The Beauty of Alone

There’s something that draws me to being alone. It's the beauty I find in not having to rely on anyone else for comfort, for peace, for happiness. It’s the part of me that has learned to love the darkness. Because to me, alone = darkness. Not a bad darkness. But a fulfilled, placid, darkness. 

 A darkness where only I exist. Where I don’t have to take care of anyone, or anything. Where I can feel, do, and be whatever I want...in that moment.  Where I can be true with my thoughts, my words, my actions. It’s where I have come to know who I am beneath the surface, beneath everything I was ever taught and told that I was supposed to be.

Alone is where I have reconciled so many hurts, so many disappointments, and so many fears. It’s where I have gained my power; and learned to love. To me-being alone is my reward. It’s my proclamation of “I DID IT!” And I really did do it. I learned to love myself. I learned to be my friend. I learned to have compassion, for me. It’s my reward for making it through the constant battlefields of growth, of change, of hardship. 

I can be with me. I can love who I am. And I can embrace the beautiful, sparkly, darkness that comes with being one with alone.

The Power of F*ck

The Power of Fuck……as in, don’t give one. Not one. Not two. Not any.

Nada. 

Zero. 

Zilch......got it?

The other day I was climbing up into my Tahoe, my hands were full with my phone, my debit card, a little baggie from the restaurant where I had just ordered my salad on top of the most delicious smoothie, as well as a full cup of water with no lid. Why this restaurant does not supply lids for their water cups is beyond me, but I took my chances, filled ‘er to the rim and clumsily made my way into my car.  

“Phewww," I thought as I managed to arrange everything in a safe place until I could get situated. The drink holder in my lower console was full of water bottles and other such junk so I couldn’t immediately put my drink in there. I set it on the middle console, between the two seats, where there were no cupholders. As I started to find spots for everything; my food bag, the smoothie, my phone, my debit card, I accidentally hit the cup and water spilled all over my lower console; where I keep ALLLLL the things. And all over the floor. 

“Fuck!” My windows were down and I said it loud enough that whoever was walking past my car could hear. For a split second I thought, “Whoops, I shouldn't say that so loud.” But then I watched the water fill up every nook, cranny, and crevice and seep into my Post-It Notes where I write my ideas, reminders, and anything important I want to remember, and as it began to form puddles I got angry and I yelled it this time. “FUCK!”

I immediately texted one of my friends and complained to her that I had just spilt a whole cup of water all over the console that holds everything in my car. She replied with, “Oh dang!”  To which I responded, “Yeah, dang is not the word I used.” 

After I cleaned up as much as I could without having anything on hand to sop up the mess, my mind got to thinking about the difference between dang and fuck. I thought about how I used to be a ‘dang girl’. I used to be the girl who, the worst swear I ever said was damn, and even then I felt tremendous guilt. 

Growing up, I don’t remember my parents ever sitting me down and saying, “Now Ericka, we don’t use filthy language in this house. It’s wrong.” I don’t remember them swearing in everyday conversation either. There may have been a time when I was younger and I was playing Jacks and I accidentally said shit.  My dad heard me and I remember getting sent to my room. But that was the extent of, Bad Language Discipline, I ever received in my home, as much as I can remember, anyway.  BUT what I was taught in church is that our language should ALWAYS be clean, and swearing is a sin. A sin. 

The word sin always scared me. I never wanted to do anything bad or stray from choosing the right. I was so hellbent on not sinning I spent countless minutes, moments, hours, evaluating my behavior at every turn. In a way, it got to be obsessive. I was always feeling like I could be so much better, I could do so much more, and always felt like I needed to ‘repent’. Not a fun, nor healthy way to live. 

Fast forward to my thirties and what can I say, LIFE HAPPENS. And happened it did. I lost my marriage, my health and my religion all at the same time.  I found myself alone, in a house that I couldn’t take care of, with a yard that I couldn’t take care of, while needing to be a mom to kids, I couldn’t take care of. I had a hard time taking care of myself, let alone the two little monkey faces that were depending on me to feed them, clean them, and entertain them.  Shit got real, and it got real fast. 

When things got real, everything I ever thought I knew and/or believed flew out the motherfucking window. And I had to start completely from scratch. 

THAT is when my love affair with The Fuck Word started.  I remember feeling so many emotions, so many feelings at once, that “crap” or “shoot” or “frick” didn’t cover the gamut. Didn’t do justice to how deeply I was feeling SO MANY SHITTY things. At once. So I started saying fuck. I said it and something inside me said, “Yep, that hits the spot. Say it again.”  So I said it again. I would say it while bawling my eyes out, alone, and in pain, in my bed at night. I would scream it while sitting in my car, in my garage so my kids wouldn’t hear, crying so hard I was hyperventilating. I would yell it at God, I would yell it at my situation, I would even yell it at my ex, not directly at him, but “at him” while I was hyperventilating in my car.  The Fuck Word became my drug of choice, which even you have to admit, it's better than Percocet; which I had ample access to, just never partook. 

