Stuck like tar

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For nearly 25 years, I was stuck like tar. Oh, how I thought I loved being stuck. Even put a big bow on it to show myself (and everyone else) how pretty it was. I blogged about being in love with being in love.

It’s still challenging to read those posts and remember the girl who wrote them. Most of my adult life, I believed happiness could be found in someone else; in fact, that it should be found in someone else. I convinced myself it was the most romantic thing ever. I ignored the parts of me that were dying.

For so long, happiness existed only in codependency for me. Nothing was real unless deemed so by the other. Happiness took shape and definition through that lens and that lens alone.

Fair warning: the lens you wear to prevent blindness may very well be causing it.

I removed the lens. Actually, I’m pretty sure the lens was ripped out of my eyeball.

In any case, through skinned knees and lots of guts and grime, I’ve come to learn it’s me, who is responsible for my happiness. Which means, finding happiness must come from within. It will NOT come from another. Nor, as I learned, will it come from booze.

Finding my happiness is being true to the purpose
God hand-knit within my soul, uniquely for me.

Sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? Poetic.

For someone who lived codependently for decades, it’s been really challenging. Without even closing my eyes, I can visualize trying to pull myself from a bucket of thick, unruly tar. The harder I try to pull away, the more engulfed I seem to become. Even once I force my way out, it’s still stuck to my arms like glue.

But, glue is washable, my friends! It was five years ago, my friend Jonathan said, “You get to be YOU, Donna. And, You is plenty.” No one had ever said I was enough as is. Just me. What a beautiful concept.

What a beautiful Truth.

Meeting Me has been exhilarating, exhausting, challenging, hilarious, disappointing, surprising, terrifying, invigorating, draining, rewarding, and hopeful.

Evidently, it’s a little like dating.

Lesson learned: I’m grateful happiness was designed to be shared with, not derived from another. How beautiful it is to be wanted, not needed.

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