For me it is fear,  that’s one of my biggest demons that I have to fight every day.

I am afraid of so many things is ridiculous, and as much as my rational side tries to explain to the less rational side that is all a hypothesis that most likely will never become more than that, I still waste too much time and energy on all the what if’s.

Have you ever played a conversation in your head, and all the smart things you could have said but instead you just said something stupid or even worse, didn’t say a thing?

How about the clothes we keep for years hoping that one day you might fit in them again.  I have 2 pairs of jeans that I refused to give away. For the first time I am glad I did! They are no longer being made and now I can use them again.  It only took me 10 years!!! Let that sink in, please go ahead, I’ll wait.  

I kept 2 jeans for 10 years!!! And the chances of this miracle happening were almost zero.  I honestly have just theories of how I lost the weight, but seriously, I could have just looked for another pair and not kept them, pack and unpack them 4 times, but I wasn’t able to let go.  I was emotionally attached to them, they reminded me of a time that I was more secure and have more faith in myself, whether it was due to being young and naive, or just because I had a long road of getting beat down by the universe, and becoming who I am today.

Accepting me for who I am today and not the person that a 20 year old used to think I would be has been hard, a lot of work and a lot of steps forward and plenty back.

Letting go is hard, because it forces us to look at the present, because most things that we hold on have some type of meaning, no matter how insignificant it is, because they still give us a strong emotion that a part of us needs to hold on to.

Some things are worth keeping, memories of loved ones that might not be with us anymore, and since I apparently love to overshare, on this subject, I have a ziplock storage bag with a best and a sweater that belonged to my grandma, and I knew I was going to miss her, just knowing that I could see her, see the love she had for us was something that many times I took for granted, and now I can’t take them out of that bag for more than a couple of minutes, because it still smells like her, and in a way it’s how I feel close to her.

But, I also have so many things that just act like weights while I am trying to swim.  And I say many times that I will get a couple of days to check everything and do a proper cleaning only to end up with one, maybe two garbage bags and not much difference.

Same goes for emotions, for pain, for dreams that didn’t happen, for things that we probably wish we could change, and what for?

Imagine waking up one day and not feeling angry with someone who did something that affected your life, imagine looking at something that you haven’t used in months or even years (cough, cough, like 2 pairs of jeans), and just having that free space, both physically and mentally!

What’s the ultimate goal in your life? Mine is to have peace, like real peace.  I want to be with my parents and not feel any frustration, I want to look at the mirror and not hope to look different, I want to be ok with being tired sometimes just because my body needs the rest, I want to go into my craft/sewing room and get rid of a bunch of things and not see them as prospect projects.

We allow so many things to disrupt our lives.  I just ask you to think every time that someone, or something makes you feel uncomfortable, angry, sad, or any other unpleasant thing you feel, what is it really what’s bothering you. 

I used to be angry with my mom, for the longest time I couldn’t understand why she was so different with my sister compared to how she was to me. Till I finally got it! I was born premature, and my Grandad (her father whom she adored) died when I was supposed to be born.  I can’t imagine having a premature baby, dealing with the postpartum emotions and on top of that having to deal with losing one of the most important people in my life, all in one month.  She didn’t have the chance to bond with me, she did the best she could and I understood that I needed to be as independent as I could, and in her mind that’s all it was to it.  I was independent, and I learned to create a wall to feel protected, while at the same time I believed that I needed to work to be loved, like work for it! I learned to cook at an early age, just to be able to show affection and get some praise, and cooking is still one of my ways to show love. And even worse, as much as it has improved my inner child still hurts, and I have days that I still feel hurt, but understanding her has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.

And if you think about it, not only people close to us have hurt us, deeply, some people seem to just bee mean and A**holes, until you know that so many people are living with as much or more fear than you, they might have even more insecurities than you and this is the only way they know how to cope with it. 

So many people have learned that being a D**k is a way to show power that humiliating others can make you feel better about yourself. And I am sorry to say that so many of these people will never see anything wrong with the way they are, or even worse, they are aware of it, deep down they don’t want to hurt anyone, but they never learned to control their emotions, and how to work on themselves instead of using others.