It became my word for empowerment. I felt power when I said it. I felt relief. I felt satiated, and it was glorious. The more I said it, the more comfortable it became. And eventually, I let go of all the guilt from using it. I began to view it as just a word, like "green" or "hungry". It became so much more than just a swear. It had meaning. I began to say it with freedom. Freedom from being judged, freedom from being a sinner, freedom from being ruled by the confines of an institution that governed my every thought, action, decision; down to my very being. 

I came to find other uses for The Fuck Word as well. Like when I got good news, it works great at conveying joy! “FUCK YES!!!”  Or when I had to tell someone how much I truly loved and adored their face. “I FUCKING love and adore your face.” Who wouldn't feel the love?  Or if there was something I really, really, really did not want to do, I'd throw out a "Fuck no!" And my point would be made.  

There are hundreds of ways to use The Fuck Word. Believe me, I’ve used them. And while there are lots of people out there who just don’t get it, who can’t stand to hear the harshness of it, the abrasiveness of it, the dirtiness of it,  (which I totally understand, that used to be me; no judgement here) I know that I can never go back to NOT saying it. It literally brought me comfort in a time when I felt like I would never feel comfort again. I say it fiercely now, with conviction, with purpose, hell, sometimes without purpose, and I say it without giving one fuck as to what people think about it. 

  

In any situation where you are facing hardship and/or loss, it's a given that you will experience a mountain of emotions. Gut wrenching, heartbreaking, take you to your knees again and again, emotions. At any given moment, some emotions are strong enough to knock you off your feet and send you into a downward spiral of negativity. They have power; those emotions. They have energy, and if we let them, they will take us down.  

The thing I’ve learned about emotions is that they don’t last. You may feel like you will feel that way forever; that you will never recover from all the pain and all the hurt, and that you will live in a dark hole for always, being deprived of light, all good things, and life!!! (I’ve been there, I’ve felt that, time and time again!)  What a daunting thought! 

After my divorce I felt A LOT of emotions for a very long time. At least a good year.  There was always anger, hurt, sadness, and sometimes shame, guilt, and ‘I’m not good enough nor will I ever be good enough’. Powerful emotions. When we're being tossed around in an emotional shitstorm, it feels as if we will ALWAYS feel that way. It’s intense and it’s exhausting; mentally, emotionally, and physically. Especially, if you are also engaging in a little thing called: ADULTING. 

*Adulting- the act of being a responsible adult: Working. Parenting. Paying bills. Keeping up with laundry. Homework, and all the other things that suck the life right outta….well, life.   

Emotions are not everlasting. They aren’t burned into our being. They don’t make up who we are. I like to think of them as visitors. Visitors, who many times, wear out their welcome.  We have the choice to allow them to stay, get nice and comfy and settle in for a time; and we certainly have the prerogative to kick them the hell out!  But that takes time, and practice, and feeling ready. I honestly believe that we will hold on to an emotion until we are ready to let it go.  

I think we can learn a lot from our emotions, if we only allow ourselves to dive in to them; to meet them head on; to recognize and acknowledge them and let them work inside us. Allowing ourselves to feel what exactly we are feeling can be very cathartic and it can present a huge learning opportunity. A lot of times, this is when we are made aware of the parts of us that may need a little work, or the beliefs that need changing, or the thought patterns that need reprogramming. 

Processing, growing, gaining wisdom from emotions cannot happen if we are constantly running from or distracting ourselves from them (hello Facebook 80 times in 2 hours, that used to be me. ***Here’s a little side note, if you want to see just how much time you use your phone to distract yourself during the day download a little app called, Moments. I was mortified to say the least). 

Processing emotions is not a walk in the park, unfortunately.  In fact, there are probably a thousand other things I would rather do than sit down and have a tete a tete with fear. Or anger. Or heaven help me, despair. I’ve met up with despair a lot in the past couple of years. We’ve squabbled a time or two, but I’ve always managed to come out victorious.  

Regardless of whether I beat my own emotions, or they beat me, (which does happen from time to time) I always come out having gained a greater knowledge about who I am.  About what I am capable (or not capable) of achieving.  

Every time I give in and: 

A. Allow myself to acknowledge and feel the emotion

And then try to figure out: 

B.  Where the feeling is coming from 

C. Why it’s there

D.  What I can do to change it 

E.  How to let that shit go

I  grow just a little bit stronger. I gain just a little bit more wisdom. I sever, yet another chord binding me to the extremely heavy weight of resistance and non-progression.  

 This is not a quick process, by any means. Sometimes it takes days to give in and let myself feel, or to figure out the why, and mostly, days to let it go. Letting go is probably the hardest step for me. But it’s also the most rewarding.  

The next time you find yourself struggling with any kind of emotion, give yourself the gift of opening yourself up to your feelings. It hurts, and it can be quite intense, but in the end, it pushes you that much closer to recognizing your strengths, moving on from the past, and becoming your YOU.