Long Story Short in Current Events

There were a lot of boxes that I hadn’t unpacked since I moved into my sisters. I was close to bankruptcy when I had my nervous breakdown. I was about ready to do a consumer proposal when my sister and her husband took me in. I signed up with a credit counselor insteaed and I actually paid it all off this year. I never thought that I would see the end of that program. I was sitting in my space and I was looking at my tower of boxes that I wanted to go through by the end of this year and I remembered a dream that I had many moons ago. I was feeling desperate during that time in my life. I had so much going on.
I was a mess in every single way after the Roarke stage of my life. I moved in with my other sister and her boyfriend. I had my 16 year old cousin in tow because he didn’t want to live with his mothers abusive boyfriend. He was in a private school and on a scholarship so I basically fostered him for free. My boss was fired, I was stuck running a whole store without any training. I was carrying all my friends burdens at that time also. I helped one friend escape her abusive boyfriend, he tried to hunt me down and told my friends that he was going to kill me. Meanwhile I was helping everybody else move, get married, get divorced, get jobs , get sober etc and then to top it all off I had to land myself into more boy drama. Enter the Tyler stage of my life and the only friend that I could turn to at that time for advice about everything passed away. His alcoholism caught up to him, he was in and out of detox. He used to call me in the middle of the night, drunk and would try and tell me that he was inlove with me. I had to talk him off a ledge so many times and get him to call the suicide hotline.His family thought I was a godsend because I was the first person to get through to him and get him to go get treatment. After one of our many fights and after he called that hotline he told me that he wasn’t going to kill himself. I blew up at him “how much longer before you heart gives out?! With the way you are going now this IS killing yourself” he called me after a two day silent treatment but this time he was crying. “I’m scared Tommy I am so scared” he was on his way to the hospital to start his detox and then he was off to rehab. 4 months was my answer by the way. It took about 4 months before his heart gave out and I didn’t have any space in my heart left to mourn him. He was a brother to me I didn’t shed a tear at his funeral. My sisters boyfriend kicked my cousin out and racked up every single bill that he put in my name. He turned out to be an abusive asshole to my sister. Smashed all her things, convinced her that nobody in the world loved her. Just him. Classic stuff. I couldn’t talk her into leaving him and I just didn’t want to leave her so I would just lay in bed every night thinking about how my debt tripled, I couldn’t leave my sister with that man and I couldn’t run a good business at work and I couldn’t help my friends and I couldn’t help myself and that I was on the verge of losing everything… then I would fall asleep to a panic attack If I even got to sleep at all.
So the dream that changed everything? I stepped out of my bedroom and made my way into the living room. I think it was midday. The sun outside was bright and white and it lit up the inside of the whole house. My sister was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She was wearing an aboriginal dress, her hair was in two braids and she had two feathers in her hair. She was standing a proud aboriginal woman. She danced toward me. She spun in circles until she was standing right in front of me. It was not my sister. She gave me the biggest and warmest smile and I felt peace. The lights that were beaming through the windows got brighter and it blinded me and I awoke. That was my grandmother, a proud First Nations woman in her youth before the residential schools made her be white people. When I woke up I felt that I had all the love in the world. That the universe was on my side because all the power that I will ever need is inside of me and I do not take anything with me to the other side when I die. I have been on this journey of letting go ever since. I only want to hold on to people and behaviors and things that nourish me and grow me and that are not toxic for me and… I donated those towers of boxes that I spent so much time trying to own and I will be donating even more. I am freeing myself from all the little meanings that I assigned to all that stuff. Yes I am having a minimalism moment here but at this stage in my life less is more.
5 years ago if somebody asked me if I would ever become a vegan, minimalist with a man bun who meditates I would have laughed at them. I do not have the hair anymore but I do not like those labels for me one bit. I am not very good at “belonging” to something if that makes sense.
The road to get to here has been painful and long and I just need to look back sometimes. Progress and growth is slow and hard to measure and I need to look back at my life more often to see that I have actually grown so much. There is still a lot of growing pains for me right now but that is because I have nothing left to handle but myself. My anxiety and depression is all that I have right now and I have myself on a waiting list to see a therapist to help me with that journey. I have next week off and it’s going to be another staycation for me, myself and I. I don’t want to waste this one this time.

Last updated November 04, 2018