Brave Enough To Be Bliss

From: Ginger Bliss To: Ginger Rothhaas Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 10:20 PM I saved this early last week...must’ve been moving in that direction on my mind.

“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn't healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits - anything that kept me small. My judgement called it disloyal. Now I see it as self- loving.” Kim McMillen

“I give myself permission to be imperfect, laugh out loud, let things go, make a mess, play, trust myself, take a nap, feel beautiful, try and fail, forgive, say the wrong thing, get angry, laugh at myself, cry when I need to, speak up, be wrong, enjoy the journey.” Unknown I can’t think of many secrets in my life that required me to lie that have not come back to haunt me. One was for my husband’s 25 th birthday party and the other was for my daughter’s 16 th birthday party. Both were a lot of work, very difficult to plan for and keep from them, but in the end worth every bit of effort to celebrate their lives with family and friends. Other than that, though, every secret kept, every lie told eroded my values, my faith in myself, and the trust others had in me. The importance of sharing my deepest, darkest secrets with someone I trusted was that whatever I could talk about freed me from shame. I realized as I began to share my struggles more openly, others have many of them too. We are all just trying to get through this thing called life and I am not alone in the mistakes I have made along the way. I am simply human. There is no excuse for my actions, but there are reasons for them, and I can look back and have compassion for the lonely, confused, and self-sabotaging human I was at that time. And I can think of no harder conversation in my life than talking with my daughter about my infidelity several years ago. It was much harder than sharing it in this book. Making myself vulnerable to an unlimited number of people in the world and their judgment wasn’t nearly as scary as making myself that gut -level vulnerable with her. And I knew she already knew about the infidelity before I told her, which made it even worse. When she was maybe 6 or 7 years old, she had a neighbor friend stay overnight, and I told them it was too late for any Dr. Pepper. I had just gone to the store, so the storage bin in the refrigerator was full. The next morning, I came downstairs and opened up the refrigerator to start some breakfast and happened to notice two cans of Dr. Pepper were gone. I went to the trash can and there the empty cans were right on top. When my husband came downstairs, I asked him if he had them, and he said no. After her friend left, I remember asking her if they had Dr. Pepper the night before . She said, “No.” I said, “Really?” giving her a chance to change her answer , thinking she wouldn’t stand there and lie to my face again. And yet, she did. I explained to her that, of course, I knew they had each had a can because I noticed them missing as soon as I opened the door of the refrigerator and then saw the empty cans in the trash. I said that while she would have been in trouble for doing something I had already said she couldn’t, now that she had lied to me twice, that made it even worse. I told her it was OK to make mistakes, but when we do, we at least need to be honest and tell the truth. But as an adult, I had done something far worse and lied about it far more times. I think that’s what made it feel so awful, that I had lied about it even after the divorce when she had given me the chance to ‘ fess up. Looking back, I honestly don’t know why or how she kept loving me. She never completely gave up on me , as she very easily could have. It wasn’t something I planned for, and I can’t remember if I had read something or I was writing, but I realized one morning how important it was that I talked with her, and asked if she could stop by. I had been crying quite a bit, so she knew something was up when she walked in. I had tried to pull myself together, but I knew it wouldn’t last long into the conversation, so there wasn’t much reason to try and cover it up. I don’t remember how I started the conversation or what all I said, but I do remember she said, “That’s all I ever wanted, for you to be honest.” I deserved so much more condemnation, but I was met with compassion, forgiveness, and love.

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