Walking away.

People say it takes courage to walk away, to start a new life, sounds great right?

What they don't tell you is just how many people will exit your life in the process, how many interests, groups, connections, communities and parts of self that also get left behind.

It's certainly hard not to take people's advice, judgment, disappointments and perceptions to heart, but you discover the truth lies within those small parts of self we still recognise they are the ones that with space and healing we can grow, learn and see that the path ahead. It may be hard, scary, anxiety inducing but also in time as we grow more authentic, more full of life, happiness and hope. Beginning again at 38, in all aspects of my life and living alone for the first time ever, gave me the space to process, learn, grow and decide who I was and where I was going. Not just for my kids, for me.

There were extreme highs and lows, moments of loneliness, peace and rest. Whilst you never take your mum hat off and I missed my kids deeply, having the space to be me, making all my decisions for me was liberating. It was like being a 38 year old teenager alone in the world for the first time, flying solo and free from compromise, control and guilt. Scary but exhilarating, and yes to counteract the loneliness I became a single crazy cat lady.

In time, I finally began to see I was not everyone's perceptions, wants, needs and projections, I was a strong, sensitive, intuitive, funny, weird, truth speaker deeply spiritual, deeply caring- I was not broken, I was transforming out of the mould which I never fit into.

This is where I have to give a shout out to Glennon Doyle and her book Untamed: https://untamedbook.com. This book I read for years, my therapy, finally someone who understood what it was like to feel trapped in a life that wasn't yours. There were so many beautiful quotes which helped me through and gave me the strength to move forward.

Just before I built up the courage to leave, I read this chapter, it has never left me:

“Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist.

What a terrible burden for children to bear—to know that they are the reason their mother stopped living. What a terrible burden for our daughters to bear—to know that if they choose to become mothers, this will be their fate, too. Because if we show them that being a martyr is the highest form of love, that is what they will become. They will feel obligated to love as well as their mothers loved, after all. They will believe they have permission to live only as fully as their mothers allowed themselves to live.

If we keep passing down the legacy of martyrdom to our daughters, with whom does it end? Which woman ever gets to live? And when does the death sentence begin? At the wedding altar? In the delivery room? Whose delivery room—our children’s or our own? When we call martyrdom love we teach our children that when love begins, life ends. This is why Jung suggested: There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.”

― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

Suddenly, it hit me I had to role model self love, self respect and real happiness for my children and as painful as it would be for them one day I hoped they would get it. My mum showed me the strength of being a single mum, it was my turn. I decided to teach my kids to never settle, especially in places that make you feel small or to lose yourself and always remember you are a "God Damn Cheetah."

I am forever deeply grateful for those who stood by me through the storm which came from divorce, leaving a toxic marriage and adjusting to only having my children half of the time.

“Here's to The Untamed:

May we know them.

May we raise them.

May we love them.

May we read them.

May we elect them.

May we be them.”

― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

Untamed quotes courtesy of: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/73600042-untamed