Reflecting

So today I am pondering my personal quote - "Love others, but first, love yourself" - I've decided this sounds rather arrogant. It's not intended to be that. Simply, I mean that you have to love yourself, who you are, and feel good about YOU before you can truly love someone else the way they deserve to be loved, and without creating a dependency on that person, becoming merely an extension of them. This is what I failed to do, and therefore allowed myself to be in a toxic marriage and refused to leave not only because I fundamentally believe that when you get married you stay married, but because I truly didn't think I could live without that person, that I would lose who I was, I would lose my purpose. In a way, I was right. When you get married and have a child right out of High School, you really don't have time to find yourself. Some people go to college to do that, others get a job and move out on their own and others still are fortunate enough to know who they are regardless. When my ex left he took me with him; leaving only fragments of a girl who had not fully developed herself scattered about insignificantly. He even took part of my identity as a mom; being a single mom isn't the same as being a married mom. He took these things because I wasn't strong enough in who I was without him to keep them, and because some of them weren't mine to begin with. He took these things because I lost myself in him and forgot who I had started to become. It's taken me some time to realize that no one but Michele can put me back together, and that I should only put back what I need and want, tossing the pieces that never really fit in the first place. Being ugly to my kid isn't the mom I started out being; not wanting to talk to my family is not the sister/daughter I hoped I would become; hating life and walking around with a grudge the size of Mt Everest isn't the me that's in my heart. This is a constant battle for me. Those pieces of me that I don't want to be have pushed their way to the front and center; they've swelled in the empty spaces left by the pieces of me that walked out with my ex. It's going to take hard work to put them in their place but I have to try if I'm ever going to be truly happy, and I really want that. It's easy to stick with the known, staying in a comfort zone, but I'm starting to feel uncomfortable here, and it's time to move on. I don't need to be the rude, hateful, cynical bitch that I have become, I can be a fun loving, playfully sarcastic bitch that I once was. That bitch didn't hurt people, this one is alienating herself from her co-workers, her friends, and her family. This bitch has got to find a new way home!