Let's be honest here

What good is a blog if it only reveals the bright and shiny, most socially acceptable and properly presentable part of you?  While endless musings of bliss and perfection may serve as a vehicle for elevating your self esteem and could quite possible evoke inspiration for your readers to achieve a likeness to your perfection, it isn't real.

I've been in a dark place, folks.  January, February, March, April, May, June, July & August have all been marked by separate, but equally painful experiences.  They've been personal, relational, professional and situational.   Some within my control, some quite beyond.  Every time I would get out of a valley and finally seem to reach the top, another blow would knock me down the mountain.  I do not want to even admit this to you, but I have found blogging impossible over the past 8 months because no matter what I was to write about, there would still be these big "things" going on in my life that I couldn't share, thus making anything I had to say seem false and inauthentic.

So, for reasons that I will not describe in detail, 2011 has been the most painful year of my adult life...or possibly ever.  There has been a shift in my soul.  So much so, that sometimes I don't even recognize who I am...who I am becoming.  I guess the best way I know to describe the outcome of these painful experiences is in a before & after illustration:

BEFORE, the world was my oyster, every day a party, and every person was a like a present waiting to be unwrapped.  My home was a revolving door to friends old and new, my conversations casual and open. Trust was not earned, but doled out like candy canes at Christmas.  If you said you were my friend, I believed you.  I risked being vulnerable in hopes of being rewarded with true and authentic relationships.

AFTER, the world is a big, scary place...not sure I like it here.  Better to just love your family and be selective about the few friends you hold dear...and even then, don't reveal too much.  Trust no one except your husband.  What's the use in pursing new relationships?  People are just in it for themselves.  Never reveal your whole heart and take caution in all situations.

So the BEFORE living was fun and free and exciting, but it opened me up to some excruciating situations.  The AFTER has been quiet, closed, specific, calculated and guarded.  The AFTER, though safer, is cowardice, faithless, all-consuming and sad.

And so now, I'm done.  I'm done with the hurt and the situations that caused it.  I'm over the dread, the re-hashing, the analyzing and the agony.  I want off the free fall to doom and darkeness.  I'm choosing to move on.  I'm choosing the BEFORE, but a tad bit refined.  I'm choosing to be ME.

The wake of this storm has left some relationships broken, but I know that time heals as it passes and my God restores ruins and breathes life into which there once was none.

Eight months almost to the day that all of this began, I can breathe again and can finally, finally, FINALLY see  His hand, His mercy and His grace in it all.   I have no bitterness left.  Just love, forgiveness and cautious optimism.

I thank you, faithful readers, for not deleting my bookmark on your own blog due to my inactivity.  I'm coming out of a place I hope to never return.  Looking forward to the posts to come about the life my God has blessed me with.  Though imperfect, made perfect in Him.

Be blessed, dear ones.
Merideth