Single on Valentine’s Day
My food pics will be up on a separate post! This is a recap and a wish for Happy Valentine’s Day!
Body:
Yoga! I did another podcast mostly because I again worked all morning and had job#2 all night so I had little time in between to go anywhere other than my Yoga Mat in the living room!
It was very similar to the podcast friday and I did get a great sweat going for the 30 short minutes I had! 30 minutes is way better than 0 minutes, right?! I have usually been an “all or nothing” type with exercise, but I have slowly been realizing that you get it in whenever you can. Based on statistics and studies, exercise broken up into short sessions throughout the day or over the course of a week is just as effective as long workouts. Be Active!
Mind:
In two days, I revised an entire Grade for my job#1 (updating nutrition curriculum for the state)… phew! I now have to focus on research for Sunday before heading into job #2 (Guest Service Associate at Bonefish Grill).
Have you ever worked at a restaurant? I was happily surprised to see just how busy we were both Friday night, Saturday night and today Sunday- Valentine’s Day! We had every reservation slot booked from 4 pm until 10 pm , and went on a 3 hour wait! It was interesting because I just kept going through it all- It didn’t feel busy because there are only a certain amount of tables so when we go on any kind of wait, it is just a matter of how quickly we can reset a table and re-seat it. Usually this process ends about 8:30 -9 pm but last night, it was still go, go, go until 10:00! I got home at 11:00, when the restaurant closes. It hit me and I fell asleep so fast!
Soul:
Oh Valentine, Oh Valentine. I know that several new readers have joined me here and most of you do not know that I spent most of 2009 engaged.
Past tense, meaning I am no longer engaged or married.
I lost everything, the love of my life, my best friend, the only person that I feel ever “got me”. I lost my house that I came home to, the place I wanted to make our home and my dog- who kept me company and joined me on countless walks. Gone were my friends, all the people I thought I called friends anyhow and if this wasn’t enough I lost family too.
I lost two wonderful parents, two sisters to get nails done with, brothers, countless uncles, aunts and grandparents. No, no one has died (fortunately). I am positive that I could “keep in touch” with them. Keeping in touch, however, is a completely different level than Sunday dinners, birthday parties, and Halloween trick-or-treating with nieces and nephews though. This sounds almost morbid as I type but it comes down to losing “ours” because truly it was “his”. I gave back the ring and found an apartment by myself, so he also got money and a roommate as well.
Until recently, I was just in shock of what can only be compared to divorce. I didn’t want to look at it that way but honestly, how can you not!? It was a loss on a tremendous scale that I could never have imagined happening to us. The life that was supposed to be “ours” disintegrated into “his”. The life that I thought we were sharing was ripped out from underneath me and I’ve had to start over, building up piece by piece on my own.
Notice I have not mentioned “fault” because this damage could only be caused by two, relationships take two. In most break-ups, its just a matter of “not the one, move on to mr. right now”. There may be a sense of loss but the reality of huge life-changing loss is not there. Everything that I knew and everyone that I had was ultimately ”his” not “ours” as I had thought.
“Relationships are hard” and “marriages take work”, yes this is true. The hard part of relationships, the work, for me was maintaining “mine”. Maybe it was immaturity on my part, because I had to learn along the rocky path how to do that. I had shared most of “his” so I usually felt filled up to my capacity and no longer knew what “mine” meant. I most certainly felt that he didn’t share “mine”, another recent discovery. How do you get someone to want to share in “yours” if you have lost what “yours” meant?
People offer sympathy or advice with such positive intentions. (thank you to those that have, you know who you are). My favorite is “Everything happens for a reason”. Very true and out of all this tremendous loss, I know that I have capacity to gain. I have been rebuilding my dreams, my plans, my friends, my life. I’ve started gaining more in the past three months than I have in the past three decades ( okay maybe not decades but you get the jist).
For anyone that is single on valentine’ day, I want to share with you what a truly wonderful friend of mine shared with me. “You’ve got to keep looking forward and be open to change, challenges, and new additions to your life. Think of your capability to manage your time, be responsible, and still set high standards and accomplish them. When you look at what you’ve gained you’ve got to be somewhat appreciative for what you have and what is yet to come….Great things!”
