The Dismantling

I recently saw a quote about the emotional dismantling of parts that no longer fit oneself in order to grow and when I read this, my writer's block subsided and I was flooded with the words that I had been trying to marry to my emotions as of late. The dismantling of certain seasons of life, of friendships, of past experiences perhaps that still feel like they are bruising your heart. And also in my instance, the physical dismantling of the house and the life we have known.

I will be 36 in less than a week and this last year I have spent a lot of time dismantling parts of my life that have laid untouched. Relationships that were long over their expiration, emotions and experiences during life that I had thrown deep within my heart for another time- hoping that I wouldn't have to face them until I felt a bit stronger. The physical dismantling of the home we have built for our little family. Packing away bits that were once in the background of our daily life. The walls of our home and some of the walls of my heart are starting to become bare. As I purposefully strip emotions and experiences that have leaned on my heart for to long- taking time to process them, coming to peace with them hoping that the bruise it left will heal after they are gone. I am starting to feel a hallowing in my heart and it feels empty and somehow at the same time lighter. Where once burdening emotions laid, an echo of its absence is left waiting to be filled with something great. It feels that I am dismantling so many parts of myself all at once. I hope what is left I can carry to this next season, this next chapter of my life and fill it with love, fill it with dreams, fill it with a life substance. 

I have dealt with the absence of closure before in my life. It is not ideal for a person that wears their heart on their sleeve. It leaves you with an achy heart. There is no mark on the timeline for knowing what was all okay just wasn't anymore. What do you do with things and friendships unrequited? Do you just slip those memories into your pocket or in a picture frame and hope that one day when you find them or you pass them by, you smile rather than sigh? It feels as though sometimes the laughter you once shared with that person(s) in your life just stopped echoing back. One day it was just gone. The dismantling of the unrequited.

Becoming a Mother once and twice over I have dismantled who I am once and twice over. If not many times before in different parts of my life. Often hoping the parts I chose to rebuild again were all the right ones. When you dismantle what is -it doesn't necessarily mean that it is immediately replaced. Sometimes it leaves a big open space, it can feel very lonely and sometimes it can also feel like lots of room for opportunity. Taking apart the place that you know as home and embarking on the space in-between- the in-between of what was and what will be feels scary. The dismantling pieces of yourself that you know no longer fit. Knowing that as hard as it is to rid yourself of them it would be harder to carry them with you. 

I have been trying to come up with an explanation of the space I have been in these last few months. This space I have been in since having a second baby. The space that I currently live in that one day soon will no longer be mine. Shedding layers of the old me exposing the tender and vulnerable new pieces of who I am. This space I am in, as I intentionally face the things I had tucked away in my heart in fear that it would leave me more bruised than before. 

Surprisingly I have found confidence in places I thought were my most insecure. Strength in the places I thought were my most weak, kindness in places I was not so kind, and parts of me that I never knew I had, that feel capable. 

It is hard to explain the feeling of a time in your life where most things are being stripped away and not necessarily being put back together simultaneously.  As I reflect on these pieces now disrupted, laying there raw and in no order or rhyme- I ask myself how do I feel? I am learning that I feel lighter, I feel better with broken pieces full of opportunity rather than pieces that feel heavy and tight like they had just been sitting in the wrong spots all along. I've torn it all apart and I feel a certain courage I didn't have before or perhaps that I have earned along the way to put it back together how I see fit. Perhaps that is the beauty that hides behind all the dismantling. 

A small note: I have said before I will always write with my raw emotion, my heart on my sleeve and sometimes it can feel like I am sharing shadows of my heart with the world. Sometimes it might make one feel uncomfortable because in life we so often hide behind what we don't share.  I hope that my writing inspires and tugs at you to not feel uncomfortable in your own emotions in the raw- I think you might find that you are stronger than you think and you may just inspire yourself.  Regardless if you relate or just enjoy the honesty- Thank you for being here. 

If you would like to pair this reading to music. I wrote and edited to “Behind every Decision” by Yehezkel Raz