20: 99 Problems

These feelings do not mean what I think they mean. Pain is not the enemy. These stories I imagine about how I feel are just opinions with embellishments.

19: Opinions

Today I recognize my choices for what they were—an unfortunate and unskillful habit of treating how I felt like a directive. I realize how often, in intimate and vulnerable relationships, I responded with a habituated neurological urge to pursue what I considered comfortable feelings while avoiding the discomfort.

18: Sex.

There are places I remain frozen in the past.

An outcome of my marriage and the last several relationships is I feel as if I am sexually wrecked. I feel frozen between desire and doubt, analysis and paralysis, ambition and silence

17: Picture This

No matter how I reacted, it wasn’t going to undo the consequences of the impact.

There are some things that cannot be fixed.

16: Growth and Change

“It hurts to grow alone,” writes C. JoyBell C. “It hurts to realise that someone else won’t be coming with you.” As a result, I now recognize growth is always a selfish act.

Always.

15: Reminder2self: Accountability

“Accountability doesn’t mean punishment. Accountability is a willingness to accept responsibility for our own actions.”

Lessons From a Black Friday: Year Three

Three years today it ended.

I’m really grateful it is over.

13: More Symbolism

And here I realized is where the story ended. In a little no frill community thrift store outside of Golden, Colorado. A few trinkets added to a hoarder’s paradise.

12: Broken Cups

The Thing always breaks where the bonds are weakest, not strongest.

11: Slaves and Heroes

I have no obligation to anyone to be the same today as I was a year ago or even 15 minutes ago. I have the right to shed the ideas, opinions, behaviors, and beliefs I held even a short time ago when I realize they aren’t working for me.