Lauren:Awakened {getting off the carousel}

Isn't this carousel GORGEOUS?!

As a little girl I spent many weekends on this exact carousel at Glen Echo Park in Maryland. All the pretty colors, bright lights and mirrors, it is a quite a sight and so amazing that it has lasted 90 years, an amazing piece of Metropolitan DC history.

My life became a non-stop carousel ride May 9th, 2001.
Trust me... that is NOT a happy place.
That day my Mom lost a long battle with cancer.

Now, I'm not going to describe every detail of how that changed my family and our lives, but you can imagine the change in my father after he lost the love of his life and best friend. My younger sister motherless and not even 13 years old. And I was on the verge of turning 16, without my mother to guide me into adulthood.

Immediately a hole began to form in my being. Over the past 11 years i have tried many ways to fill that hole, starting with a serious boyfriend in high school you couldnt tear me away from, then my first year in New Orleans at college was filled with partying waaay too much, another boyfriend who left me and it destroyed me, and into a cycle of different addictions (drugs, alcohol, love, exercise, etc) over the next few years. And now into my adult years turned into a love addiction. I would fall hard and fast for someone, then when it blew up it would be dragged out because "I couldn't live life without them, even just as my friend."

Any of my psychology friends know what this is? I do now.

I have learned SO MUCH about who I am these last few months. But the greatest realization, came early this week...

...here's the carousel:
Those horses in the middle row of the carousel move up and down as the carousel moves round and round. This is me in relationships. It hits a point where it is not going to move in the CORRECT forward motion and the carousel begins. We keep going around and around trying to fix things and the ups and down get worse and worse. Now a NORMAL person would just get off the dang thing right? Well I don't. Formerly trying to fill a hole with someone else who can't fill it, I held on tight.

But I just got off the stupid carousel of my former relationships. And it feels amazing. Its never going to happen again because I know myself and what is healthy and interdependent instead of codependent.
...

I am so excited for the future and what it may bring. I am hopeful and open. I have truly let go of the past and that person so I can be available to the next. But until he finds me, I'm having a blast with friends and this great world God has given me to experience. I can listen to Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years" and smile instead of cry.

I am joyful.

Welcome to... Lauren:Awakened