As ridiculous as that may sound, that has been the best advice I have found in this entire roller coaster. I know I have said it before but I swear How I Met Your Mother has the most apt life lessons to teach me. I find myself rewatching episodes every evening before I fall asleep to learn something new.
It's easy to fall into a deep depression when your marriage ends, especially when it ends for reasons that were out of your control. It's so easy to feel sorry for yourself, it's easy to invite that dark cloud that's been looming over you to stay. It's easy to become bitter and cynical.
It's just easier.
Don't get me wrong, I can be bitter and cynical at times. I am not a perfect human by any means. I have plenty of moments. Plenty of days where it would just make me feel better to sit under my own personal rain cloud thinking, "why me?" Those moments happen.
But in those moments, I am choosing to be awesome instead.
I ran my fourth 5k of the year this morning. I ran my first one month after discovering Tristan's affair. I was in a terrible place and sliding deeper and deeper into a sadness that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to control. But instead of getting mad about it, I channeled my feelings into running. I put my mind on something I could control, my body. I turned the focus from sadness and turned it to accomplishment. And it felt awesome. I will never be able to begin to express how amazing it felt to cross the finish line after my first race. I had done something that I never thought I would ever want to or even could do.
I finished today's race in 29:55 with a 9:37 mile pace. My personal best.
I owe it all to everything I've been through.
People are expecting me to crack, to be completely and utterly broken over a man who showed me how little I mattered to him less than a year into our marriage. They have good reason, I'm a young girl, with a child, who wasn't sure of who I was. I don't know how to handle some of the emotions that I've been feeling, I don't know what I'm doing half of the time.
But I won't give them the satisfaction.
There are days where I want to break down. Those days come when I scroll through my phone to find a picture and stumble upon an image of when we were happy or when I am watching a movie and I start laughing and look over to see if he's laughing too, but he's not there. Those moments are hard and they make me want to crumble.
But I stand tall.
I choose to be awesome instead.
I choose to have a dance party in my pajamas, or make a list of all the things that are good in my life. I choose to look in the mirror and see the pretty things about me, to grab a ukulele and jam, to run a race and feel accomplished. I choose to put that energy into a positive place.
This thing that's happening, this is only one thing. Out of literally dozens of things that are going right, one thing ending badly is not that bad. Sure, I'm losing friendships, but are those people who really valued my friendship to begin with? Are they people I want in my life after this? Probably not. And that's okay. Truly. Because no matter what, I am going to be alright. I have people who value me, who will support me during every moment when I don't feel like being awesome. These are people who can help lift me up to see the potential of my level of awesome. And that is really something.
This journey is far from over. There will be slip ups and days that hurt. My job is to do whatever possible to turn those days around. I can do it, I've always been capable of that. I was merely choosing poorly before. That's all.
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