As my life is changing in so many ways, this old blog and it’s persona will no longer work for me. I have a new blog to share my new life and you are just one click away. See you there! <3

ME.MELISSA.ANN
↑psst…click here↑

The word “resolution” has a few different definitions. Having the will power to carry through on a goal is what is most often meant when declaring a New Year’s resolution, but I would like to create mine from another of the word’s definitions. For the last few months everything in my life has been in conflict which is not a state that I wish to continue in. I want to find a resolution. Instead of having a New Year’s resolution, 2011 will be my New Year of Resolution.

This year I will become completely independent. No more will I depend on others for my own happiness or emotional well being. I know what makes me happy and I will go after it at every opportunity. This year I will complete the building of my business and excel in it and never again will I depend on someone else for my financial stability. This year I will fill in the gaps that someone else has left in the lives of my children, I will not allow confused and immoral people to take anything from their spirit or their future.

This year I am reborn. Never again will I be any man’s woman – I will be my own woman from this day forward. I will love myself. I will learn to be selfish and I will take whatever I want whenever I want it. When I have a decision to make, I will consider myself and my own desires first. I will be my own #1 priority. I will not depend on anyone because I will not need to – I am born whole just like every other person on this planet and I will start acting like it.

2011 – The Year of Resolution

My theme song for 2011 – ‘I Choose’ by India Arie:

I think a lot about the paths that have brought me to this destination. The strange thing is that I feel old already because of of where I have been. The paths that led to here have been quite eventful; some of it delightful and much of it pretty painful. I am really starting to understand that I have consistently chosen the most difficult course all in almost every major decision in my life. I am not sure if that is a negative thing, necessarily, because I am learning a whole lot about myself and the rest of the world from the lessons brought on by my choices.

I sort of feel like an orchard. All my trees have been cut down and now I am engulfed in flames. Sometimes the fire is so intense that I get lost in it and feel desperate for a way out. In spite of this I cannot help but look towards the future when all the smoke has cleared. One thing about having everything destroyed is that I am forced to start over in life. I think it is during times like this that we have a very rare opportunity to really control our own destiny. When your field is cleared and fertile, you can grow whatever you want. Once you choose a path and start off in that direction, your choices and actions become limited. The times that I chose the more difficult path and sacrificed my own dreams or happiness; those decisions were based on limitations that were caused by the primary path that I was on.

So I am trying to figure out what I really want from my life now because I am in the unique position to go after anything that I want. I am free of so many limitations that existed up until this point. The truth is that I have never liked the idea of the American Dream. I bought into the whole thing because that is what my husband wanted and I was on a path that accommodated his desires over my own. If left to my own devises I would probably be living in a yurt in some hippie commune right now or have run off with the Peace Corp or something outrageous like that.

My kids and my business are 2 constants in my life that will tag along wherever I go, but the rest is really up to me. I am incredibly lucky that I can build and run my business from my laptop in any place that has an internet connection and I am not tied to an office or a schedule. My children are homeschooled so even they are free of the time and place constraints that are imposed on most children. I want to travel to exotic places and give my children the opportunity to experience the places that other kids only read about. I want to make a real difference in this world, the kind where the benefits of my contributions outlive my physical existence on this planet.

I love to give and share. I thrive on learning new things and understanding everything. This is who I am and in the past I was not able to fully achieve my potential in these things because there is not much room for giving, sharing, learning, and understanding in the American Dream. You really cannot have both lifestyles as they are so deeply conflicting. I know where I want to be in five years now and I am really excited about it, but I am no longer content in being excited about the future while my present is not anything resembling what I want. That whole topic is for another blog post though.

For now my focus is on moving in the direction that best suits my values and my passions. I can see a tough road ahead, everyone must go through struggle when first starting out in life which is what I am doing, but I have always enjoyed a challenge and am no wimp when it comes to hard work. I feel lucky in that I have learned so much and am in a much better position spiritually and intellectually to make good decisions than the last time I was starting out 10-15 years ago.

I am scared, it is hard to not look back. As a matter of fact, I look back all the time at the field of trees that used to stand here. I try to conjure them up again, but clearly this is not possible. I am conflicted at my very roots between the life I had (or at least the life I thought I had) and the life I am building now. They are both so wonderful and so full of risk.

