Time keeps on slipping into the future and if you don’t look around at who you surround yourself with, you can get lost into a toxic time warp that no one can survive. How do I know? I found myself in one a few years ago and I didn’t know I was lost until I found myself in a place I didn’t recognize so I literally cleaned my relationship house and made a swear to myself that I wouldn’t be so naive ever again. Not because I didn’t love the people in some capacity but because I chose to love myself more instead of chasing a love that didn’t exist.
Did I love them? Yes.
Did they love me? No.
Did it take losing myself to find out? Yes.
Do I regret it? Nope. It made me stronger.
Slipping through collected days, weeks, months, and years to the land of strong women that build others up, instead of faux relationships to sell products or a farce lifestyle. I can’t believe I made it to where I am and how much I’ve healed over time.
This new world is full of women who work, volunteer, parent, practice being healthy, and love the hell out of their friends and treat those friends like they actually matter through the major incidents in life. If you don’t have a solid crew, you’re going to feel incredibly lonely in life.
As I left that phase and entered into my life today, one wonderful woman entered in my life and has been a silent force in so many things I do today; her name is Anna May.
In the midst of the toxic time warp that I found myself in, I was also very new into my married life; around one month and I reached out to Anna to do a shoot with me to capture some images of myself in the era to give to my guy.
I went into the shoot with zero confidence. I felt shaken to the core of everything I just went through. Pain is pain and when you let someone into your life and they make you feel as though you’re unworthy, it can destroy your heart and mind when you realize it wasn’t real.
If you take a photograph of someone when they’re going through a difficult time, know that they’re going to feel stripped down as if they were completely naked and you’re their unforgiving mirror. I couldn’t see past my own eyeballs to know that I was the same person I was before that era, I needed to go through it because it was a lesson I had to learn.
Even typing this for you to read makes me feel incredibly vulnerable and naked to expose the things that have hurt me most but the beautiful part is that I’ve moved past it.
Being vulnerable to another human and allowing them to connect with you and live in that space with you, even if it’s just for a moment, the bond that you share with them can never be broken. I never knew this to be more true till my working relationship with Anna turned into a friendship over the last two years of collaborating with one another each month.
Through her life battles and mine, we’ve identified with one another, built each other up, and have relied upon one another for the conversations that we really can’t say to another person but for some reason can say to one another.
It stems from trust.
Trust has been built from the quantity of time that we’ve shared and the quality of those moments; for both aspects are mandatory to live wholeheartedly. Quantity of time with the wrong person is a death sentence because it’s missing the quality aspect that makes you thrive and ultimately gives you the best and healthiest existence in this very short life we live.
Anna has encouraged me to love the leather I live in as she’s complimentary of not only my current body status but to me to accept and love where I am.
Making someone feel confident is one of the most magical gifts we can give. She’s made me feel like it’s okay for me to grow and she’s helped me express the evolution that’s occurred within me throughout the course of the last 24 months.
Qualitatively impacting the quantitive days we’ve known one another has shown me that life isn’t worth living unless you’re willing to be vulnerable enough to show others your flaws and scars because those things you found ugly or shameful, will change with the right kind of support.
I pray my impact upon another is even half as measurable for that would be the ultimate legacy for me to leave behind.
Now pass me the tissues… I have a life to conquer!
