life as i know it

my life today is so very different than it was five years ago.

five years ago, harli and i had only been dating for a few months. we hadn't adopted Izzi Grace. hell we weren't even technically living together yet. i hadn't come out to my parents or pretty much anything in my life. i still struggled greatly with my anxiety, depression, eating disorder, and ptsd. as happy as i was with the direction that my life was going, i still had so many things that i needed to work out in order to live a life that i thought was fulfilled.

the irony?

the irony is that five years later and the life that i had dreamed of back would never be able to give me the happiness and fulfillment that i have found today. the road to the place that i am at in my life has probably been the hardest thing that i have been through in my life. facing my demons, taking the responsibility for some of the things that i have done. accepting the person that i am, not the person that everyone expected me to be back then. putting in the work to get to know the person that i am and have always been, and being able to understand that the things that i have been through haven't made me weak, but instead have made me a stronger, more understanding person.

one of the hardest things that i have faced in the last five years, actually happen less than a year ago. i thought that i was broken. i thought that i was never going to get back the person that i once was. to be honest, there is still a part of me that is broken and probably always will be, but that's what happens when you lose a loved one. a piece of you breaks inside, and no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to put yourself back together the same way because now you're missing a puzzle of what made you the person you are.

my Mawmaw was and still is such an enormous part of who i am. she taught me so much about having strength and trusting in faith against all odds. i think i forgot about that for a while after she died because my heart was so broken that i forgot about God's plan and His mercy. my brain knew that she was suffering so in turn we were all suffering sitting by her bedside, watching this strong, independent woman waste away. but my heart? that's a completely different story. my heart was so angry that she was taken from me before i was ready. i didn't (and still don't some days) feel like i had enough time with her, but i got almost 30 years which is a lot more than a lot of people get with their grandparents. i guess death, no matter how many times you have to grieve for those you love, never gets any easier to deal with because death for the one dying is final. for those of us left behind, death is a constant heartbreak that memories make you relive on a regular basis.

through all the trials that i have survived over the last five years, i have learned that i am a much stronger person than i gave myself credit for. i used to think that i was weak because i feel so strongly and i often allow my emotions to rule my state of being, but those emotions don't make me weak. those emotions, the ones that i have had to learn how to control instead of allowing them to control are what makes me such a strong person. those emotions help to empathize with people because i have been through what they are going through or understand what it feels like to have a broken heart. i guess going through hell only to come out stronger on the other sides says a lot about a person. i could have given up, but i didn't. sure there were plenty of times when i wanted to because it was so hard and my heart did nothing but hurt, but i kept going. and now, today, i am thankful because i know that no matter what hard times my be in front of me, i am positive that i have the strength to get through it all.