The truth is I want this freedom, I want to be who I was always meant to be, but it is my own fear of the unknown and not wanting to leave what is safe and comfortable that prevents me from going forward in this new direction with full force. Of course my life as a partner to someone else is no longer safe or comfortable, it is over and cannot provide for me any longer.

Logically, I know this is just a part of life — a process that I will eventually get through and move past, but in the present, that knowledge does not ease the hurt or the fear and my emotional self very often refuses to pay any attention to my logical self.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3 verses 1 – 8

I look at the world and I see that humanity is in a long and painful labor. I first started feeling this about 8 years ago, maybe 10. It is hard to pinpoint, just like most prodromal labors. The world the way we know it is dying or leaving the warm and comfortable womb that we have known for a very long time and we are in the midst of a process that will bring about a new life for everyone. It is scary and it is painful and there is no way to judge just how long it will be before we emerge from this state into the next.

No one is happy anymore. Everyone to the left, to the right, and in the center are in a state of distress. This is not just happening in the country I live in. This is happening in Canada and Mexico, our neighbors on both sides. This is happening in Europe, in Asia, and the Middle East. People are clashing against their governments en masse. A very few are attaining vast wealth while millions who have previously enjoyed a comfortable life are being shoved into poverty. Then there is all the election fraud – on both sides – in countless countries. There are overt wars, secret wars, and rumors of wars. These things are piling up and it seems to me that the world is just now entering transition, the part of labor that is most intense.

The problem here is that this has been a very slow labor. In my experience, a slow labor leads to a long and excruciating transition (as opposed to a quick and excruciating transition). Having a long labor also makes it much more difficult in the pushing phase, which is the phase that ushers in new life and the one you need to conserve your energy for.

I don’t know if most people can see what is happening. I (purposely) have not had access to mainstream media for four years now, which is where most people get their beliefs about the world. The circle of life is just that, a circle. It goes round and round repeating itself over and over without end. I really do not need to know what happened today to predict what will happen tomorrow. I can look at world history and see the same story repeated again and again in every region on this planet.

So often (too often really) when we look back in history for today’s answers we look at WWII and the rise of Hitler’s Germany. I think this is a bad habit as all labors are different. The whole world has gone through utter chaos and emerged anew many times over – each and every one of those stories hold important lessons for us today. If we use a set pattern from just one example, we are bound to see pathology where there is none and to miss true precursors for tragedy because our knowledge and experience is so very limited.

I am at a loss and do not know how to express what I see or how to protect those that I love from what is to come. One thing I know, is that once labor begins, there is no stopping it until the baby emerges. We are all in this mess and we are all going to experience this transition, that is something that I am certain of. I suppose that we even have epidurals — our jobs, our prime-time TV, drugs and alcohol, shopping, and so on, but this will not prevent any damage to the mother or her child, it will only make them numb, which in itself can cause serious complications and even death.

I have no answers, only a warning. Each one of us needs to look at our lives and decide what is truly important and focus on strengthening those things. Everything that comes into existence will one day cease existing, that is the nature of life. We must live in the present and appreciate each moment for its perfection. The next moment may be one of loss, so enjoy richness while you have it. That goes for monetary richness, richness in love and in friendships, in nurturing, in beauty, in health and energy. These are all valid vehicles for joy and they can all come to their end quite suddenly.

Also know that just as good things in life will end, so will bad – everything ceases, everything has an end.

Almost 4 months ago, my husband left me for another woman. I cried, begged, screamed, and did everything in my power to save my marriage, but the man I knew had changed into someone who simply did not care. He was cold and heartless and showed no mercy as he told me over and over that he had never loved me and he did not want to try and work things out – it was over. Now he is busy building a new life free from the responsibilities of a wife and family and I have been left behind to heal and move on while caring for the three awesome kids that we brought into this world.

Why am I revealing this in such a public forum? The reason is that I need cleansing, a new and fresh slate. I am now a single mom to 3 very young children and my heart and my spirit have been shattered into a million pieces. I want to start a new story for myself and my new, smaller family. My hopes and dreams from before will never be realized. I need to make new hopes and dreams. My past has been erased by confessions that everything between me and my life partner was merely a charade on his part. Everything that held so much meaning in my life has been rendered meaningless. I am 33 years old and starting over by no choice of my own, but I am trying very hard to accept the hand that has been dealt as I can see now that I have no other choice.

