time to remember that happiness is something I make, not something I'm given.

Being happy doesn't mean you never get sad or hurt. To me, living a happy life means basking in the joyous times and learning from the darker times.

In my opinion, that is the only way for us to grow. 

I love my life right now. I remember as I was going through my divorce, I was in the biggest hurry to date again and get remarried because I was certain I wouldn't heal or find happiness until I had a man by my side.
But the truth is, I love my life because I'm focusing on loving myself and the people whom God has placed in my life.

I'm not there with my eating disorder---that still gets to me a lot of the time and I don't love my body. But I love who I am, the kind of person that I am.

This girl deserves so much. 

So much. 

And I am so grateful for life these days. I'm so grateful that I've continued on through some pretty horrific events. I'm grateful that I've stood when a lot of people expected me to fall. And I'm grateful for the people who have been there to catch me time and time again so that when I do fall, I don't hit the ground as hard.