Life Ain't Always Beautiful...

A foolish girl once said that you know when you’re in recovery. That when you get there you will never go back. You will pick yourself up every time you fall. You will be amazingly, amazing (if that’s at all possible). And you will shine.

That girl was me.

Now I know the truth. I now know that even though recovery is an amazing place to be. It’s not actually a place. It’s a journey. There are times when you will plow forward running, not walking. And there will be times when you will take two baby steps forward and one gigantic step back. You will feel happy and alone and unappreciated all at the same time. And through it all you will wonder what is wrong with you because now you know what happiness; true, genuine happiness feels like.

I thought this would be it for me; that I would never struggle again. I looked down upon those who kept holding on and pretended they were okay. I looked them in the eye when they said they didn’t know what to do and told them that they did, but didn’t want to do it. I was one of those people who I despise. The people who think they are better than everyone because truly, I thought I was. I thought I had overcome this obstacle that life/God/the universe had thrown me, but little did I know that there was more to come. There is always more to come. And right now I honestly don’t know what to do.

Have you ever heard that song with the lyrics “the struggles make you stronger and the changes make you wise and happiness has its own way of taking its sweet time?” I have been listening to that song a lot lately and I truly believe there is a huge lesson to be learned. Everything that has brought me here has made me the person I am today. I am stronger, wiser, and happier because of the struggle, change, and time that I have gone through. And I know a month, a year, or 10 years from now I will be saying the same thing about this time in my life.

I am not perfect. And I no longer believe that I can have a perfect recovery--I can only have my own. I can choose to wake up each day and be happy to be alive or I can cry for all the things that aren’t going so well. And even on those days when I choose to be sad, I can still get up, take a breath, put one foot in front of the other, and tell myself that even if I don’t know what to do, everything will be okay. I will get there when the time is right.

At the beginning of the year, I made a Post-it wall. I wrote down things that I wanted to be mindful of throughout the year, things I wanted to accomplish. One of them is to apologize. I am not very good at admitting when I am wrong or when I have made a mistake. I try to avoid the situation or lie to make someone else look like they are to blame. I think I lie to myself the most. I hate getting constructive criticism and tell myself that people don’t really know what my life is like. That I am doing my best and that’s all I’ve got. But the truth is there is always room for self-improvement and this is my first step in that direction.

To everyone that I have lied to, told to suck it up, rolled my eyes at for the mere fact that you didn’t know “what to do,” I’m sorry. I have learned that life “ain’t always beautiful, but it’s a beautiful ride.” And I’ve learned that sometimes you fall and it takes a long time to get back up, but sometimes just wanting to get back up is the first step.

We are all amazingly, amazing. We are all shining.
Even through the darkest times in life.