Letting go of a fairy tale.

It's been a little more than a year since I discovered that the life I was living was a complete fairy tale. The one thing I thought was for sure… turned out to be blissful ignorance.  

While there are many days I wish I hadn’t discovered the key(s) to pandora’s box, over the past 12+ months, I’ve come to realize that it was a complete blessing.

My life was real.

Authentic.

And, I was giving 100% to a relationship I thought was reciprocal. 

Over most of the past 12+ months, I’ve questioned if the person I’d become during the past 16 years was real.

Today, I’m done with that.

I was real.

I was faithful.

I was living a life that I loved with someone I loved wholly.

AND, I like who I became during those years.

I found myself, my voice and maintained the character of a person I wanted to be.

With that, I’m realizing more and more, that I can’t control what someone else did / does when sharing that life.

Now that I know the whole truth, I won’t regret a thing. 

All I can feel is gratitude and find a way to take my life to the next level, in spite of the disappointment and heartache I've experienced as the result of someone else’s choices.

Those weren’t my choices.

It’s my turn to take care of me, for the first time in my life, to put myself ahead of everyone else. Not in a selfish way, but in a self-care way. Living my life for someone else's dream is no longer an option.

And, while it’s taken almost a year for me to come to that conclusion, I’m ready to put that into action.

While the “action” part is coming slowly, I’m making progress. 

The fact of the matter is that I’ve had an amazing life so far. I loved being married and sharing my life with John. I miss it. I miss us. But I know now that most of those 16 years were full of deception. I won’t regret half of my life because someone else chose to disrespect it. My choices were honest, real and good. No matter what, I will continue to be that person.

It’s my hope that I’ve got another 40 years in me… and I trust those years will be even better than the last 43.

For now, I'm content letting things be and evolve without expectation. I'm also perfectly fine being on my own and surrounded by some pretty amazing friends and family. If at some point I discover there is someone out there who will not deceive me, or take my love, vows, loyalty and commitment for granted, I'll know what to do. 

God has lead me here. God has my back and has had my back. And, if I let myself surrender, God will show me the path that is laid out in front of me.

No more putting myself last.

It’s my time now… and I’m gonna make it count.