This is how you will miss him

You’ll miss him in little moments that’ll catch you by surprise. Moments where you think you’re fine and you’ve moved and things are okay. Suddenly it’ll hit you and it’s going to feel like someone knocked the wind out of you. Because you realize loving someone doesn’t just go away because they did.

And it’s not gonna be at 3 in the morning when you’re lying there alone in bed. It’s going to be at 3:00 in the afternoon, on an average Tuesday, when you’re laughing with your friends or family and suddenly you just stop.

It’ll be in the sweatshirt that falls from your closet you forget about and never gave back. It’ll be when Christmas comes around and you’re sitting on your couch looking at the tree and you think back to how much has changed in a year when he was right there with you. It’ll be in the song you hear on the radio that hurts but you don’t change the station. It’ll be on the roads you used to drive and you look over at an empty passenger seat thinking about when he used to be there.

You’ll miss him in the places you used to go together and now you sit there alone. Hurting and aching silently, only you look like you’re okay. Because you have to be. It’ll be in the coffee shop you used to go to often and the barista asks if you want your usual two coffees. So you stop going there.

You’ll miss him in the moments people don’t know it ended and they ask how he’s doing or where is he and you realize you lost the right to know that answer a long time ago.

You’ll miss him in the letter you held onto or the card you couldn’t throw away and you’ll reread words that take you back to a time when they were real. It’ll be in the pictures you find face down in your junk drawer that you know should have thrown away but you didn’t.

You’ll miss him when something good or bad happens and you look at your phone staring at the date of the last time you spoke and something about that little detail hurts like hell.

You’ll miss him when you hear someone say his name in public and your head will turn sharply thinking it’s him and your heart will race.

But you’ll miss him the moment you see him again and you make awkward eye contact. He looks the same but you realize you’re staring at a familiar stranger. Maybe small talk is exchanged and what isn’t being said between the words, ‘how are you?’ is ‘I miss you.’ ‘Do you ever think of me too?’ So instead you say fine.

And you look back one last time hoping maybe he’s watching too. Because maybe if he was even for a moment you’d be taken back to a time when love didn’t hurt so badly.

Dating Blows

Can I get an AMEN?

It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago I decided to try some dating apps (I've been on there before to see what it was all about prior to this). Now, I knew that I wasn't ready for a serious relationship but I also knew I wasn't looking for a "hook up." So, I let that be known and put those words on my dating profile thinking at the time that it was better to be up front and honest and also a short resume of myself.. umm I mean bio. There I was swiping left on any guy who had his shirt off in pictures, left on guys who had no bio, left on any profile that had all a group of guys and not knowing which one the profile was about, left on any guy who had pictures with him and a group of women, maybe finding a right until I had 5 mutual likes then turning my profile off of public to avoid any distractions to continue the easiness of swiping to only judge these guys on their 300 characters and handful of pictures. I was trying to be fair.

There I am trying to establish a conversation to only lead to couple of things. For most we exchanged a "how are you today and reply" to only go absolutely silent. I did manage to give one guy my number after 2 days of going back and forth to a couple of days later having what was at the time a horrific WTF nightmare while having a FaceTime chat that was quite comical to tell my friends about after I blocked him on the dating app and Snapchat.

I will be honest, I wasn't putting too much effort in it. After the nightmare I deleted the dating apps. After knowing I put it out there that I wasn't looking for a serious relationship nor a hook up, I can see where that could give a guy the wrong impression of what I was trying to seek, hell I didn't even know what that meant. I guess like so many coming out of a long term relationship I was looking to fill a void.

Which brings me to this...

In today's world it has become for so many of us easier to communicate and share our lives through the comfort of a screen. Social media sites are built now days to be secretive and hide things, giving instant gratification for seekers and receivers, ruining relationships one by one, making it easier to just erase the moments shared with the click of the delete, unfriend, and unfollow button or "ghosting," apps to make yourself appear or to stand out from the crowd to hopefully have a match to only turn around and not even talk to that person but to keep searching for better options and so on and so on. It's easy to not put forth the effort in someone you have never met before and who doesn't truly know you. It's also becoming easier for people to always be seeking for greener grass on the other side rather then watering what they do have. Then there are those of us filling a void.

