Birthday Candles.

I looked in my rear view mirror and let out an exasperated sigh.
My lips were still trembling from screaming in the cold rain.

Did I look like I had just had a mental breakdown in my own driveway?
The faces of my expecting friends greeted me with pats on the back and candles.

I couldn't hear anything.
Not even their joyous happy birthday tunes as my eyes went a glaze over the candles thrust before me.

I couldn't see, feel, hear...anything.
Except the words I typed a few moments before, "Let's do this."

My morning was greeted with a cold cheesecake in the fridge, a glazed over stare and a "I'm going to sleep. Oh yeah, happy birthday."

I drove to school but never went in.
When your heart is shattered, even windshield wipers can dance on your frayed nerves.

I sped to the river, got out & screamed.
To no one.
To the rain I guess.
The rain was the only thing that had witnessed my birthday how it really was.

It saw the fists pounding on the pavement.
It saw the glove department destroyed with my shaking hands.
It saw me dump the contents that had made my life hell for the last two years all over the freshly waxed convertible.

"Happy birthday dear Britney! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday..."

As I pulled grass chunks from the mud and threw them into the river, I just sat.
I don't know how long I sat in the mud there, covered in so many emotions I couldn't pick which one to catch.

Then, in the midst of my pity party, my heart spoke.

"Enough is enough."

I hugged my friends necks, grabbed the left over sushi I had no intention of revisiting later that day.
I glanced at them longer than usual as I pulled away.
They had no idea that this would be the last birthday I spent by their sides.

I slept alone for the last time in that bed for an entire two hours.
The next day was filled with texts, phone calls and emails to friends of the bomb about to fall into everyone's world, including mine.

I had to take breaks after throwing clothes in my trunk, heaving and weeping as I thought about my father, my mother.

I let my back slide down the wall that had seen so much turmoil night after night.
I wiped my tears with my fist.
That was it.
The tears are over.
The bleeding has to stop.

Missy rushed over, hugged my neck after flinging the door open and helped me finish up the last of everything I possessed there-not much.

Some shirts, shoes & brokenness.

I left the brokenness hanging in the closet.

The question she asked next resonated in my ears.
"Why didn't you tell me all of this was going on?"

I didn't tell anyone.
I couldn't.
Acting okay is easier than admitting something is broken and you can't fix it.
No amount of time, screaming, loving, pushing for help can fix it.

Some things can't be fixed if they're not ready.
Sometimes you just have to walk away and start over.

Sometimes you've fought to stay aboard the ship, but the only way for both of you not to sink is for you to jump and take your chances with the sea.

I knew everything would change.
Friends would be lost, but friends would be made.

I had found something I was willing to tear down my reputation for if it meant building one somewhere new.

I knew what this would mean, but I swore to my heart this would be the last birthday I spent in a dark place; emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Stories would be told, but that was okay...because I was already finished with that chapter.

Hell, I was finished with that entire book.
If someone told it wrong, it was no longer my care.

The next morning I woke elsewhere.
Arrows flew all around me, but I remained untouched because those throwing them were so far away now...they just appeared as tiny specks behind me.

That's where they belonged anyway.

Is life all about being happy in the moment?
No.

Life is about living.
I was merely a shell, taking blow after blow until it was time to find a new home;
The one I now inhabited was no longer strong, no longer healthy, no longer protecting me from the conditions around me.
My shell was cracked from things I could not control.


So I migrated.

April 2, 2013 I went to bed with a soaked pillow and an empty house.

April 2, 2014 I went to bed with my husband playing with my curls and the sound of little sleeping breaths dancing up to the heavens just next door.

Pain doesn't just show up in our lives for no reason, it shows up to tell us something needs to change.

For me, it was time to promise myself that I would begin living from intention, not from habit.

I own everything that happened to me.
I will tell my story.
If I haven't written warmly of your character, then you should have behaved better.

End script.