"The ship is safest when it's in port, but that's not what ships were built for." ~ Paulo Coelho
Life's messy. A lot of the time, it makes absolutely no sense at all. Lately, I don't really know what to think. Why does this stuff happen? Yesterday was my uncle Ken's birthday and we all still miss him. A heart that has truly loved never forgets. I had a good friend over the other night and I was showing him pictures of my past life.
Me: I was pretty wasn't I? I look happy.
Him: You're still pretty and happy now. Just in a different way.
And it's true. It's been a long hard battle the past 5 years, sometimes I've looked in the mirror and I had no idea who I was. Yesterday, I started to feel more like myself than I have in a long time. Or maybe more un-like myself which would be a better thing. :)
The past month and a half have been rough. I cried so much I broke blood vessels in my eyes. But they're almost healed now and I think I'm getting there too. I love my new job. I hate change but it's challenging and new and sometimes we need to leave the port and set sail again to find something good. It doesn't mean we won't weather some storms. But the storms come and go whether we ever decide to put ourselves out there or not.
Walking home from work yesterday, the sun was shining, I was smiling and I was surprised to realize for the first time in 6 or 7 weeks, the smile was real. It's a lot of effort to pretend to be happy and unless you've dealt with depression you may not understand just how much effort it takes. It's exhausting.
Sometimes when the waters get rough, you think it may have been better to stay in the port. Where it felt safe. I needed to remind myself over the past weeks that it was just as much - no more - effort to pretend I was happy in an unhappy marriage. In a religion that required so much work but I didn't believe in anymore. In relationships that took and took and took and didn't give much back in return.
I think this most recent storm is over. I feel happy again. All I really need is a few good friends, a few people in my family who are always there for me. I have that. I have family and friends who have always been there for me in every way I could have possibly needed them and they always will be. Now that I'm feeling better, I'll do everything I can to repay the favor.
I still haven't completely lost the dreamer I once was. When times get tough, I always have yoga and red lipstick and now I have a big ass dog and a sword. That's enough to fake it until it gets real again.
Here's your Wednesday morning song: I'm just a dreamer but I'm hanging on, though I am nothing big to offer. I watch the birds how they dive in then gone. It's like nothing in the world's ever still...
Happy birthday Ken. I'm sorry I'm a day late, I couldn't find the right words last night.
Sullivan out.
I ordered a sword on the advice of my therapist. Insane that you can get that shit on the internet. I was taking it out of the box and Max was right there. I accidentally hit him on the head. I'm clumsy.
The good thing is he's scared of me now. And he should be. I have a sword. :)
I took him out for a walk today. A very nice man stopped to pet him and tell me what a beautiful dog I had. It happens all the time, my dog is beautiful.
Me: I know you. Are you a Jehovah's Witness?
Him: excitedly! Yes are you?
Me: Not anymore.
He averted his eyes and stopped petting the dog. He turned the other way, as did I.
I know now what my path is in life. I cannot even rely on regular human kindness from someone petting my dog. They will spend their time trying to recruit crack addicts, drug dealers, single moms, immigrants, anyone who might need them. Anyone who leaves though - we should have known better. We're the absolute bottom of the line. Our families will send us very polite emails when we need to know someone in the family is dying. It's robotic.
And to my non-JW family out there - don't send me that email. I don't need to read it. I'm just fine considering. If you can't understand depression, I don't want to talk to you.
My "Big Love" made a lot of promises to me after my life blew up. He used to say we'd get a house on the beach - at one point he was looking at private islands for sale because hell, we didn't need anyone else but us. We'd buy those kitchen counters that were actually just cutting boards because we loved to cook together. He said we would adopt a puppy who was "as perfectly imperfect as we were". Had I known I couldn't trust him I probably would have made different choices. Or would I have? Probably not, I was too in love. Would those different choices have been the right ones either? There's no way of knowing.
The mistakes I've made along the way have been my mistakes. It was actually pretty liberating to finally be allowed to make mistakes, for the first time in my life having no one to tell me what to do. It was scary, exhausting, stressful. Most of the time I went with my gut.
As a Jehovah's Witness there are no choices, no freedom, no independent thought. The constant stress of striving to achieve perfection will wear you down, eventually. My good friend and previous mentor, Stuart always said "Perfection is the enemy of the good". Good was never good enough for me in the past, but it is now.
I think that's why I fell in love with Big, so hard, so fast. In my JW life I always had to be better, work harder, sacrifice more. With him, I was perfectly imperfect and felt completely loved regardless of that. I'd never felt that before - it was the greatest feeling in the world.
As you know, I got sucker punched by a bout of depression two weeks ago due to yet another family shunning drama episode. If you've ever dealt with depression you know how quickly and strongly it can walk in your door and beat you down again, even if you've been doing great. But now I have a really good bounce back time. I have the tools, the support and the love to as Taylor Swift would say "Shake it off". (Y'all know I love Taylor) :)
Family can be both a blessing and a curse. We know too much about each other, we expect too much from each other, sometimes we try too hard to control each other.
Some of my family though has always supported my vision of where I wanted to go now, even when I didn't know where that was. They have unselfishly been there for me through thick and thin. Celebrated my accomplishments, held my hand when I cried. Without my aunts, uncles and Grandma down here in Nova Scotia, would I have weathered all these storms over the past five years?
Maybe. But I wouldn't have come out of each of them feeling stronger, more sure of the decisions I've made, more determined to be more like them. Most importantly, they love imperfect Margaux and do everything they can - not to fix me - not to make me into who they want me to be. But to guide me. To listen to me. To distract me with cute animals, delicious meals and lovely wine.
Someone asked me on my last blog "where is home?". Home is here with them. Home is in Toronto. Without this home to come to though, the other home wouldn't feel quite so important.
Don't get me wrong, they're not perfect either. NONE OF US ARE!! Imperfection, I truly believe is a gift. It gives us targets, something to aim for, a feeling of accomplishment when we hit them. Kindness, compassion and being committed to always do your best, to help those in need where you can, to show people dignity and respect no matter how far they may have fallen and what mistakes they have made? That is unconditional love. That's the target.
Within (I want to say minutes but it was probably days) I was coming home - all arrangements made for me by my favorite uncle. And it was the right thing for me. To just say yes, I'll come, pack a suitcase and get the hell out of my most recent personal nightmare. Come home and light some fires, dig out some snowstorms, spend time with the people I need the most right now.
The thing about nightmares is...we wake up. Then we see the world and the people in it for all the beauty they add to the Universe. I feel very, very grateful, very, very happy. I'm ready to go home (the other home) on Friday and slip back into the extremely happy, successful place I was in not so long ago.
Thank you a million times to these people who have always been loyal, always been loving and always had my back. It still feels like home to me here and it always will.
PS - Big: I finally have that perfectly, imperfect puppy. You would have liked him. :)
Sullivan out.
*Grandma and me*
