It’s amazing how much we can change day to day, month to month, years later. I was talking with my best friend earlier today (yesterday from when I post this) and I was discussing how I used to be so different from the way I am now. A lot of it I do attribute to her. I can see the difference in me. I can even see just how different I am right now from just one month ago. It’s not something that when someone looks at me, they’d see the difference. It’s more that it’s deep down. A core change.

A craving and a want has developed in me that I never really had. For so long I never really focused on a future. There was no point to it. I was far too used to attracting those (as I’ve gone through in this blog elsewhere – attracting lessons) who never were meant to stay. I hoped that they would, wanted them to, but they never did. When I tried opening up to those, I didn’t know that they didn’t have a part in the story of my life, so it hurt when they left. So I for a long time assumed something was wrong with me. Well, if I open up, they leave. How to make them leave? Love them. I had to learn.

I’ve seen a few folks going through that too. I’ll see them post it online and I can understand how painful it must be for them. Especially through what we are all dealing with. I have been there. The emotions get triggered, we get hyperreactive, and there is almost this inability to control what comes. It’s not wrong of us to have those moments. It’s not wrong for us to feel. It can be hard on the other person if they don’t understand what is going on and we suddenly become a lot more needy or “desperate,” almost. But let me tell you if you’re feeling that way? It’s not wrong to feel what you feel. We learn to manage our emotions through those experiences. We learn to control our hyper reactive states. It’s only when we blame the other and don’t realize it’s our lack of control getting the better of us, and our mental state going crazy, and giving into that, which can be considered wrong. It’s still not wrong. It’s just showing us that we need to gain control. It’s like being desperate to eat or drink and suddenly shoving it all down our throat and then choking ourselves to death. lol

We have a need within that needs to be filled. What we tend to go through with that though, is that we expect the other to fill it up. We become desperate for their food, and they can’t give it to us. I was never been that girl, but I became her a few times because the ones I attracted into my life were empty vessels themselves. They hadn’t learned how to fill their own vessel, and I expected them to help me fill mine when I’d became depleted.

What I learned through those lessons though was how to fill myself up. It doesn’t mean that the craving is never there. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss people like crazy. It doesn’t mean I don’t love people and want them by my side or need their (read: their unique presence, but I can still live without them, don’t read the wrong impression of the word need) presence in my life. I do love people. I do miss people. I do need people in my world. What I don’t? Them to make me happy. Them to fill me up when I get sad. I don’t need them to tell me how to follow where my heart and soul guide me. I don’t need them to guide me. I don’t need them to make me feel better if I feel negatively (sad, angry, upset).

We do attract that when we need it. I don’t think for me that it was a lesson of detachment, or learning to let people go as most who may have similar situations always go toward. So many people have always spoke on the lesson of “letting go,” and “not holding onto people,” but I don’t think it was that for me. Maybe some, I won’t say it wouldn’t be. But for me I think my lesson was more to let people in. To simply not fear that loving them completely and with my entire being. As a child I was beyond expressive and loving, then the abuse began and slowly I went within the shell. Deeper and deeper.

I’ve read in the past few years that if we look at our North Node and South Node, it can tell a lot about destiny for us. Whether you agree with destiny or not, I guess doesn’t matter. The life we’re meant to lead, the path we’re supposed to follow, is usually learning to embrace the side of us that is the North Node. We default to our South. So to follow our best path, they say that if we find the North Node and go for that, we find the best life we can live. You can search that online yourself, I won’t favor sites or links. Just type in, “what is my north node,” and go from there.

Mine? Leo. I laugh because I am a sun Leo too. So I know all too well what that is like. My rising is Virgo and that is the way we present ourselves. Virgo are typically organized, put together, quiet, shy almost, and gentle. They like cleanliness too, and not a crazy amount of emotional drama. Sound familiar? lol

So the south node for me is Aquarius. Aquarius is geared toward focusing on the group. Leo is geared toward emotional freedom and the stage. Not necessarily look at me, but leadership, independence kinda stuff. As in, break free and shine. Leo North Node means that love and the expression of it is where I will shine. Where I find my best life. I do have to balance it out with the south, but it’s about emotional expression. One could look at this blog, my writing, and my life as that. To find the path for me, they say it’d be about learning to simply love, let it in, express it freely, be open to whatever may come of that show. Or, as they say on a quote I’ve seen a lot, “speak your truth, tell your story, those who cannot understand it? It wasn’t meant for them.”

I find that seems to be the way things are really progressing for me. When I finally was able to accept love and express it, I attracted in my best friend. She came into my life at a time when I’d slowly gone deep inside myself because of all the hurt. Because I was used to being overlooked. I was used to (as I put it to her earlier) disappearing inside of myself. I went through many many years of abuse. I attracted in painful relationships with people. I would try to open up, but I didn’t quiet understand how to properly do so, and feel out the energy of other people so it came across as different than I wanted to show. As a healer, I attracted in the ones who needed healing, but weren’t ever meant to stay. I didn’t understand the difference. I couldn’t see the difference.