The fastest you accept that we can’t change how people behave, but we can control how their behavior affects our life, the fastest you can start to heal, to see that letting go of things, pain, unhealthy relationships is a scary but wonderful feeling. 

I’m not saying it is easy, all I’m saying is that a process that requires work and takes time, but at the end is absolutely worth it!

So many of us identify as belonging to someone, to a title, to a career, and when you lose any of those… Well, there is a huge empty void that you don’t know how to fill.

I have done pretty much all kinds of work, I went from being a teen mom, having a kid to having a wonderful adult man that is independent and doesn’t need me, at least not the way a small kid needs his mom.    I have identified myself as a Mom, Sister, Daughter, wife, I’ve been a realtor twice, worked in a research lab as a phlebotomist (getting people’s blood and processing it), I worked in events, construction and I can keep on going on the list.  But all of those job options were in my life because I needed to work, not because I always dreamed to do them, but at the same part they were me, and part of me. 

I didn’t love working in customer service and dealing with all kinds of issues daily, I mean if you are calling somewhere is not usually to tell them how happy you are, but I am extremely thankful for this job.  It allowed me to be home (it was a home-based customer service job) with my kid when he was little, I could drop him off and pick him up, but being in the house all the time got a little too much for me, especially since I was in my 20’s and I lived in Miami.  I needed to see adults and get fresh air and sunlight!

I enjoy medical things, I find fascinating how we have things that we take for granted as antibiotics and blood test! So working in the lab was a great experience, but that kept me from my kid and I’ve always been aware that you can not get back missed time, and kids grow to be adults that have their own lives. 

I had moments of being very comfortable money-wise and others that I had to struggle to pay necessities. 

I learned to adapt and learned based on what was in front of me and at the same time feeling like a failure. I hated not being able to give my kid everything I would have liked, having to deny things or experiences because I could’ t afford them, I had times that I needed to calculate miles to make sure I had enough gas until I got paid again, but I was thankful to always have food on the table, at least for my son. At the same time, I hated not having a career that brought joy.  Don’t get me wrong, I have learned a lot of things that come in handy, I can say he never went hungry and had everything that was needed, and thankfully my sister was able to get him things I couldn’t, and deep down I felt like I was failing. 

Sometimes we try and try and is like we are swimming against the current, I have been so tired and lost so many times that I lost count.

A few years back I got my realtor license again, and I enjoyed it! I love to see the joy when people get their keys, watching them plan a new chapter in their lives, and is a fun job, regardless of being stressful at times. 

About a year into being back in real estate  I started to get tired out of nowhere, but it wasn’t the kind of tiredness that goes away with rest, my heart rate started to spike and drop, I had issues breathing, and every time I was out for a couple of hours I would come home exhausted and in a lot of pain.  At some point I had to spend days in bed, I could barely move to go to the bathroom, and trust me, depending on someone is not something I can easily deal with. 

If you come to my house, you can be sure that I will not allow you to do ANYTHING!  I get extremely anxious having to ask for help. Just to give you an idea  I drove myself to the hospital when my umbilical hernia busted open.  Therefore being in a situation that I was being less and less capable of doing my normal thing was not only hard, but it made me question myself again.  It felt that I had finally found myself.

After about 5 years of going to doctors in the US and being told that I was depressed, that I needed to work out more, lose weight, sleep more, or that maybe it was all in my head,  I even got to a point of thinking it was in my head.  Finally, my family had enough of seeing my health declining, My mom book tickets for Colombia and off we went with my sister.  In 10 days I got more tests and saw more doctors than the 5 years I had tried here. 

I went back a couple of months later, more tests, and I was diagnosed with Lupus, amongst other things. 

Don’t get me wrong, having a diagnosis after years is great! The not-so-great part is that there isn’t a cure, it’s unpredictable and medications help, but don’t take care of everything. This was my new normal, and I was back to having to question who I was.