Do you know what I hate? I hate it when I’m dating a guy and the chick before me has completely screwed him up. I will accept the fact that I have been “said chick” at least once before, but we’re not talking about me today.

There’s nothing like having to deal with the emotional aftermath of a previous, destructive relationship. A lot of people call it baggage. I try to think of it as a learning curve and an opportunity. I’ll explain that in a second.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who was lamenting over the impossibility of a relationship with a new girl he wanted to date. He’s into her, but she’s still crushed over the last overly hormonal d-bag (I promised my mother I wouldn’t put the word douche into anymore of my blogs, oops) that trampled all over her self esteem and left her questioning her worthiness as a woman. Can’t we all relate to that? In this society it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have their share of emotional scars. I fit into that category, as do most of you, I’m sure.

So what are we to do? Live our lives alone? I think not.

Here’s where I believe an opportunity presents itself in a relationship. If the crumpled soul that you’re heart is pining after is willing to give you a chance, you can turn that baggage into helpful information. This will require a lot of communication and honesty, but doesn’t any successful relationship require that anyway?

For the purpose of example, here’s a little TMI about yours truly. Given the events of 2008, I’m completely freaked about car accidents. If you are someone I care about in the real world, you already know this. When I text you and say, “Let me know you got home OK” I really mean it. If you don’t I’ll seriously worry that you are dead, even though my logic tells me that you just forgot. Someone only has to receive that phone call once to relate to me on this. The current object of my desire understands this about me. Every night I get a phone call or a text that says “made it home”. Hopefully, he doesn’t consider this to be overly obnoxious. He simply accepts that this is part of the package with me right now and is overly considerate of it. By doing this simple act, my baggage becomes an opportunity to better our relationship.

So, how can you turn baggage into opportunity?

Maybe he was cyber-cheated on by his last girlfriend. By giving him the password to your MySpace account, it doesn’t have to cross his mind when you sign in online.

Maybe she found inappropriate SMS messages between her ex and his female co-worker. By letting her occasionally glance through your phone, she doesn’t have to think about it every time your phone beeps.

Should you HAVE to do any of this? Of course not; it wasn’t your fault. However, should you want to make any effort possible to prove that this relationship is going to be healthy and enjoyable? You’d better or you might as well get out now before someone gets hurt.

My life is silent in a chaotic sort of way these days. The past ten months have been an excruciating mix of painful and pleasant experiences that have left me in a cloud, incoherently gliding through life. I’ve let my actions determine my decisions rather than moving myself toward a chosen goal. I guess I can’t beat myself up too much for my passiveness, I mean it’s been a pretty effed up year and there’s been a lot to keep me preoccupied.

About three weeks ago the cloud began to lift. My tears dried up allowing me to see clearly and I looked around at my life and began to wonder, “What am I doing?”

There is a lot going right in my world. My kids are healthy and happy, I have a wonderful guy that loves me more than I deserve or understand, there is food on the table and a pair of seriously cute jeans in my closet. I just can’t shake the feeling that something is seriously missing.

I see myself standing in a dark and empty room. It’s MY room, the room where I’m supposed to be happy, safe and secure but all it feels like is a holding cell, a triage of an emotional hospital. In front of me are countless doors. I can walk through any door that I choose and finally make a change that will start a ripple effect for the rest of my days. I am being suffocated by fear. Fear of choosing the wrong door, fear of causing damage to those on the journey with me but mostly terrified by the thought of staying in that room.

There are faint voices all around me, the majority of them coming from myself. “You’re a single mother; you’re going to screw up your kids. You can’t do it all alone. You’re crazy for wanting to make a major change with the economy so bad. You’re so ungrateful. You’re not good enough to live your dream. You’ll never make it. You’re going to fail…”

I’ve checked off the major life headlines (as Tiffany calls them, see her blog I’ve Got A Fever). I’ve done the marriage thing, bought some real estate, had a couple of babies (one of each gender) and held onto a good job for nearly a decade. Now as I look forward from my 27 year perch I wonder, “Is this all there is?”

Of course I have my children to look forward to and I don’t want to seem ungrateful for them. They are growing up and changing so fast and they are the biggest joy in my life. But for me, is this it? Is THIS what I wanted to be when I grew up?

A wise man once said, “If you set a five year goal for yourself and never start moving toward it, in five years you’re still going to have the same goal but you’ll be no closer to reaching it.”
Today I’m not exactly sure what I want that goal to be, but I do have a dream and I have a feeling that dream is on the other side of one of those doors.

One thing I’ve learned the hard way this year is that life is too short to wait. What if this bleak and rainy Wednesday was the last day of my life?

I’ve been on hiatus from writing for the past few weeks as I’ve been walking through the most difficult season of my life to date. Most of you probably know that my husband was killed in a car accident on May 31st. It was dreadfully unexpected as most accidents are and I have been left here in the wake of the aftermath trying to make sense of it all. The days pass quickly and are filled with emotion and tears. Yes, I said tears… who knew that the Scorpion Crusher could cry after all?

The few months before Robert was taken from this life have not been easy to say the least. I haven’t blogged about it because some things in life just shouldn’t be laid out for all of cyberspace to read. We separated in February and were going through what was turning into a very painful divorce for both of us. Over the past 13 days I’ve dealt with more emotion than I thought was humanly possible. Hermione Granger (for all you Harry Potter fans) once accused her friend Ron of having the emotional range of a teaspoon when he said to her “someone can’t possibly feel all of those things at once, they’d explode!” Well, guess what Ron? You can feel a thousand different things at once and not explode even though you might want to.

The biggest thing I’ve dealt with is guilt. I keep questioning that maybe if I’d done things differently he would still be with us. I’ve laid awake many nights wondering, “Maybe this really is all my fault.” In these dark times I’m fortunate to have good people around me and the smiling faces of my two children to pull me through.

My sister sent me an email this morning to encourage me after a long conversation on the phone last night. It was a verse from the Psalms. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:16b

God knew of Robert’s accident long before we ever separated. His days were numbered and held securely in the hand of the Father before Robert was ever even born.

I don’t have an answer as to why all of this has happened. I may never know. I am however certain that God knows and that He has a plan for me and the kids. Last year I lost a couple of very dear friends and at their funeral someone said, “I don’t ask God why He took them, but I ask Him why He left me behind.”