I am on a journey of self discovery which has been wonderful and horrible all at the same time. Looking back, I know now that the man I thought I knew was really a figment of my imagination. Now, he is the figment of someone else’s imagination and I am living in reality for the first time in my adult life. For the past 10 years, the words “wife” and “mother” have been the words that define me, Now the words “single” and “mother” define me and I want to embrace this new definition and find happiness in it. I am better off now because I am no longer being disrespected by someone who clearly did not value me in any way. I am no longer being used or lied to. I am, in fact free for the first time in my life.

Almost 10 years ago, I gave up my career so I could build a family with a man that traveled with his work. I was in the real estate information industry, not a travel friendly career at all. I was assured time and time again that it was alright, he would take care of us financially and I would take care of the home and kids. This was a very difficult thing for me to do and I cried many times about loosing something that I had worked very hard to build and something I wanted very much. It took several years for me to come to terms with my change in roles. Morphing from a career woman to a stay-at-home mom was one of the most difficult things I ever did. It turns out that morphing back 10 years and 3 kids later is just as difficult.

Some days I am filled with fear about my future and that of my children. Of course it is my love and devotion to those kids that helps me find my strength inside and muster it to the surface. If it were not for them, I might just crawl into a hole somewhere and not come out until this pain in my heart is gone. Right now, I cannot even imagine ever being happy, but I know that the pain will fade and my smile will eventually come from a place of sincerity.

While I am the owner of a business, it is still in the development stage and not yet providing income for me. I fear being thrust back into the working world in the middle of a very serious financial crises knowing that minimum wage is not enough to live on, but it is all I can expect after being unemployed for close to 10 years. The unemployment rate in my county is at a scary number, a job may not even be available for me. I am scared to raise my children in financial lack, I wanted so much more for them than what I had as a child.

I am scared that my children will become statistics – delinquents, drug users, suicidal, trouble makers, failures in education, and all the other things that children in single parent homes are at a higher risk of. The vast majority of people who find themselves in prison before their 18th birthday are from single parent homes. Same goes for teenagers who attempt suicide, most of them from single parent homes. Sometimes I wonder how I can take care of three small people and be enough for them when I feel so broken and scared myself.

I fear that I will be alone forever, never really having the love and connection I imagined that I had the last 10 years. Who would want a middle aged mother of 3 kids? I mean really want, like cherish and love. Not just some meaningless physical relationship, but true love and commitment to me and all that comes with me. I can’t even imagine dating anyone even if I were not so busy raising my kids and building my business. I have loved and belonged to one man since I was a teenager and have not even looked at other men in over a decade.

There are some days that I am filled with hope and confidence though and I am proud to say those days are becoming more and more frequent as time goes by. The truth is that I am even more capable than I was when I gave up my career so many years ago and even if I had to take a minimum wage job, it would not take long for me to get promoted to a higher paying and more stable position. I have always been good at climbing ladders. I am really good at a whole lot of things. In fact, I am the most resourceful person that I have ever met.

I also am a very good mom, in touch with my kids and ready and willing to give them all that they need in this transition and in life. I know for a fact that they will not become statistics because I am preemptive in my guidance and nurturing. I have already read 5 books on the subject of parenting through divorce and single parenting and have been intensely studying child psychology and child development since I was pregnant with my first child. If anyone is prepared to guide kids through something like this, it is me.

As for being alone, I think I could use some aloneness for a while. I have realized in the last couple months just how much of myself I have given up to be in a marriage with someone who was so different from me. The truth is that the father of my children does not have the same values or goals in life as I do. In many areas we are polar opposites and I have always been the one to bend when our differences threaten our relationship. It is going to take a lot of time and introspection to be authentically me again, I have to do this alone. When I am done finding myself, if there is anyone deserving enough to be my partner, he will come into my life and accept me for all that I am. If not, it will be okay because I will love myself enough to fulfill my deepest needs. I really do not need another person to be whole, no one does. That whole idea is nothing but an illusion anyway and I really like reality as truly living in it eliminates disillusionment all together.

I hope to write more about my journey as I travel down this path. Maybe my words will someday help someone else who ends up facing the same challenges in life. For the next few days, if I can find the courage, I may post some journal entries that I have written in the last couple months. I have to admit that I have been keeping my situation a secret  from most of my friends and family because I have been ashamed, but recently a really good friend has helped me realize that this shame does not belong to me. I am, indeed, a very awesome person who does not deserve and could not stop what has happened, but am well equipped to deal with it and I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide.