I had an email exchange this week that I have been thinking about… it touched on my current outlook on life… specifically the ability to portray positivity in a very negative place. I thought it would be helpful to share my thoughts as it has been extremely important for me throughout this journey so far to continually check in on my emotional state… make sure that everything that I am portraying is authentic and that I do not fall back into my “old ways” of putting on the smile… even when I feel broken inside. I also think it is important to share (from someone who knows all too well) how detrimental the skeletons in our closet can be to our lives and the lives of our loved ones. When we live every day having to make sure that the lies we have told stay hidden… or that “thing” that we did that we don’t want anyone to find out about haunts us every night as we try to go to sleep… we aren’t living… we are simply surviving and that survival mode mentality is a horrible place to exist. Having the courage to come clean and admit our wrong-doings… unravel the lies we have told… apologize to someone we have hurt…it is all going to be extremely difficult to do… but the pain of today will be MUCH better than the devastation of what is to come the longer the skeletons linger….
The email that I received was asking if I was “okay”… checking in on me and allowing me the space to make sure that the image I was portraying “in text” (via blog posts) was actually how I felt internally… that it is alright to show the bumps in the road… as life is not easy and especially in my situation… it would be understandable to “not be okay”.
My response…
Thank you for your email and checking in… I am doing okay. The crazy part about this whole thing… and my life over the past many years…. is that I was living an absolute hell… every single day… a hell that I created and perpetuated. I had a battlefield going on in my mind at all times and even in the good moments… the boys…family… friends… it all had a backdrop of grief and anxiety because somewhere in my brain… I knew that it was all bullsh*t… that it would all end at some point. I knew that I would disappoint all the people that I loved (and loved me)… that I would break my wife’s heart… that I wouldn’t be able to be the present Dad that I wanted to be. All of this… every single day.
And now… although it is absolutely excruciating to be away from my boys and loved ones… I am free. I am free from that mental warfare. I have no lies to hide… I have no skeletons in the closet… I know that when I am on the other side of this… I will genuinely be able to be mentally and physically present for my boys and the people that I love. And for that… I am so grateful and it gives me the hope that propels the positivity.
Do I have shi*y days… hell yes I do. Do I go and walk the track alone some times and just drown in the absurdity that is my life right now and how I would do absolutely ANYTHING to be able to go back and kick the sht out of myself for even considering making some of the decisions that I made and be able to change my path… 100%. But that isn’t reality so the only thing I can do is stay positive and try to do everything that I can to help the people that I have the ability to try to help in here (and out there) until I am on the other side.
I hope this gives some insight into the freedom that comes with honesty… I hope it doesn’t take something so horrific as my situation to allow you to “clean out your closet” but whatever it takes… do it. Do it for yourself and do it for the people around you that love you. I am learning and will continue to learn every day for the rest of my life how important honesty really is… how words are extremely impactful and how keeping your word should be one of your most coveted super powers.