After being left alone with my own thoughts, and after choosing to become antisocial, I decided that I needed ‘something’ to fill the void. I regrettably returned to old habits that I’d let die some many years before.
What is your poison? Perhaps you were a smoker, and one that had successfully quit. Perhaps you were prone to more than one alcoholic beverage when you were having a bad day. Or maybe you drank too much when you had the opportunity to celebrate a special occasion. Maybe you were never happy with the amount of money in your wallet. Maybe you were tempted with gambling.
There are millions of other things that you could have been or perhaps you were one of the lucky ones who never succumbed to such horrible demons…
When you are sad, and looking for comfort in other things- Do not return to old habits, especially if they have addictive tendencies. I can’t stress this enough. I was at my lowest when I attempted to find happiness once again with the demons I’d left behind. The only thing it did was give me another reason to hate who I was.
All of your hard work will be undone- and the habit will be one hundred times harder to break this time around. When you’re grieving, you’re not yourself. You will convince yourself that what you’re doing is alright, because you feel the way that you do- You will look for any reason that you can to justify your actions. In my case, I was more than aware of what I was doing, but I chose not to care about the consequences.
I woke up to myself after a few months of this repetitive ‘filling the void’ behaviour. Every time I wanted to escape, and return to those old habits- I’d simply remind myself of the following;
“This is my life. This is my choice. If I continue to live like this, my choices today will be my regrets tomorrow”.
It was something that came to mind many times throughout the day, and it was the little things in which I found my happiness again. It was things like turning the television off, and finding a nice spot outside in the garden to sit. It was about being grateful that I was there to enjoy the sound of the birds in the trees, the sun on my face, and the cool breeze in the air.
It was about going for a drive with the windows down, seeing the open road ahead, and enjoying the freedom. It was sitting on the soft white sand of the beach, watching the waves crash against the rocks.
It was going to a boutique café and sitting at the nicest table, and ordering a slice of the most meticulously decorated cake that I’ve ever seen in my life, and trying a different type of coffee that I’d never had before.
It was remembering that I was alive. As much as I hated how I felt at the time, it was remembering that I still had my life to live, and that I was the only one responsible for my happiness tomorrow.
theunmarriedwidow 