“Elizabeth, today is the first day of the rest of your life”. That is what I said to myself many times.
First time I said this was in class while a student in high school, and the second time was after I had just finished extensive counselling some years later.
Sometimes you have to not overthink it and know with faith that things will get better.
It does first start with a decision. We have all heard that before but it is true. You must DECIDE what it is that you want and then make a plan to get there. Things don’t always go as planned, as we know, but taking one step at a time is moving forward. Knowing we have the capability of executing a plan with vision, faith, and hope.
You may feel stronger today than you were yesterday. It takes grit to build strength. And, if you’re not there, there’s always a place to begin again. How did you get here? Choices. Many choices. Some you were aware of and some you just made. But, nonetheless, here you are.
As a child we moved so much. Not for work but because of instability. My parents uprooted our family which felt like once a year. We moved all over the Province of Alberta. Everywhere. I would get settled in to my “new” room and get used to my neighbourhood and then it was time to move. I was always the new person in school and somewhat an outsider. Which then twelve years into your marriage my spouse had to me to “throw out the boxes”. I was always ready to pack up and go -and not in a good way. One might say, I was ready run.
As a child my parents fought a lot about whether they would stay together. They would argue about the family possessions and even literally split things up – one time I remember a curtain being split in half. A little bit crazy and chaotic to say the least. They couldn’t decide if they would stay together or separate.
This is why the idea to “throw out the boxes” was actually acknowledging and
breaking a pattern for me. One might say throwing the boxes out meant I was settling and rooting down.
My marriage is nothing, Thank God, like my home life growing up.
It is stable and foundational. It is full of love and compassion. It’s true that I took my past into our present with learned behaviours. My husband brings a different background showing me a new way to live.
In my husband’s past life, he moved only ONCE in his childhood and that was when he was ready to leave the nest.
A little bit different from me, wouldn’t you say!
People, like me, who have broken familial patterns in their own lives and taken control of their lives are the living proof that we all have the opportunity to choose to live better.
We can decide how we wish to live if we have the courage to make that decision one step at at time.
All you have to do is find a little faith to do better. I found that faith and the man I married showed me how to settle down.
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