This might be a different kind of Monday motivation, but it’s raw and it’s real. They say happiness will find you; but I think sadness will find you too.
Over the years I’ve shared with you so much from my eating disorder to selling most of my possessions and traveling continuously as a “digital nomad” to my divorce and last week I shared how Europe was always “our thing.” Truth be told, I thought I had this; I thought I had this whole Europe thing, ready to create my own memories and make Europe my thing. Was I wrong getting to Paris.
I was surprised because Paris was a place that I never really cared for, yet visited various times, the first being part of our honeymoon. It was a place my Ex like and wanted to visit as part of our honeymoon. Being here brought back all of those raw emotions of the life I used to know, the old me, and my divorce. I brought back the melancholiac emotion of it all — the longing for what we had, a deep sadness, failure, loneliness, and wondering if we had made a mistake. So much so, my first night in Paris I even called my ex in tears… at 5am Paris time. It was a combination of things that influenced from the feeling of being ghosted by someone back home to being here but primarily because Paris was us, it was out thing. The next day I realized that it is ok to have these emotions. It’s ok to feel all the feels and let it out.
Sadness hits you sometimes just out of the blue, and you have to fight it over and over again until your heart would truly let go. Emotions are part of us, we can’t escape them but we can work our way through them – sadness, pain, and negative thoughts creep in no matter how hard you seal it, somehow it will leak. And the hardest thing is, all you need is a pinch of understanding that would be enough to let it out and move on. Forgiving yourself for making a fool out of you is a tremendous undertaking, but it starts with YOU and knowing you aren’t making a fool of yourself for letting it out.
Sometimes you have to let yourself feel all the feels and accept that you are human. Let yourself feel the way that you feel but also know that you are the one who has the power to redirect things in your life. This is all part of the process of moving on.
I’m sharing this with you to be authentic with you and share a struggle. Whether you can relate to divorce or not, we’ve all experienced a broken heart. Sometimes we don’t allow ourselves to fully grieve and we should. Even when you think you’ve made it through, it opens holes in what was solid ground, the kind you never know are there, until you go to take another step, and find you’re standing over the edge, seeing the world around you passes by in blurs of color and sound and nothing around you making sense.
As I am here in Paris, I’m learning to create a new memory of my own and honor my old life and memories created but most importantly, the friendship that my Ex-husband and I continue to hold.