I come from where any serious relationship I have ever had came from knowing them in school or meeting through mutual friends so, this whole new world of dating is completely foreign and down right scary to me. I come from what seems like a vanishing thing where going on a real date with someone and seeing if there is some kind of connection has turned into "wanna Netflix and chill?" Instead of talking on the phone for hours getting to know each other it has turned into a text or message, quick follow on this site or that site with a "like" here and there. I come from a place where being intimate with a person meant you cared for that person and anticipated more things to come with them to now it is a one night stand or a "hook up" here and there and a possible FWB (Friends with benefits) to having NSA (no strings attached.)

I come from a world where Love was the purest and most wonderful thing to give and receive. Don't get me wrong sex is great (with the right person) but has Sex really replaced this? Meeting someone I was really interested in left me looking forward to see him again, excited to get a message from him during the day which made me smile, wanting to build and grow as friends and lovers. I see women starving for attention and will take it in any form even if that means hooking up with a guy she just met on a dating site the day before. I see both men and women being open for FWB and/ or one night stands with complete strangers. I see men and I have personally encountered with the nightmare how men disrespect women, only to cat-call, make comments on their ass and tits, overstepping boundaries to test the waters and see how far they can get.

Where have morals and respect gone for others and ourselves? Have we stopped treating people like humans? What if that was your daughter or son, then how would you feel? Are we all just fresh meat now? Where has the mystery of truly getting to know someone gone? Has Sex really replaced Love? For those only looking for hook ups and FWB's, do they ask each other for a copy of their most recent STD test? Do people even get tested anymore?! Are we left where people would rather fall asleep next to their phone instead of a loving partner? What happened to the "wooing" part?

People have become disposable, and as a result, everyone's always looking for the next bigger, better thing in an over-saturated market.

If that is the case then I am not sure I will ever be ready for the new world of dating.

So, the conclusion for me; What does "not wanting a serious relationship or hook-up" really mean? Well, it means I am certainly not ready, not wanting to look or put myself out there and I am OK with that. 

#Metoo

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” —Henry Thoreau

So, I believe by now that everyone is aware of what is going on with Harvey Weinstein and the “Me too” posts. I wasn’t planning on posting anything regarding this topic for a few reasons:  

1.     I recently made a post back in Aug. openly admitting that I was a victim of child sexual abuse. (http://jillian-meyer.blogspot.com/2017/08/reclaiming-life-after-abuse.html / )

2.     Although briefly talking to a counselor on the topic I know more is yet to come and true healing will take time and work. I know there are deeper emotions than just being a victim which I mention below and I am eager to jump in to those feelings, emotions, triggers to begin the true path of what has effected me.

3.     Since this all came out publicly and the coming forth of many of his victims it has weighed heavily mentally and emotionally on me, challenging me and resurfacing my past experiences, and draining my energy to focus on my goal to keep my eyes to the road ahead and not backwards.

After reading the above quote above I have decided to open up more and share about the struggles, emotions, and feelings that come from being a victim. Although these are my personal feelings and emotions this post is not for me, it's for anyone who has also been a victim. 

Shame:

In my years of protecting others from the damage they did I realized it was shame about what happened to me that kept me quiet.

Once I realized what had truly happened to me and that it was wrong I opened up to my HS boyfriend who forced me to tell my parents, who then sent me to counseling (and more which I prefer not to share here) and then that same boyfriend would use my abuse as an attack to belittle me, saying some horrible things that I still carry with me to this day.

I decided then that I would never reveal the most personal parts of myself to anyone and in the very few times that I did I still felt the immense shame as if I was “damaged goods” or that I wasn’t “worthy of their love.” Going through life just hoping to be accepted, always fearing abandonment and rejection. 

I tried to not only get over the damage, but make myself into a person that someone else would love and want to get to know. That the shame I felt was held in the idea that I was unlovable. That shame protected so many others, but not me. I used my feelings of shame to protect others from my pain and suffering.

