Finding Gratitude

For the longest time, I thought being broken and miserable was romantic. And I thought that wrapping myself up in a blanket of anger would keep me safe from being hurt. For a while, it worked. I kept myself in one piece. There was something mysterious about me being a broken person. Then, I wanted to be angry because I was so heartbroken. These emotions are essential phases of the journey. The fact is: these emotions are no longer serving me, which leaves me with only one direction to go — toward gratitude.

When you realize you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s a moment of sheer terror. I remember thinking, How could I have fallen this far? It’s as if I finally finished tumbling down a cliff and have looked back up to where I’d been standing not too long ago. The cliff behind me seemed so tall, but the cliff in front of me was even taller.

It isn’t very reassuring to constantly feel like you have to climb. It can be downright exhausting. Each time I feel like I have made some progress, something seems to go awry, and I end up stumbling downward again. All I can say, for sure, is it’s been one hell of a year.

Yet progress has been made in a remarkably short amount of time. Once I woke up, I woke up hard. I’m feeling the effects of all my mistakes and choices that led me to this place, and I can say — I don’t regret a single second of the emotional hardship. Each step on the healing journey has led me to be where I am now. It’s emotionally authentic again. I’m writing every day again. I don’t feel like I’m just going through the motions of living anymore.

There’s still plenty to fix around the house and in the yard, too, but it doesn’t feel insurmountable. I have a lot of work to do in my heart, my head and at my job, and I can’t just cruise at a comfortable speed. I have to catch up to the rest of the world. So, in a way, I feel like I’m speeding toward another hard recovery, riding a high wave of energy that will ultimately lead me to the next big challenge to overcome. But in another way, I am grateful for the woman I have been in the last two years.

I made a hell of a lot of sacrifices at my own expense, and I’ve put myself through the wringer, too. I squeezed out every bit of myself to make room for who I was supposed to become. I kept being told I had to “get back to” who I was, that I had lost myself on the journey. But there was nothing left to “go back” to.

While processing all of the twists and turns my heart has taken in the last two years, between failed relationships, lost friendships, and rebuilding a community, I realized something fundamental: I had gratitude for the person who broke my heart. It was a brief and torrid love affair that set me on the trajectory I’ve been on for the last twelve months. Each lesson built on the next until I could weave together the narrative of what I was supposed to learn.

There was something to go back for in the end—the truth.

The truth is that my last boyfriend just wasn’t a nice person. And he’d be the first to admit it. He asked me repeatedly, “Why are you with me?” It was a joke but also an honest question. (Sorry, dude. But it’s true. You can be a first-class dick. And you’re proud of that. I can hear you laughing at this parenthetical.)

Finding a reason to be grateful is critical. I have set myself this task regardless. Finding a reason to be grateful is critical even in the most challenging times trying to do when he ended our relationship. Coming out on the other side isn’t impossible. He pushed me to stand on my own. He didn’t dump me; he launched me.

And that’s the lesson of this spring. I’m finally trying to blossom after a long winter. I’m finding gratitude behind my barbell again for the first time in years. I forgot how much I loved throwing heavy things. I used to have to force myself to leave the house, but now I’m excited to go to the gym, even if I’m not able to do all the things I used to. Even if I have to rebuild my body as well as my heart and my mind. I did it all once, so I can do it again.

And maybe my journey can help you launch too. Even if your heave lift isn’t behind a bar, you can lift heavy things. So, let’s lift together.