Taking My First Step

What do you do when your whole world, not only falls apart, but basically explodes...everywhere?

Me? I implode. I always have. Of course, I know that's not the best way to handle things, but it doesn't change the fact that it's how I've always instinctually handled my personal crisis.

Don't get me wrong, if it's a crisis involving someone else, especially someone I care about, or who is important to me, you best believe I swing into action, like Captain Save The Day, and I expertly handle the situation with damage control and crisis management that would make your head spin. But, when it comes to matters of myself, or my heart, Im like a well-rigged skyscraper in the middle of a metropolitan city, felled with precision, atop of itself. Complete implosion.

The shrink in me will take this moment to point out that what I do in response to personal crisis is not what is supposed to happen.

Naturally, the proper course of action is to look for the cause of the explosion. This type of deep dive can take weeks, months, and sometimes, it could even take years. It can be confusing, it can be heartbreaking, and overall, it's a very difficult journey, to wade through the ashes of what's left of the life that was once so terribly important to you. Here is your entire existence, filled with everything that you have known and loved, now laid to ruin at your feet.

Yet, what do you do when you finally trace the explosion all the way to the source, and you find that the point of ignition rests within the works of your own two hands? That's where I currently find myself.

What do I do?

My instinctual response is to drop whatever imaginary weapons may be in my hands, shake my hands until they're clean of anything that could be damaging or hurtful, because I never had any intention of causing any harm, lest of all, blowing anything up!

If anything, I've done nothing but shape EACH of my actions and plans around building things that were new, healthy, and strong, for myself and my children.

HOW IN HELL DID MY NONSTOP STRUGGLE TO CREATE A SAFE AND LOVING LIFE FOR US WIND UP LEAVING ME STANDING IN THIS SEA OF ASHEN RUIN ALL THE SAME?!?

It has been said, over the years, that insanity is making the same mistakes over and over, then trying to resolve them each time, using the same methods, expecting different results.

As multiple versions of this adage play in my head, at various stages of thought in my days, I decided that I would approach this incident of utter ruin in my life by stepping outside of what I have always instinctually known.

Therefore, as much as it has been my desire and nature to implode (and at first, my actual response), I decided that this ridiculous cycle of heartache and heartbreak and suffering absolutely has to stop. So, like my Dad used to tell me, if nothing else was going to be the change, I was going to be the change I needed to see in my world, which started with me putting on the cap of emotional arson investigator, and tracing the explosion back to the source (Which I did).

Upon doing so, when I discovered, much to my chagrin, that, whereas there were scores of things that added to the perfect storm which ignited this explosion, it was I, who could have avoided it, if I'd known how at the time. Additionally, it was I who could have handled the aftermath differently, had I known how at the time.

Since there's not a single thing I can do about what has already happened, the ONLY thing I could even HOPE to do at this point is to trace my own fault back to their sources, so that they can be corrected, as much as is within my ability to do so, so that, if I ever find myself in a position similar to this again, HOPEFULLY things will turn out better than they have thus far.

Shall we begin?