The shame expressed itself in self-punishing habits like denying myself life’s necessities, seeking help, loving myself, anger, and bitterness. It dictated what I did and didn’t deserve. I deserved punishment; I didn’t deserve honor. I deserved criticism; I didn’t deserve respect. I deserved abandonment and rejection; I didn’t deserve attention or love. I was worthless for anything except sex and I was disgusting for it. I was disqualified for love and compassion and that I deserved to be abandoned. In my shame I abandoned myself.

Healing:

The greatest mystery of life is who we truly are. Now as I can remember the repeated accounts I also remember the resilient little girl behind the smiling mask. I was a chameleon who knew the world would not understand my pain. The burden of child abuse and survival is not something that anyone should suffer alone. I kept their secrets and did what was expected of me to survive the world that treats survivors as perpetrators. I was a chameleon to survive and to live again. I hid the abuse I suffered from people and from the world behind my smile. I smiled to say that I’m okay, that I’m one of you. I no longer hope for acceptance nor do I want to be accepted by people who would minimize or excuse rape and abuse. I do not want to be counted among those who are ignorant or ignore it. I will no longer hide. I know the world is cruel and I will live anyway. Now I take off the mask and reveal my true self, not just a survivor but a warrior, still alive, scars and all. My story does not end here but my true life and purpose begins here.

It breaks my heart to know now what that little girl, my inner child, went through all alone.

My mind is slowly revealing who I truly am. I am a survivor of child sexual abuse. I will no longer remain silent or hide behind the mask of a smile for anyone’s comfort. I am a survivor and I was a resilient child that grew up to still love deeply. They could not take that from me and they cannot have it now.

Telling yourself that you are worth more than what happened to you is difficult, believing it is even rougher. However, it is a mantra that must be repeated day after day and at time, minute after minute and I try to remind myself of this.

Strength in Numbers:

If you were abused and someone, anyone, didn’t believe you, know that I do. I believe you. I stand with you, and for you, in the small way I can. 

Speaking the truth after being abused takes incredible courage and strength. I am proud of you.  My story can be your story.

We can be victorious together as survivors. I am a survivor. You are a survivor.

We are stronger for having survived. We stand together triumphantly and move forward, bravely living abuse free lives.

If you have been abused or are currently a victim of abuse and have not yet spoken out, I urge you to reach toward a safe person and speak your truth. You too are strong and courageous and deserve to live an abuse free life. Stand with me, no longer a victim but a survivor.

Start today and make a new ending.

Jillian 

The Road less Traveled

How often we must bear the challenges of life;
The endless roller coaster between happiness and sorrow;
The constant ups and downs of daily strife.
And always the question remains .... why?

Life is not an easy road for most;
It twists and turns with many forks in the road,
Although always, and inevitably, we are given a choice ...

Do we turn to the right ... or the left?
Do we take the high road ... or the low road?
Do we take the easy path ... or the difficult one?

Decisions are not easy for those struggling for direction ...
And sometimes the many choices and signs become overwhelming.

While standing at a crossroads in life,
The urge is to take the most comfortable path;
The road with least resistance ...
The shortest or most traveled route.

And yet, if we've been down that comfortable road before;
Have gleaned its lessons in life, and learned from our experiences;

Do we yet again follow the known?
Or does our destiny lie in another direction?

The fear of the road less traveled is tangible and all too real;
It manifests itself in many ways,
And tends to cloud the issues that might otherwise be clear.

It is in these times of confusion,
That we must seek peace and solitude;

Time to contemplate on our life,
Our experiences and our choices past;
Time to look back, and reflect on what we have learned
Without fear or confusion.

For only each of us knows our own personal thoughts;
Our unique past and personal history;
The experiences that brought us to the crossroads we now face.

We can always learn a small degree from others experiences,
And yet ... no one person can walk in our shoes,
Others know not, the trials and tribulations faced in private ...

For each is individual ... unique ... and personal.

And that is why ... while standing at a crossroads,
Only "we" can formulate the decision for ourselves;
The true direction that lies within;
The choices we must deliberate on with clarity and wisdom.

