Lost & Found

Had you met me years ago, I would've told you that I was in love. There was almost always someone I was vying for to fill the cold space on the other side of the bed. What neither of us would've known was that I wouldn't understand how to open my heart fully until today.

It is not to say that I didn't have love and devotion for the ones who came before, but I didn't know how to BE loved.

Growing up, I was lead to believe my parents would protect me at home, and my elder brother would have me under his wing in the outside world. In a way, they all failed me. I blamed my mother for Gene Watson and every horrible thing he did to strip away at my humanity. In turn, I hated myself for hating that part of her that didn't see it happening just out of her reach. I remember the day I vowed to myself to never trust a man again. I grew to resent my father for essentially existing. And my brother, well, he made me an outcast the second those words left his lips on the bus that sunny afternoon.

I felt so incredibly alienated, like I was this bizarre person who had somehow done wrong. Most of all, I hated myself.

Over the years I found comfort in being alone, having the ability to cry without my family calling me out for it or friends to question the reasons why. I became consumed in my own mind, and I never even realized that I was vacant on the surface.

Time forgets the majority of pain, but numbness was the greatest gift of all. When I was seventeen, and had my first "true love" that gift was exchanged for something even more incredible. I was no longer just trying to survive, but for the first time in my entire life, I felt like I had a home. I was safe, and nothing could change that so long as I was with him. I've come to understand that although I thought I was whole, he was a band aid to the emptiness residing inside of me.

Many men came into my life and left just as quickly. I often used sex to ignite the fire in my heart that made me feel alive, validated, wanted. I was searching for the burning desire to be as happy as all the women in the pictures, flaunting engagement rings and perfect smiles to match. As they say, not all that glitters is gold. I was phening for something that I had no possible way to create or understand with the mindset I was in, and coping with the one thing that scared me the most.

There are few beings I can say with certainty that I have undoubtedly loved with every fiber of my being. One of them was my unborn son. I was eleven weeks by the time the miscarriage officially hit. You may be wondering how I can call it my son so prematurely, but as mine once told me, a mother just knows. I held him in my dream the day before I got the news there was no heartbeat. And I loved him. A part of me died with him. The other is my unfathomably incredible puppy. He has been licking the tears from eyes as I transform my thoughts into words and share them with you. I genuinely don't know if I would have my sanity still if it weren't for him.

Then there came an unexpected third. My heart will never be the same, and it's all thanks to him. I shall dub him by the name of Entirety, for it was him that showed me what it feels like to be loved through and through.

We both had and do have demons clawing us from the inside out. At first, I had sworn him off entirely. Perhaps my intuition knew he was going to change me, and my pup did too. I didn't think I could let go off the pain that had defined me for so long, but he was bigger than just love. He showed me what truly living feels like.

After his efforts continued to meet with me again, I caved. Although we were brought together under circumstances that should never have occurred, we bonded with an intensity so bold it made my soul want to claw out of my body and consume it with his. It took us only a few weeks to dedicate every waking moment together. Then we abruptly fell apart, only to realize we both had to get our heads on straight first.

I hurt him badly in the process, as he did me. I had believed it was beyond repair, and my heart shattered into a million tiny fragments. An aching force didn't let either of us walk away for good, only to take much needed time apart. Five months in he asked me to be his, and in that moment I surrendered my heart, as he did his mind. We each had to sacrifice the harrowing things that had created our pasts, and work to find our own future.

Never in my life have I felt so protected, cherished, and above all, Loved. With him there is no longer a question of trust, or the fear of uncertainty.

In minimal amounts of time we had blossomed ideas into memories, turned a broken pair into a family with the most amazing little pup to watch over and care for us both. Entirety is the reason my heart learned how to open, resentments released for good; and honest, real love formed. To all the times before, and all the days to come, I will love not only because of him, but for him.