Fresh Start? Nah, Fresh Heart

I threw my favourite blanket in the rubbish. I couldn’t stand the thought of waking up each morning and still have the image of you laying there beneath the covers. How do I sleep in the bed where you held me in your arms? I don’t, it’s gone. How do I look at the pictures from when we were happy? I won’t, they’re gone. How do I stop making sentences with ‘us’ and ‘we’? I

This house is no longer my home, but everywhere I look, is a reminder of you. I need to leave behind this house and every memory, every smell, every feeling, every sound that is you.

Try as I may to leave the past behind me and begin a new, I must first leave this room, and that is the hardest thing to do.

My fresh start is not to eat something different, nor is it to take up a new hobby. Instead, my fresh start is to find a new place to live. My fresh start is to somehow pick up all the burnt-up pieces of me that you left behind in your trail of destruction. Now I gather together the remnants of what I was and who I once was, before you told me who I had to be. Because in ruining your life, you ruined mine. I lost me.

I am trying to love again, not you, you lost that right to my love. Here, I must learn to love myself again and to accept that I can be loved. Because I know I am none of the things you told me out of anger. I am worthy of love and I am worthy to be loved.

This is not simply a resolution, a promise I make to myself. Instead, this is me trying to live again, a reason to get out of bed.

I am going to get out of bed every morning. Sounds easy enough to some. But the hardest part of fighting the crippling depression of the Post Traumatic Stress from an abusive relationship, is getting out of bed and rising to greet the sun. You see, at night, I lay awake in fear of the nightmares that follow me to my dreams. By morning, I am too tired from the fear, the crying, the anxiety. Getting out of bed feels like walking a mile-long rickety bridge up a steep slippery hill, it is impossible really.

But I am done with you telling me what’s impossible. I am done, with you holding me back from the life I was meant to live. I am done being under your thumb. There is nothing left for you to take from me; I have nothing you want, nothing left to give.

So, watch, as I not only find sleep in my bed tonight, but as I rise with the sun in the morning and greet the world with the same smile, I will have smiling back at me. Because nightmares, just like our so-called love, will not last forever. Watch me place my feet on the ground and stand tall and stand strong against the invisible weight of all the negative energy left behind by your deceit. Watch me overcome the lies and break down the walls a narcissist built to trick and entrap me.

It will take time, but I have all the time in the world. Because now, is the time for me and my beautiful little girl. This first year is going to be the most challenging, the most important thing I must remind myself, is to keep going. Remember to smile at every opportunity, remember to breath when it all becomes a little too much. Remember to move forward in ever aspect of my life. And most important of all, remember I have a daughter who I am a role model for and to teach her what it is to value and respect yourself. Teach her about the kind of people she should and should not let into her life and teach her about the love she deserves.

So, don’t look for me locked in my room any longer. I’ve gone to say good morning to the world.

Cos baby, this is my Fresh start and it starts with a Fresh Heart.