I imagine (I was told too so it wasn’t just a wrong perception on my part) that I came across far colder and more bitchy than I wanted to. Other times I came across as if I didn’t care. That one wasn’t entirely wrong. It wasn’t that I didn’t care per se. Even now I’ve said it pure and simple that I don’t care who people vote for. It’s not that though. We can’t change who someone likes. We can’t change other people. I accept that. I accept people for who they are, even if I don’t like something about them, I’m not necessarily gonna be “change to please me.” That’s not how I work. I don’t want the reverse so I’m not doing it to you. You will change if guided to. If you want to. NOT to please me. NOT because someone demands it. We can do that, but it’s rare that it will stick. If I lose weight for someone, I may gain it back. But because I decided on my own a long time ago, I wouldn’t allow myself to become as overweight as I have been? It became a life change that stuck. So I can maintain it because it was what “I” wanted. Not another.

So it’s not that I don’t care as in, I don’t have feelings toward it. It’s that I accept choices that other’s make, even if I don’t agree. I accept you, even if we’re not alike. I accept that people are unique and that’s what makes them so great. In that way I don’t care. I am not going to spend my emotional energy of which I have so little to give as of late, on worrying over what you will do, or don’t, in your life. I will not expend that time and effort in expecting something of you, which I would not give to you were the positions reversed. I will spend my time becoming a better version of me, tending to my family and those closest to me. If that makes someone angry? That’s not up to me. That’s up to them to allow something I do to make them feel that way, and then to allow it to affect their day.

And . . . I am reserved and much shier than people understand. I spent years upon years shrinking inside of myself because I have never been one of those people that are like look at me!! And scream to get attention. The less I received, the more I went within. I became quieter and quieter. A product of abuse, yes. A product of having PTSD? Probably. I was used to being overlooked. I don’t want pity either. I speak on my life to be understood, not to be all, “woe is me! Make it better, give me huggies.” Erm, no thank you. Love you for wanting to comfort me, but I am okay. I share things only to share my story, not for any other reason. Maybe also so that if something touches you and you can relate, maybe I can help you learn something too. About you. About me. About another. Whichever way it works. Maybe even just to hear a story. After all, I tell stories. Not all are fiction.

It’s just that eventually I went to a place inside of myself that I visit more than maybe I should. A quiet little place where it’s just me. I don’t have a thousand voices calling me. I don’t have a ton pulling and tugging at me, demanding of me. I have spent all my life tending to other’s emotions and needs that I visit that quiet space so much. It’s not a bad thing. I think many introverts understand, shy folks, reserved folks, people who’ve been through abuse, on and on. We all know that space within that we go to when we need a break.

Problem I have at times is that I live there. People allow it too. I never really connected with too many who basically would be like, please stay and don’t go away. I didn’t have people who cared enough to that point that they would see me disappearing in front of them. Outside of my dad that was. He would see when I tried to hide, and he would basically pull me out of that shell.

I think that was the lesson that I was faced to learn. I didn’t see how the people who did want to get that close to me, were affected. Whenever I had really dark days a part of me was scared that I would go inside that space inside of me and never come out. That I would retreat to a place and be lost. I honestly gave that a lot of thought the past few years. What kept me on solid ground was the realization that I had my dogs to take care of. They needed me because I committed to their care and when I commit? It’s forever and then some. I honor it against everything thrown at me. Truly.

Something so small like that kept me from disappearing into that darkness. Knowing that I had them to focus on. They needed me. I think that was part of why I never wanted to get close to people. I wanted that excuse. I wanted that ability to leave. I didn’t want the responsibility of someone else’s heart and emotions. None of us need another to live like the air we breathe so when I say need, it’s not that. Please keep that in mind.

I didn’t want anyone to need me to the point that I could potentially break their heart if I disappointed them. If I wanted to disappear. That I’d basically abandon them if I went away. I didn’t want that responsibility, but we can’t avoid that if we ever hope to know true love. Authentic love. Selfish? Could be. Definitely could be defined as selfish and cold. I am a product of all of that past. I am a product of someone throwing me on the floor and choking me until I couldn’t breathe as a little girl, JUST because I interrupted a TV show. I am a product of telling a man no, and him refusing to listen, then forcing himself on me. I am a product of a friend standing in my face and screaming nobody wanted me around.

I am a product of all of that and far far more.

I choose not to be anymore. I chose not to continue to be that years ago. I chose when I said I love you to my best friend. I chose that when I let her in. I chose that when I told her about the abuse. I chose that when I admitted to the man back in my life that he is (and always will be) one of the most precious things in my life, and if I didn’t make him understand that? Then I was a sh*t for it back then, and I was sorry for it. That is not a long list for me. I can count on one hand how many people have reached that level for me. He and my best friend are for sure among those.

Only time will tell in truth, where I go from here, but I definitely have noticed something big happening inside of me as of late. I am very interested in seeing where it’s going to go, or what is going to happen from here. I find myself experiencing conversations and having these deja vu moments as if my life right now is the illusion and that deja vu moment is the reality. It is beyond weird to experience. We all have one moment or so here and there like that, but I’ve had one or more in a day, sometimes days in a row.

Often, much of my feelings have slowly faded. Maybe a part of it comes with me purposely retreating from them and not realizing it. Maybe it was because they were not real to begin with. I’m not entirely sure which is it. Could just be that I was in a “dream” state and then after time, or as time went on, I came out of it and the feelings were long gone.

I’m curious to see where it’s going to go. What’s going to happen from here. I definitely feel like something is coming. Something is gonna happen. I hope it is for the positive. I hope how I feel is here to stay, and grow if nothing else. I hope a lot of things in my life are permanent, but who is to say? Who knows what tomorrow brings? I definitely hope the two in my life that are closest to me are permanent fixtures in my story to come. That is for sure.

I just know something is happening, something is changing, and I’m interested to see where it goes.

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