From Broken To Fixed…
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Sometimes, you just have to let it all burn…
It was in the absolute darkest period of my life that I found meaning and purpose.
Even now, as I write these words, I feel the tears welling up in my eyes, remembering where I once was.
I lost everything. In the space of a few months, I lost my well paying job, the house I invested everything in, and the woman I thought who loved me.
For me, it was like being in the boxing ring and taking three haymakers to the jaw.
Down for the count.
For a while, I persevered, because that’s what I was raised to do. The alcohol helped. So did the casual sex.
I found another relationship. I made plans to regroup. I lived with hope for the future.
Life wasn’t through with me just yet.
Over the next few years, I made decisions and mistakes that would bury me even deeper.
Why?
Because I hadn’t dealt with years of pain. I simply lived in denial and built on a foundation of sand.
I broke the heart of a woman who was nothing but good to me by promising to love her, then breaking that promise.
I sold her dreams I could not fulfil.
What was done to me, I in turn did to someone else.
I relocated to Scotland, where my luck and money soon ran out.
Still, I kept up a brave front, playing a game with myself that if I just stayed positive, I would be okay.
I was not. I was broken.
Time passed, and I wanted to resolve my past. I went to look up Jennifer, my former love. Not to ask for forgiveness, but to express remorse for my cruelty, however unintentional. I wanted to atone, and give her the apology she deserved.
I was too late. She died a few years earlier after a long illness.
The few broken pieces of me that were left shattered completely.
It was here that I had what I call a ‘dark epiphany.’
If I was going to make it back into the light, I would have to go into the darkness.
All the pain of my past I would have to address and confront.
So I did.
I took my pain and sorrow and I learned from it.
I examined it and made peace with it.
And I cried. Many times.
And hand over hand, inch by inch, I crawled up, back into the light.
I’m in a new relationship now. One that I treasure. I travel. I appreciate the beauty I see.
We’re making plans to move to the Netherlands. I have my own business as a music composer and producer.
I live. I love. I speak my truth.
I have to learn to live with my failures and mistakes. I must take responsibility and learn from them.
I have to live with the wreckage of my past life.
You must however, take the negativity, the inertia, the fear, all the harmful byproducts of past mistakes, and set them on fire.
Burn them. Burn them to the ground.
Walk away from them and never look back.
Every day, strive to be a better person than before.
You won’t always succeed. Some days you will come up far from the goal line.
That’s alright. As long as you have breath in your body, you can try again.
And as long as you keep trying, you will never fail.
And that’s it.
