I Took the Blame So I Could Rise

A broken heart, also known as heartbreak or heartache, is a metaphor for the intense emotional stress or pain one feels at experiencing great loss or deep longing of which many experience multiple times prior to their death. Some cause it, some are the victim of it, some are both the cause and the victim.

In the forty-one years I have traveled around the sun, I have broken hearts that were never mine to hold and watched my own become fractured by many along the way. Yet none cut as deeply or lingered as painfully as the heartbreak I inflicted upon myself. I shattered my own heart beneath the crushing weight of my fears and bled quietly on the splintered remains of a dream that I nurtured and in the end, destroyed.

There was not enough strength residing inside of me to overcome the expectations and roles that I allowed others to place on me. I dimmed my own light, shrinking myself to fit into spaces never meant for me, shutting the door on the world that was calling me to live an unapologetically bold life.

As I look back on the winding path of my journey, I cannot pinpoint the exact moment the flame of passion began to dim. I only know that somewhere along the way, I quietly surrendered myself. I silenced my own voice and traded dreams for comfort. I stopped reaching for the life that once set my soul ablaze and settled into the soft, suffocating safety of being average. Slowly burying the idea that I was once destined for more.

Of course, I could point to a thousand external circumstances in order to create a tapestry of blame for my heartache but doing so would have anchored me in a victim's mindset. A place of quiet resignation from which I may have never returned. Instead, I turned the blame inward, choosing to carry the weight of every ache and abandoned dream on my own shoulders. The only way to create true change was to accept that every ounce of suffering endured and every dream left unfulfilled was a consequence of my own choices.

In that moment of realization, I came to understand that I held the power to shape a life aligned with my truest desires. I had the ability to choose differently and to rise out of the ashes. With that understanding came a deep clarity and a quiet, unwavering strength, giving me just enough courage to finally let go of the life that no longer served me in order to step toward the one I was always meant to live.

For the first time in my life I began the slow, honest work of truly healing myself and living each day on my own terms. I am determined in my pursuit of making my wildest dreams become my reality. Dreams that I once deemed unreachable. I am nurturing the flames of passion that are no longer paralyzed by the unknown or dimmed by fear and knowing deep within my soul that I will never again allow myself to shrink or mold into someone else’s idea of me.