If any of you are like me, you used 2021 to regroup and heal from the mayhem of 2020. That regrouping and healing came to halt for most of us as 2020 lingered into 2021 throughout the whole year. Now that we are halfway through 2022, I find it hard to let go of the bologna that I’ve gone through.

I really focused on trying to be the best of the best, but that quickly became exhausting and caused me to give up. Through giving up, I started to see me in a light that I hated. I couldn’t recognize me when I looked in the mirror. “Who am I?” was constantly running through my head.

I started dieting and gave up, I slowed down drinking and then sped it up, and I vowed to work out and well, that didn’t work out. I promised myself that I was going to take time away from everything so I could fully focus on my husband and kiddos. That is literally the only thing that I stuck to since October 18^th, 2021. That’s when my life started to change for better.

Before I get into that story, let me just say that there aren’t enough words to describe how much I have missed writing. I have unfinished blogs, lyrics, children’s books and a couple of novels that are just begging to be finished. Before I was able to simply turn on my laptop to write, I would be reminded that life outside of my laptop was needing me more. For the first time in years, my laptop was collecting dust.

Since my last blog, I have stuck to what I wrote. Focusing on the good, getting rid of the bad, going after what I want and trying to let go of the past. And while all that was working better than I planned, it all became too hard to manage after a while. My drinking picked right back up and became worse than it was before, my depression and anxiety was completely debilitating and I couldn’t see good in me anymore. I was crumbling worse than I was before.

So, now back to the day that I will forever be changed. October 18^th, 2021. I remember waking up that morning to get ready for work when I heard empty alcohol cans fall to floor as I reached for my phone to turn off my alarm. I got startled and sat up quickly, to look at what caused that noise. I looked at the floor and then slowly made my way up to my nightstand that housed countless empty alcohol cans that I had accrued that week. I then walked into my bathroom and there I stood. A woman who was so depressed, lost, anxious, overweight and overlooked by her own self. And I just cried and cried and cried. Right there in the middle of my bathroom on that Monday morning.

“What kind of mom, wife and person have I become?” I couldn’t even answer that because I didn’t even recognize that person in the mirror. I had thrown myself to the waste side for so many years that my ability to see my worth was nowhere to be found. I wasn’t even worth enough to be seen by my own eyes. As I walked closer to the mirror, my feet aching as I walked over the broken pieces of myself, I placed my hands on the mirror, reaching for that woman staring back at me. I wanted to bring her back to life because I finally saw that she was slowly dying. That is when my life changed. That’s when my angels from Heaven and the good Lord came to me and began to heal me.

For the first time in a decade, I saw my worth. I saw that no matter how bruised, broken and torn I made myself, I was worth being brought back to life. I wiped my tears away, got in the shower and literally washed away my broken layer. Instead of focusing on my next drink that would be waiting for me after work, I wanted to focus on becoming sober and becoming the real me. The me that was drowning and covering it up with alcohol, causing my anxiety and depression to crush all of who I was.

I had enough. It was my time to be selfish and put myself first. I was so tired of the alcohol being my reasoning for EVERYTHING. Between the drinking, bad eating and being flat out lazy, ugh!! Where was I? Literally, I was so lost. I had enough of thinking that I wasn’t worth it. I deserve to be miserable. I deserve to not have what I want in my life. I deserve to not follow my dreams and have them come true. And I deserve to never fight for what I want. So, I decided to make a change. A huge change that would be for the better. I decided that I deserved to be happy. I deserved to go after what I want. And no one could take that away from me.

That morning, in my bathroom, I said to myself, “Let go and let’s go!” Right then and there, I quit my addiction to alcohol. I let go of what was bad and welcomed in what was good.

You see, I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect for everyone and whatever they want me to do that when I get to myself, I am too tired and quit. The thing is this is MY life. Those dreams I have are mine and those goals are for me to set.

I want to follow my own path, create my own footprints in the sand and pave my own way for once. Go after what my heart wants instead of settling for what is convenient.  I know it will be scary and I know that at times I will hear what I don’t want to hear, but I would rather try then always wonder “what if?” I would rather be so stressed beyond measure living my dream, then stressed beyond measure settling for the “maybe tomorrow will be different” kind of life.

I want to let go of toxic people, my painful past, my idiotic mistakes, and the debilitating self-doubt that I have. I want to wake up each morning knowing that when my feet hit the ground, I am moving towards MY dreams and smile knowing that I finally made it happen. So, guess what? That is exactly what I am doing…finally.

The truth is, I am so tired of stretching myself so thin towards directions that go in the opposite direction that I want to go. Writing is my cure and if my writing has cured me of so many demons and so much pain, then I can only hope that my writing will do the same for others.

Mental health is beyond important. It is not meant to be push aside, swept under the rub or tossed in the pile of “I’ll get to that later.” It is not meant to be laughed at or joked about. It is not meant to be thought of as something only the weak deal with. It is an everyday struggle for even the ones that you would never think about.

I needed to allow myself to not only realize that my mental health was in jeopardy, but that I was strong enough to begin the healing process. Focusing on your mental health doesn’t make you weak or selfish. It makes you aware and vibrant. How can you be the best version of yourself if you don’t even recognize yourself anymore or understand that you need to focus on you?

For the past few couple of years, I have been constantly searching for myself. Constantly searching for the real me. Not what people wanted me to be, forced me to be or the person that they made me believe I really was. So many times, I wanted to give up and believe what people were saying about me.

In that time, while searching for who I missed so much, I fell in a dark whole. The walls were so smooth that I couldn’t escape no matter how hard I tried to free myself. To be honest, I am happy I fell. I’m happy that I hit rock bottom and had no way to escape because in that time, in the complete darkness and quiet, I found myself. I had no one to convince me otherwise.

When is it the right time to go after what you want? To put everything on the line and finally go after your dream. For the first time in my life, I believe in myself.

I have gotten to a point in my life where every aspect is telling me to finally live MY life and let go of the bad. Let go of the negative, the doubts, the question of “Am I good enough?”, and everything else in between that is against me. Go live YOUR life, follow your dreams, and believe that you are strong enough to never give up. Believe that you are strong enough to always fight. Go and finally make your life your own and never doubt your capability to do so.

We spend more time wondering what we are supposed to do with our lives then actually going after what we want to do with our lives.  It comes so much easier to just go with the flow, walk with the crowds and follow footsteps that our parents paved for us when we were kids rather than making our own footprints. Work, relationships, friendships, and even ending those “ships”, we should think of what makes us happy and not what is believed by others of what should make us happy.

Rather than thinking that we are in the wrong by not doing what we were advised to do, why not let go and finally say to ourselves, “Let’s go!”?

It becomes impossible, doesn’t it? To forget the reasons as to why you are so invested in your own head, drowning in the stress, being weighed down by the hate of others and becoming blind to the sight of a new day. At the same time, it’s even more impossible to see the reasons not to feel that way. Being torn into two different directions and yet, the direction we want, the road that will take us to finally being healed, isn’t tugging at us at all. 

It’s funny how some of the cards that we’re dealt are blank at times. They aren’t laid out to tell us what exactly to do next. It’s our decision to pave our own way. Although we won’t know what we are going to do tomorrow or even next year, the wonder can be exciting.  So, let go of all that is pulling us back, pushing us down and throwing us aside. And LET’S GO! Let’s go after what we want, what makes us happy and complete and what makes us truly who we really are. Because we deserve it. So, let go and let’s go!!