New isn't always better

Everything is exciting when it's new. When your heart races, your palms sweat, you literally can't even. It's all so exhilarating. 

When you first meet someone, you put on your best face. You make yourself the most perfect 'you' that you can be to impress this other person. You find yourself staying up until the wee hours of the morning, when you value your sleep, just to spend more time talking with that person. You become a sort of "Stepford Wives" prototype of yourself.

We all invest so much of ourselves into the new that once it's over it feels like we've been robbed.

I'm always going to be a romantic. I have always been the 'head in the clouds' girl who's falling too fast. I long for the love letters and spontaneous adventures. For flowers and dates. I am a firm believer that chivalry isn't dead but is few and far between. Chivalry exists especially when everything is new.

But I will never understand people who jump from relationship to relationship. I used to be that way as a teenager and I don't understand why I did it. Was it helping me repress negative feelings I had about myself that would come to light had I been alone? Was I afraid of the person I would be without the influence of another human being? Was it because I didn't want anyone to see the 'real' me so I left before I could chance it?

It's hard to say...

It's been a trying few days. I moved from the apartment Tristan and I shared as a family to my own apartment with Harper. All the while, he moved into his girlfriend's house. I find myself unable to sleep, tossing and turning about things I can't control within my life. Praying that maybe this has all been a nightmare and I'm going to wake up. But I never do and I am hurt that this man couldn't be alone to grieve the ending of a marriage and a family but instead fell into the arms of another woman.

Let me tell you a story...

When I met him, he seemed different than anyone I had ever met. Twenty-nine with a fairly dark past but he was ready to grow up and be committed. He had his priorities in the right place and had a dream that made everyone around him light up. I had never felt more comfortable with another human being in my entire life. I felt I could tell him anything. He was truly my best friend. When Harper came along I wasn't scared because he made me feel so safe, so sure that he only had eyes for me. 

Then we got married and soon after everything changed.

I believe the exact phrase was, "you aren't exciting enough anymore."

I wasn't new enough. 

But new isn't always better, folks.

New is great, don't get me wrong but it's not all it's cracked up to be. Everyone loves new because it's where you see the sunshine. There isn't a cloud in the sky. The forecast never calls for rain. But how can you know who you are, or how you mesh with someone without enduring the storms of life?

How can you expect to endure the storms if you always want for the new?

I don't want to be new. I want to be the person who grows old with someone who dances with me through every drizzle and storm life throws at us.

Life's storms are a beautiful thing. They bring truth, clarity and after a while peace. I feel as if I've been hit by a hurricane but I'm enduring it the best I can with the tools I've been given. I'm trying my best to surround myself with positive influences who share the same values as myself. I am trying and trying to be better for me and for Harper and it's the hardest thing I've ever done. Every time I'm kicked to the ground, somehow I find the strength to get back up.

It's hard.

But I know at the end of this storm the clouds are going to break and the sky is going to be so clear and I'm going to know why I had to struggle so hard for so long before my rainbow appeared. 

That's something I have to remind myself of daily.

In the end, he can have his new, and his newer, and his newest. He can feel unfulfilled by person after person because of the storms he's unwilling to weather. He can have that. Because I'm going to know what it looks like on the other side of the storm, looking at the challenges I've faced and I'll feel peace. 

That's when I'll finally be free.

**Full disclosure: I wrote this at 4am while I couldn't sleep so if it doesn't make sense that's probably why.**