Chapter One, Searching for Lori

Aug 31, 2020

Chapter 1

Life Love's Me

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”

Hermann Hesse

 In the beginning of my ‘ life-changing journey’ as I call it now I had not heard about the laws of attraction, I hadn’t read over the 100 books that I have now and I didn’t have any idea of how to make myself happier than I was. I felt pretty lost in my circumstances. By that time in my life, I had already lived a lot! I mean a lot because in 2003 I was 38 years old I had already had a lot of life experiences that were molding and making me into what I thought the world said I “should”be. The problem was that I had been wounded by the so-called world and I didn’t have a freakin’ clue as to how to accomplish this daunting task. 

I was overwhelmed, to say the least, up to that point in my life I had experienced childhood trauma that no little girl should have to go through, I had married a man 25 years my senior looking to fill a void of not having my daddy in my home growing up and wanting a man to love me and to care for me. Yeah, I hated it then when people would tell me that because I just thought they were sick perverts, but as I grew up I come to know what they said was true and that I was trying to fill a hole inside myself. We had a son at age 21 and till this day is the greatest blessing in my life because once he came I did have a sense of purpose and I wanted to be the best mom to him that I could possibly be, otherwise, who knows where I would have ended up. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but we are still close and talk and text almost daily and for that I am grateful.

Life is full twists and turns

I was divorced by age 25 and married again by 30. I thought that I had met the man that “God” thought I “should” be with. He was a good man with a good heart, but also like me he was deeply wounded and we butted heads and triggered each other in ways that were each other’s worse nightmare bringing up all of our pain inside. Well, I now know that in an intimate relationship that is exactly what we will do. On top of that, it is supposed to be good, it will make us into soulmates, co-creators in life, it will and is supposed to bring us closer together!! Hahahahaha!! I’m laughing out loud right now as I write this, with a resounding YES this is ideal. However, I have lived enough to know it doesn’t always work out like this. In an ideal situation we would trigger each others pain, fight maybe, yeah, scream, yeah, then when we are exhausted or before, if we are more mature, decide to sit down and talk it out, share our feelings with one another, figure out what memory and pain its bringing up for us, mull that over, feel the pain, realize that it is just a memory and it’s not happening now and we shouldn’t be blaming our loved one and then cry together, hold each other, apologize and then all is well in our world again! How often did this happen? umm, let me think, maybe not much or not at all. What did happen? And mind you this is my story and my perceptions and I’m sure the other side has their own story as well. :-). 

We would trigger each other and then argue for one minute and then stop quickly and not say another word to each other for my fear of fighting was deep and I believed at a very deep level that if you had a fight that somebody was going down and it was usually me. Can I say I was scared, I was scared to fight, I was scared to say or ask anything, and in my mind questions were forbidden? I would revert back to little Lori and get that big pit in my stomach, armpits sweating, nausea and usual diarrhea were sure to follow. Needless to say, we made no progress in our growth together or individually. By 2003 we had been married for 8 years and yes we had some good times and some not so good times but things had escalated to a point that I had completely lost myself in the relationship, in my career, and in my life. Let me explain more.

Change is good

By 2003 my husband had reached a place in his life that was dark and painful. I could not reach him and he was very depressed and often times suicidal. I would spend a lot of time and energy making sure he was ok and not “dead”.

It had consumed me. This was my life. I was working during the day and checking in and coming home to convince him that he had something to live for, people who loved him and a beautiful life. He couldn’t see it. I’m saying all this to help you understand where I was. I was being led around by life and not taking responsibility for my life. I was in a vicious cycle. I was blaming others, my circumstances, the financial lack in my life, and if he would just get better and take care of himself then my life would be ok. 

I had been to counseling for many years on and off. Once again I found myself there in counseling, in church groups, in the presence of anyone who would listen to my story all the while crying, sniveling, yearning for something, I didn’t know what, just something different than this. This chapter is about the beginnings of my wakeup call. What changed my thinking? What made me decide to do something different for myself? What prompted me to finally get off my ass and take action? Not just a little action, but to have a deep commitment to take charge of my life and to let go of what wasn’t working, without using excuses, and in my mind, they were legitimate ones.I will tell you.

There are three huge things that happened in my life that started the change. I do not remember the order they appeared but I do know that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I was ready. I had a longing in my heart for things to be different and be better, to have a life filled with love and happiness. Little did I know then but came to believe later, was that even at that low point in my life that I was operating with the law of attraction and by me laying on the couch and crying and imagining what it would be like to be happy and loved that I would one day find it.

So back to my story. One thing that was like a slap in my face happened one night when I was at a study group that I attended for about four years back in the day. This night wasn’t much different than the other nights I was there. It was me crying and moaning and complaining about how I was unhappy and lonely and blaming everything again for my angst in life. I was at that night talking about how the pain pills that my husband was taking made me feel like I was married to an alcoholic and I didn’t understand what was wrong in my life. If he would just STOP taking those damn pills my life would be better. It was all about him, him, him. That night one of the older ladies in the group was talking to me and she said that her husband used to be an alcoholic so she had my attention. But what she said next I was not prepared for.

She looked into my eyes with so much love and compassion and said: “honey you are just as addicted to those pain pills and he is”.

What the fuck? Are you kidding me? I have never done drugs or even drank in my life. I freakin’ hate them. I grew up around some people that drank and partied and when they did bad things happened to little girls and I made a “vow” to never do that, to not associate with people who did. Are you serious? How could you say this about me? I was pained to say the least.

However, after she so graciously heard all of my excuses as to why I was NOT addicted, she so sweetly said, “ what I mean is that the drug controls you. It controls your actions, reactions and your whole day at times, am I right?” 

 I couldn’t argue, I had no defense. One, she was saying it with so much freakin’ love that I wasn’t defensive and two, she was so right. I began to think about all the times that I had to come home and check on him to make sure he wasn’t dead and then go back to work, or the times I would get groceries and go to check out and have no money on our card and have to leave the food for later, or trying to save face with our church group and hide the fact that our power had been turned off the day I was supposed to bring fried chicken to church and I would cook on a gas fire with oil lanterns and tell no one when I got there what all it took for me to just be there. I realized that this addiction was controlling every aspect of my life from the moment I woke up to when I fell asleep. I was a control freak out of necessity, just trying to survive without getting noticed and found out. I was trying to make my life look perfect on the outside so no one would know. I was trying to not “rock the boat”. Humm, wait, was this childhood or adulthood? I couldn’t tell the difference! All I knew was that I was hurting. The little girl inside of me was hurting and afraid and the big girl inside of me didn’t know and hadn’t learned how to protect her and how to love her and how to take care of her. We needed each other and the first step to my healing was realizing just how much we did. That moment just realizing that I was the one screwed up. I was the one who needed help, I needed help for me, not him. A need and desire started to take root inside of my soul to stop making excuses, stop covering up and pretending. I finally began having a desire to be more authentic and honest with myself, this was the first step. One little layer of the veil came off that day as I felt the desire to take ownership of my life.

You see, it is important sometimes that we have these moments, these moments of clarity, of rawness, of truth, as painful as they may be. These are the moments and if we are open and willing, to see where we are, in brutal honesty where we stand and be able to say at this moment that I need help. It is me and I want and I am willing to change.