Goodbye

I did it. I drove hundreds of miles by myself. I arrived in Phoenix Arizona. I am sitting currently in the condo I rented, looking out at the pool, palm trees and sunshine. 

What 48 hours can do. What you can feel in 48 hours. What I feel now. I am sitting here just taking it in. It feels a bit hard to even land on what I am actually feeling. 

I was prepared to turn on an audible book and zone out for the 21 hour drive. I had a lineup 

ready. Escaping into other worlds and stories. It’s an escape from my own world. I was prepared to do this because I knew it would be a close your eyes and jump type of moment for me to do this. So putting my brain somewhere else was something I was planning to do to ensure I did the thing. 

I was not prepared for my reaction. That I didn’t want to zone out. I wanted to feel it all. I didn’t need to escape. I needed to feel. 

The tears dropped for the first few hours. It just felt like the most massive goodbye. Goodbye to him. Goodbye to what I knew. Goodbye to the dreams I still couldn’t get out of my brain. With every mile I drove away from him I knew it was another mile of closing the door on us. Even though that door closed awhile ago. My heart had to catch up. 

It felt like a massive goodbye to the woman I was still holding onto. The one that was holding on so damn tight that she lost herself. She lost her purpose and her self worth. And I honestly haven't processed it enough yet to know why that felt so painful in letting her go. Maybe it's just my wanting to always hold on. It hurts to let go. 

The direction I was heading was not a direction she or he could come anymore. And god did that crack my healing heart open again in feeling that; in realizing that fully. Letting go is one of the most painful experiences I have felt on this earth. It hurts every single time. Time will heal that wound. I know this from experience. But she and him…I so badly wanted it. So not allowing them to come with me this time, felt impossible and yet I kept driving in the direction away from them. 

The fear crept in. I wish I wasn’t so scared of the world. I am not sure why or how that happened. But the world scares me. It scares me a lot. Here I am doing some massive long drive alone. Hoping for a better tomorrow. Wanting a new start. So much change and newness scares me and here I am driving straight into that storm. I felt it every mile. The fear of: if I could really do this..me? 

The loneliness of it also hit. Of course I would want to be doing this with someone. Of course I wouldn’t choose to do this alone. Of Course I worry that I always will. Of Course I felt the loneliness of it all. 

Memories also came. I had done this drive before. I had done this drive so many years ago. I was a very different version of myself. It both reminded me how far I had come and saddened me for the feelings I felt that first time I drove this path. I was a scared, sad women pretending to be a very happy human. My life was a pretend back then. And the here and now, as I write all of my feelings and laying them bare here, I refuse to pretend and hide any longer. 

Maybe a piece of this trip can also help me lay to rest the Phoenix Arizona I knew and felt back then. Maybe this can be one more positive thing I can do for myself. 

I guess it is all coming down to, I want to feel it all so I can truly live in it all. I want better. I want different. And while that scares me, I guess I am proving to myself here and now, that I will not let it get in my way this time.