For it is only through personal reflection,
That we can now choose our destiny;
... Our next adventure;
... And the future we will embrace.


Jillian 

"What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it."

I can't explain how badly I NEEDED to read this today. I have avoided email, social media and even conversations the last few days because I had a setback and I needed to get in touch with my goals and achievements again. I needed time to think, meditate, and forgive myself. I believe in signs and I couldn't be happier with this sign I received in my email today.

The greatest struggle in life is the struggle to accept, embrace and love ourselves, with all of our imperfections.  To be 100% honest about who we are, how we feel and what we need going forward.  To stop discrediting ourselves for everything we aren’t, and start giving ourselves credit for everything we are.  And to be aware that not everyone we love will agree with us every step of the way, and to be OK with it.

We have to learn to be our own best friends, because sometimes we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.  We love the idea of others loving us, and we forget to love ourselves.

What we must realize is that our greatest task is not about discovering self-love, it’s about breaking down the walls we have built against it.  When we have the courage to push through these walls – to know and embrace ourselves, despite our humanness, our flaws, and our rejections – we also open the door to connecting in more caring, empathetic, and intimate ways with others who are truly worth loving.

Which is why it’s time to…

1.  Start telling yourself what you love about yourself. – In your own life it’s important to know how spectacular you are.  You really have to look in the mirror and be kind.  Because what we see in the mirror is often what we see in the world.  Our disappointment in others often reflects our disappointment in ourselves.  Our acceptance of others often reflects our acceptance of ourselves.  Our ability to see potential in others often reflects our ability to see potential in ourselves.  Our patience with others often reflects our patience with ourselves.  You get the idea – you’ve got to show yourself some love first and foremost. 

2.  Start being one with what is. – Something that is really difficult, but totally worth it, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the journey of becoming your true self.  The most beautiful part of this journey is simply returning to the peaceful feeling of being.  This peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be. 

3.  Start focusing less on winning the approval of others. – Remind yourself that you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing.  And you don’t have to get permission to do it differently either.  Your time on this planet is precious.  As the saying goes, “What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.”  Don’t wait around for someone else to give you permission to live. 

4. Start forgiving your past self. – When you confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with the light of your forgiveness, your willingness to wrestle with your demons in this way will cause your angels to sing.  It’s just a matter of accepting that sometimes good people like you make bad choices.  It doesn’t mean you’re bad; it means you’re human.  Get bored with your past; it’s over.  Forgive yourself for what you think you did or didn’t do, and focus on what you will do starting now. 

5.  Start making the changes you know you need to make. – Just because something made you happy in the past doesn’t mean you have to keep it forever.  If you want to see changes in your life today, you’ll have to do things that you’ve never done before.  Different input = different output.  Move away from the things that drain you and move toward the thoughts and activities that empower and fulfill you. 
    
6.  Start embracing the mistakes you haven’t even made yet. – To be successful in the long run, you must fail sometimes.  So don’t let the fear of making the wrong decision prevent you from making any decision at all.  And don’t let not knowing how it’ll end keep you from beginning.  When we act, uncertainty chases us out into the open where opportunity awaits. 

Oh how I needed this today! <3

Selfless

“Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.” – Henry Ward Beecher

With little or no effort, we recognize the ugly effects of greed and selfishness on our society, culture, and nations. The greed of others makes this world a less pleasurable place to live for all of us. We wish they would change for the sake of everyone. In some cases, we even unify and protest to pressure them to change.

All the while, our personal greed rarely goes challenged. Recognizing the negative effects of corporate selfishness is easy. But identifying our own selfish motivation is more difficult to accomplish. It is, after all, far more painful to discover and admit. Unless you have a wake up call. 

What has selfishness been within me? Jealousy, being angry and bitter, negatively impacting relationships, high expectations, unforgiving, keeping me from experiencing love, joy, hope, gratitude, generosity and hindering me from true contentment.

