L's Journey

Uh Oh!  I think I may have figured it out.  Maybe not completely, I've yet to find out.  But I'm willing to continue the process...

In conversation with someone recently I made a statement about their situation not realizing the impact the words had on my life.  A while back I wrote about a conversation I had with "Stan" about sacrifice and why it is so hard for people to do it.  The conclusion that I've come to is... It isn't that hard, people really do sacrifice when they're connection to the end result is full of strength.

sac·ri·fice  [sak-ruh-fahys] noun, verb, -ficed, -fic·ing.

the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.

 

"I sacrificed my happiness and what my life could have been like for the possibility of something that would probably never happen."- LC

 

This is what I said to my friend.  I "sacrificed" things, people, situations, feelings and experiences for the possibility of love with "Stan."  Why?  Because I honestly thought that if I did whatever I had to do to make him happy enough to reciprocate feelings, we'd end up together.  Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't stop my life for him.  I had relationships with boys outside of him, I had children outside my relationship with him, yet, I always pined for him.  I wished for the relationship with him so badly that I essentially "sacrificed" a wonderful life. 

 

Who's to say what my life would have been like for the last 12 years whether or not he was around... But I do know this, I never opened up to an available man because I was holding out for him.  There's a certain comfort that happens when you know that no matter how you act or what you say, that person will still be there. 

 

While I enjoy comfort as much as the next person, I've cause myself more problems.  The comfort you experience needs to come from knowing that you haven't "sacrificed" yourself.  The person that you "spend the rest of your life" with needs to be someone that you don't have to let go of every fiber of yourself for. 

 

I will continue to make sacrifices... As long as those sacrifices give me strength and NEVER at the cost of losing who I am.

 

Here's to continuing Heart Healthy status... Cheers! (lifts glass... clink clink)