Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Chapter 22 — The Start of the Next Incredibly Beautiful Thing

“I was set free because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” J.K. Rowling It turns out rock bottom isn’t a particular place, but rather a series of places along my life’s journey that I would have to visit before I could find the strength to rise again…and again…and again. And chances are, there will be another before this life is finished. But knowing that doesn’t produce fear anymore, but rather confidence because I’ve been there before and I know, no matter what, I will be OK. I always said, because I knew it in my heart, that I would know when the book was finished. I thought it was on May 21, 2024. I wanted it to be finished. I soooooooooo wanted it to be finished. I was tired. Exhausted, really. Emotionally spent. I desperately needed it to be finished. So, I told myself it was. I convinced others it was. And yet, in my heart of hearts, I knew it was not. I didn’t know yet what the ending would be, but even that last chapter’s GB Real ending wasn’t real enough. It wasn’t what I promised in the first section’s first chapter of this book. It wasn’t my whole, terrifyingly vulnerable story as of that date. And nothing less than that is truly GB Real, so I waited until it came to me as I have done throughout the writing of this book. The previous chapter was the one I wanted to give you. I wanted to give you an ending that felt good. That left you hopeful. That left you peaceful. That was happy. Not fairy tale happy, but happy. I wasn’t going to wrap it perfectly and tie it up with a b ow. But I was going to leave you with the feelings that I wanted. That I’ve always wanted. Damn it, I was going to leave you with a good love story even if it was about self-love, with a tiny little dash of hope for a good ending to the love story with John.

Instead, however, I will leave you with the truth.

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face… You must do the thing you think you cannot do." Eleanor Roosevelt

Periodically I wondered what could have been with John if we had continued working together or if he had left as planned under better circumstances. The song linked below came on the radio while I was writing at Table Rock Lake and put those thoughts into words.

Gone West - What Could've Been (Official Video) (youtube.com)

As I was reviewing Resources for the chapter in Section V, Chapter 12, A Human Problem, I became aware of insecurities some men have that I wasn’t aware of. I wanted to assure John of a few things, so I shared my thoughts making certain he knew the intimate references were in no way intended to be a booty call. However, he quickly replied and that generated some reminiscing. I was so excited to hear from him, I allowed the conversation to go in a direction that it shouldn’t have. The next few days, I was thinking about why I did that and started unpacking all the feelings around that conversation. It had taken going down a path I didn ’ t want to be on, but finally all the pieces started coming together in my mind, so I could understand how to stop it from ever happening again.

From: Ginger Bliss To: John Thu, Mar 28 at 11:18 AM

It’s not even whether sex was “right” or “wrong” it was simply unhealthy for us where we were as individuals and in our relationship. It was not propelling us to heal individually and it sure wasn’t helping the security we found in our relationship. It was a trigger for those wounds, so we ended up disconnecting after sex instead of connecting which is what sex is for in a relationship. Two healthy people may be able to have sex at an earlier point than others, but it was detrimental to us at that time. We were using it in place of vulnerable conversations with each other about our real fears and feelings for each other.

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