So, here’s my parting message and Christmas gift to all the people who built the bullshit fucking roadblocks that were keeping me stuck in the driveway in the four decades before finally opening my eyes to all my “broken feelings” and finding the truths behind the lies that were my former realities.

Zack and I first heard this song in 2007, and it immediately became a catalyst in unraveling the mystery of what had broken each of us before ever meeting at Lifetime. It spoke volumes as to our prior journeys – it was who we were, where we’d been, and why we needed to cut ties with many people in our lives and truly just start over. It was a cryptic message to everyone that had discarded us at virtually every critical juncture, not the least of which were “our blood and bones” …

You were my blood, you were my bones. How could you ever leave me cold?

Today, I’ll spend another “first” without him completely severed from a family that has yet again “washed their hands of me”. Guess what? That’s okay! I WAS MARRIED TO A KING! An imperfect, broken, mortal king with a rare and true heart of gold, who not only gave me every “thing” a woman could want, but more so his heart, his soul, his eyes, his faith, and his unconditional love for the first time in all my life, all of which made me a QUEEN!

HE WAS MARRIED TO A QUEEN! An imperfect, broken, mortal queen with a rare and true heart of gold who not only gave him every “thing” a man could want, but more so her heart, her eyes, her soul, her faith, and her unconditional love for the for the first time in all his life, all of which made him a KING! Clearly, he fell, with a tragic twist that most will ever know and hurt us in unspeakable ways. But today is Christmas, and who was better at forgiving than Jesus? Indeed, I have forgiven him for the devastation that ended our story.

But here’s what ELSE you should know …

I FORGIVE YOU for the fact that you mocked, punished, laughed at, or burned me alive on a cross every time I let you down, embarrassed or disgraced your reputations when I failed miserably at all the things I failed at.

I FORGIVE YOU for invalidating, disregarding, and discrediting my feelings as “drama, immaturity, ingratitude, or self-pity”.

I FORGIVE YOU for abusing the trust I placed in you with vulnerabilities and truths by throwing them back in my face and driving nails into my already broken heart.

I FORGIVE YOU for taking it so personally when I decided to break the cycle, and for just standing there watching as I fought tirelessly to get that God-forsaken Venom suit off my weak and weary body so that maybe one day my daughter’s daughters or my son’s sons will be the first branches from this sick and dying tree to not end up in a psych ward because they want to blow their own brains out!

I FORGIVE YOU for only loving me when I was good enough to be loved, but “washing your hands of me” when I broke all the rules that you decided would be best for me, which (PS), were complete and total double standards of BULLSHIT! As it turns out, it’s okay to live life on our own terms, if not the best thing one can do. The wisest spiders are proud of the babies that manage to get out of the webs they may have unintentionally spun and find a way to survive this fucking life in peace!

I FORGIVE YOU FOR NOT FORGIVING ME for being an imperfect human being and I forgive you for all the times that you abandoned me.

But more so than that …

Thank you for everything you’ve done to hurt me, because that’s how I became an “apostrophe“! It was YOU who pointed me straight to both my Kings – the One born today and the fallen one. He may be gone now, but I’m still right here with the crown and sword he left for me to wear, charging bravely forward all the days I have left here! There’s still so much I have to do with all this power my impossibly strong heart now wields.

There’s the Phoenix I made who I’ll fight beside tooth and nail as she ascends towards the culmination of everything my own broken flight was purposed for, and that first born Prince who hasn’t yet realized that he too is a king because he hasn’t yet found the strength to tear off “the black suit” that shrouds his soul in darkness! He’s trapped in a web and has still yet to realize the long-terms effects of the emotional abuse he also is succumbing to and that being repeatedly being told “I’m done with you” for failure to follow the rules is slowly becoming the death of him too. I will not rest until that day comes that he opens his eyes to all his broken feelings and finally walks away with the courage and strength that’s hiding somewhere within himself so the next time he hears “I’m done with you”, he too can say:

NO! It’s ME that’s done with YOU!

If I’ve learned anything in my first fifty years, it’s that “real love” shouldn’t cost you anything, yet it’s the only commodity that gets you EVERYTHING! Love shouldn’t make you sad, make you cry, come with strings or conditions, cause you to doubt yourself, want to shoot yourself, or make you want to hide in the shadows of any authentic version of yourself because the people who claim to love you refuse to accept you as you are. Here’s the thing: Once you’ve had finally had it – “REAL love without strings and conditions”? YOU CAN NEVER ACCEPT “LOVE” ANY OTHER WAY, EVEN IF IT MEANS BEING ALONE! I won’t be the last queen that ever reigned alone in her kingdom because she refused to settle for anything less than everything! You see, I’ve been blessed by the unconditional love of two earthly Kings in my lifetime. There’s no going back to where I came from, so I guess it’s time to just start over. Merry Christmas to me!

STARTING OVER

Someday soon, I’m gonna pull myself together. Win or lose, I’m starting over again. Start this day like any other day. I fold my hands as I begin to pray. Sometimes we gotta throw the past aside, and come what may, I’m gonna open up my eyes to all my broken feelings. It’s the only road I’ve known. I just wanna say to you: Maybe I won’t feel the pain when you leave me one day, and maybe it won’t be too late when you need me someday. Someone take me away from the one who betrays, but things won’t ever be the same. I’m starting over. In days gone by, I was hiding from myself. In all those lies, and the truth was hard to tell. But I will try to turn my life around. I’ll close my eyes so I can finally see the road to all my broken feelings. It’s the only one I’ve known. I just wanna say to you … You were my heart, you were my soul. You were my breath ’til I grow old. You were my blood, you were my bones. How could you ever leave me cold? {Saliva}