I used to be one of the most unselfish people. (I am not saying I was perfect and never had selfish tendencies but 8 out of 10 times I would always put the needs of others before myself.) I would go out of my way to make someone smile, I would give my last dollar if I knew someone needed it, I would give without expectations but that all changed for some reason.

I lost sight of how being selfless made me feel. I was content, happier, giving, lovable, had little to no expectations, I was grateful for people in my life and my life. I hate what happened to me! I suppose I was wallowing in self-pity and I became stuck in the quicksand.  

I no longer want to live a selfish life nor will I hold on thinking a kind act done owes me one in return. Every day I will give out love, hope, joy, forgiveness, and gratitude. It’s taken me some time to see this but I am really starting to believe in the energy that you give out comes back to you. Plant the seed and watch it grow. Smile and be thankful.

May we refuse to overlook the importance of selflessness. Instead, may we choose to pursue selflessness as the very means to achieve happiness—not just for our own sake, but for the sake of those we choose to love.

“There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others.” 

~Jillian~

You are more than your mistakes

We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of. Made decisions that we’ve immediately wished we could take back. Uttered words out loud that have instantly twisted our gut with a pang of discomfort and regret. We’ve all done things without thinking, or while only thinking of ourselves and no one else. We’ve all done things because they’ve felt good in the moment, ignoring what we know will be an unfortunate outcome.

Bottom line, we’ve all made mistakes. Sometimes we even repeat them. Sometimes not just once, but over and over again. And when that happens, it’s not difficult to start beating yourself up. To look at the wreckage that surrounds you, the one that you yourself have conjured up, and hate yourself for what you’ve caused.

It’s all too easy to go back in time, to pluck out those instances from your memory, and count them one by one. To revisit and replay them until they’re stuck in the forefront in your mind, instead of in the past where they belong.

No one likes to screw up. We all want to make the right decision, one hundred percent of the time.

But the truth is that what we actually need to be doing is forgiving ourselves for the mistakes we’ve made, not punishing ourselves for them.

What we need to really being doing is examining those instances, and ultimately learning from them. When we pull those mistakes from the storage of our memories, we can’t just chastise ourselves for the stupid things that we’ve done. We can’t simply look at ourselves in anger.

The world that we live in preaches perfection; we’re all under the impression that the only option we have is to succeed, that we need to do everything right the first time we attempt it. And our culture isn’t one that encourages trial and error, but rather one that pushes perfectionism with the only alternate being total failure.

But I don’t need to tell you that this isn’t the way the world actually works.

No one gets everything right the first time. There’s never been a person who’s lived on this earth who has gotten everything completely correct. Even those who seems to have it all figured out have made awful mistakes, ones that they probably thought would change the trajectory of their lives for the worst.

And behind every successful person is a path at least partly cemented with regret for what could have been, but ultimately never came to be because of a mistake that was made.

So instead of beating ourselves up over every stupid thing we’ve ever done, over every relationship we’ve sabotaged, every person we’ve hurt and every opportunity we gave up for something that didn’t pan out as well as we thought, let’s take the opportunity to learn something. Let’s analyze the situation and figure out where we went wrong. Let’s right our wrongs and apologize to those we didn’t do well by. Let’s mourn for those chances we missed and the roads we didn’t take.

But after we’re done with that, let’s put it all aside and move on. Let’s bundle up all of those mistakes and stash them into the vault of long term memory; we can’t, after all, pretend those things never happened.

But we can decide not let the mistakes of the past dictate the decisions we make in our future. We can’t let them define who we are as people, as individuals.

Because we’re all only human.

And while we’re at it, let’s forgive ourselves. Let those feelings of shame go. Let them leave your body in one big exhale. Don’t let the mistakes stick to your insides, don’t let the regret rot you. Exhale and release. Let go and start fresh.

Remember that you’ll most definitely make new mistakes. Because you’ll never truly be done with getting it wrong; no one will. Prepare yourself for those blips in your atmosphere. Be ready to let those things go once you’re done with them, once those mistakes have taught you the lessons you needed to be taught.

Learn and let go. Make right and then move on. Forgive and take a step forward.

Because you are so much more than your mistakes.

Published on Thought Catalog