Finding Balance, AKA Finding Yourself

For most of my adult life and honestly most of my life in general I have been trying to figure out who I am. Which when you grew up like I did is no easy task. Recently I have been also trying to find balance in my life. I realized that I can not have balance without knowing who I am. I guess depending on who you ask you might think I would know who I am. If you ask my Army Boy he would say that I have a big heart and that I am very loving. Which is true some of the time. If you ask my mother I am a selfish person who never thinks of anyone but myself and I guess to some extent that is also true.

I am both of these things and more. The thing is, I don’t know who I am. If you ask me, I would look at you and say, who do you think I am? A pretty good question in my mind. I lost myself around the age of 16 and never did find me again. If you ask some of my ex’s I am sure that I would be described as needy, bitchy, hateful, cold hearted, selfish, etc.. and I suppose all of those are me too in some ways. Finding balance for me is about knowing who I am and knowing what I want. I have begun lately to question everything about me. Not a really enviable place to be in my mind. I realized with some clarity that when I am with someone in a relationship, I tend to give all of me to that relationship and not hold back for me.

I have thought that I loved people in my past only to wake up one day and realize that I was wrong. Yet, I stayed in that relationship or what ever you would call it at that point, because it ceased being a relationship of anything good. I personally call it beating a dead horse. I would sometimes not give myself time to greave over the loss that I suffered, mainly losing me in that mess of a relationship. I would then find someone new and jump feet first back into something that I had no right or ability to be in. The whole vicious cycle to start over again, with another person. Always thinking that this time would be different or even better and I was always sadly mistaken.

The last year in Michigan, while I was living with someone, I would not call what we had a relationship. Some days I would call it mutually ambivalent about the truth. Other days it was mutual hate but too afraid to admit it was not working. When I left Michigan for Kentucky, I was ready. I had not had a serious relationship in the year that lead up to me meeting my Army Boy. Even after I met him, I was not looking for a relationship. He was someone that I played a game with and was fun to talk to. Period. Some where in the game playing and the talking, I began to take a chance and open up about me and who I am. First time in years that happened. I was amazed that he wanted nothing from me, NOTHING but my friendship. Which I had no problems giving because I could be friends with someone, but not let them inside my walls. I was a professional at that. Except, he would not accept that. Being friends with him meant that I had to show myself to him for who I am. All of it. No hiding. That was tough for me to do and even for me to accept.

I am still in the process of figuring me out. But I am not afraid of what I might find any longer because I know that he will love me no matter what or who I am. I have made some huge mistakes in my life and I can not take those back or change them. I live with them every day and wish I could fix it, but I have learned some hard lessons from those mistakes. I guess our mistakes in life is what makes us unique. What makes us, well, us. I am learning to live with the things I have done in this life, I am changing every single day into the person that I think I want to be. Balance is a work in progress.. and as people, we are like an unfinished painting, we are always changing, becoming something more.. That is what makes me, me. I am learning and loving again. Two things I never thought I would be able to do. Loving someone else is as hard as it is easy for me.

Forgiving myself for those past mistakes has been difficult to say the least, but I am moving on. It is time for me to fully embrace my present, I have a wonderful man who loves me for me, warts, mistakes, issues and all. He shows me everyday how much he loves me. Not in big things, but in all the little things he does for me. I strive to be worthy of that kind of love everyday and to return it without hesitation to him. That is who I want to be. I want to love my Army Boy with reckless abandon every day of our lives. That is the woman I want to be…

Ciao!