How I Flipped My Switch

            Right around my 31^st birthday, I was feeling down on my luck. I was living alone in a basement apartment and I had just been dumped pretty hard. That spring I had been contacted on Facebook by a childhood sweetheart and in the course of 3 months my life had been turned upside down and I was back to where I’d started, only feeling much worse.

I don’t know exactly when it was, but I had a moment where I actually saw the light bulb come on in my head and I said to myself “This has to have happened for me for some reason” and it was in that moment that my thinking literally shifted and I realized that this experience, and the ones before it, happened not to me but for me. The guy had gained or lost anything. He seemed to fall out of the sky, shook the hell out of things and then took off, back to his simple existence. The universe brought this loser around to teach me a lesson. I can see now that the universe was trying to teach me in more subtle ways but I just wasn’t paying attention so it kicked my butt. What I learned in that particular lesson was that I was so desperate for a romantic partner that I was willing to give up everything that was important to me just to have one. Everything about the situation screamed THIS IS A BAD IDEA but I thought “Surely this is meant to be simply because it is so ridiculous”. I’m still not totally sure how I was justifying that. The whole thing stopped me dead in my tracks and after a few days of crying my eyes out, I realized I needed to get my ass in gear. I started seeing a counselor to help me process my feelings and get on a track that felt right. I moved in with a friend who had a spare room to rent and I surrounded myself with people who cared about me and supported me. I initiated contact with my biological father at that same time because I realized there are many people who love me and deserve to be in my life.

            The experience with that old boyfriend changed my life in a way that nothing else ever had. I could see the shift in my thoughts almost like they were discs sliding and locking into place. Ever since then, I see the world differently. Less than six months later, I lost my job and while it did devastate me to a certain point, I know I handled it in a completely different way than I would have a year earlier.

            Now is has been over two and a half years since “the incident” and sometimes I can’t believe it ever happened to me. The current me could never fall for that BS but I am truly thankful for the experience. I love who I am now and I know that makes it possible for others to love me and for me to give them my best in return.