Evolving - Feeling Like the Butterfly

I always heard people say that as you grow older, you change.  I never believed it because I never really saw anyone act or behave differently.  Maybe that was because I didn't know anyone for as many years as it takes to see a notable difference.  However, just knowing myself, I can definitely see that it happens.

I am a much different person than I was as a teenager.  As a teen I was shy, but outgoing at the same time.  The shyness was in big circles with people I didn't know.  The outgoing personality traits seemed to shine brightest among a group of close girlfriends.  I spoke my mind quite a bit and didn't really care who heard it.  I cared if it hurt anyone, but I didn't put together that even people who heard it could be hurt by it.  I thought I was sweet and caring.  I thought I was sentimental. I thought I was loving and compassionate.

All that changed as I grew older.  Near the end of my teen years I met a young man that I married.  He was harder than I was.  It frightened me most times.  I never liked being reprimanded or scolded.  He was loving at times, but in others, not so much.  I don't really know what happened there - I was young and oblivious, but we did have a child.  A young man who is on the verge of being 21 soon.  He's learning his own ways about "change".  His father and I split.  My heart was now hurting and broken from the pain our child seemed to face.  This hardened me some.  I felt as if I was going downhill.  We are supposed to get BETTER as far as change in our lives.  Why was I now going the other direction?  I didn't turn to drugs or alcohol, but my attitude stunk badly.  It didn't help that I had learned there was another woman, but what made him do that, I don't know.... "change" I guess.

In my period of trying to "find myself" I became involved with another man, who I later married.  He promised to take care of me and my son, but I didn't really love him.  I tried to convince myself that I did.  He made good money and we lived well.  But, he wasn't nice to me.  I was now changing again ... my perception of people wasn't good.  Here was this person who was supposed to love me for me, take care of me, but was horrible to me.  He never built me up. We fought.  We fought horribly.  We now had a daughter, but that didn't matter. I was trapped.  My escape from life was to write about it all.  Later, I saw just how much I had truly changed when I could not even remember most of what I had written. It was devastating.  I ended up having to have my father and my grandfather and some male cousins around at a family gathering to tell this man I was changing the locks on our house and he would be leaving.  With the exception of the past 3 years, dealing with him was pure hell.  It changed me.  It hardened me.  We separated, no money for a divorce, and we stayed apart for almost a year.  Then........

I met another man.  I was timid and not interested.  I didn't want anything to do with "love".  He was caring and compassionate.  He understood where I was coming from.  He seemed protective and respectful.  He cried every time we had to part (he lived an hour and a half away from me).  I was hard though.  Even tho I felt the pain of him leaving, I didn't show it.  I had walls and he brought them down ... for the most part.  We planned to get married.  He cheated.  Again, I was back to devastated and walls were back up.  I married him about 4 months later, anyway.  He was the first time in my life I could not sleep from the pain of his infidelity. I knew I had changed, again.  I knew I had given ALL of myself to someone finally.  I was in disbelief myself.  But even though things started out good, I am of the opinion that it wasn't real.  Do those types of characteristics really change if they are genuine?  I'm still on the fence about that one.  The next 8 years were good and bad.  I'd say mostly bad.  Day by day I was changing.  I was becoming very very hard.  I was full of hate because of what kind of treatment I lived with. I wished for the first time in my life for someone to feel the excrutiating pain that I was feeling. I definitely knew I was changed now .... worse off than ever.  I had lived with such negativity that I had become the epitome of negative, at least on the inside.  I tried to be positive, but I never really believed anything good was going to come to me.  During this marriage, we had a child.  I have blocked out most of this relationship because good or bad, it was still painful to me.  This was the one person I truly thought I would grow old with.  I guess in some aspects I did.....I think I aged 20 years just from dealing with the conflicts.  Finally .... we separated and subsequently divorced because I just could not continue living every single day in tears.  It changed me, and not for the better.....

I met another man and again I married him ... it changed me.  I never believed anything he said.  Why? My last marriage was so full of lies and doubt and manipulation.  I never believed I was worthy of anything that #4 did for me.  I never believed ANYTHING at all.  I was so skeptical now after 3 failed marriages that I did not want any part at all in the ballgame of "love", if that even truly existed.  But things were different this time ... he always told me that if going back to #3 would make me happy, he would not like it, but that he would let me go, and support my happiness.  Even though going back to #3 was where I thought I belonged, it didn't happen.  There were demands made on me by #3 that he wasn't willing to do also and that just isn't fair.  For years, the thought that I had made a mistake haunted me.  Many times I would go to #4 and tell him I had made a mistake, that we did not belong together, that I knew my place was elsewhere, but when I would try to go in the other direction, it never happened.  I always received the same treatment from #3 that drove me away in the first place.  In my heart, I knew that I would thrive only by remaining in my promises to #4.  And I was right ... when I finally gave up on the twisted vision of being with my "soul mate" I realized that my soul mate was right beside me the entire time.  He was willing to let me walk away if it meant that I was happy.  He never yelled at me or cursed me over it.  He loved me through it DAILY.  He never stopped telling me he loved me even if I didn't say it back to him.  We began going to church together and our bond grew.  I was changing again.  This time, it was change that would stick, because when God the father changes something, there is no un-doing it!!!  I'm changed for the better for the first time that I can recall.  I experienced GOD's LOVE through a man who did not have to fake who he was, he did not have to put me down to feel good about himself, nor did he ever stop telling me how much I meant to him.  I found a renewed sense of faith and hope through his love, because I know the love he CHOOSES to show me is just that - HIS CHOICE.  And these days, I am so peaceful and happy it is ridiculous.  My soul mate knew of this change, even though he was six hours from me, he knew.  It proved to me that I was the only thing holding me back from TRUE happiness.

I'm thankful for all the changes I have gone through in my life.  Had the changes continued to provoke negative changes within me, I'm not sure where I would be in this life today.  I'm living my life for God, I believe in Him and His power more than I ever have, I'm outspoken to people about His love and forgiveness - because I have experienced the love and forgiveness from my soul mate that I imagine can only come from God Himself.  The kind of LOVE that accepts you just as you are, the kind of love that CHOOSES to love you on a daily basis, the kind of heart that FORGIVES you for trespasses against them and against yourself .... the kind of LOVE that says "I am here until I take my last breath" - once you experience that sincere love that is proven in every action and word, then change for the better is inevitable.

I pray everyone has the chance to experience that type of "change" .... One that moves you to be the very best person you could ever be, one that causes you to look at EVERYTHING differently and without so much skepticism, one that revives the embers within your soul to truly make a difference in people - differences that will change them, too.