Stripped
POSTED ON: NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Quick Re cap- For a long time Sandra was sure of one thing and that was -who she was.

This was of course a shopaholic who lived by the highest standards and wanted the finer things in life. Not just material but she wanted to travel the world, learn new languages, continue her education, enjoy the company of her good friends and be a successful nurse working abroad. All of this was to be accomplished while factoring that little thing we all call marriage – to her high school sweetheart!

She wanted to feel needed and needed to feel wanted. Her husband didn’t really need her, which was not for a lack of actually needing her, but he was a very independent person and liked to do things on his own. While this bothered her, she knew it was good to give him the room he needed to breathe and be his own person.

Needless to say she had a lot of free time. Slowly a shopping habit developed and then the inevitable eating habit, which was shared with a dear friend who was also having troubles with her relationship (Isabelle who was mentioned a few articles ago)

Sandra had two friends that she liked to refer to as “the excitement in her life”. A never ending source for drama, Celine and Pricilla were constantly calling to dish on their latest parties and events attended, not to mention the endless amounts to travel that was being done to countries all over the world. Celine and Priscilla would always call for advice, which she loved because it would reassure her that 1.She was the dependable one out of the two relationships and 2. They would always need her.

Sandra knew that she could count on her “friends” to need her 24/7, even though they weren’t ever really “friends” to her, she didn’t mind it because she loved to take care of people.

When her marriage ended, it was as if her world fell apart. She started questioning everything that was around her and the people in her life.

As the days passed, the people around her started to fade into the background.

Her husband’s friends stopped talking to her, although she knew it was inevitable; still the initial blow of it all was painful for her to take. Then Isabelle started to give the cold shoulder and when finally confronted on the matter, Sandra was told that Chris, Isabelle’s boyfriend, didn’t think it was a good idea for her to spend time with Sandra, being single and all. He felt that since they were already having problems that it may not be the best influence for her.

She tried to understand because she really wanted Isabelle to be able to work things out with Chris but at the same time Sandra was heart broken that Isabelle would let him make such a drastic decision on with whom she could and couldn’t spend time with. That friendship faded out very quickly.

Sandra felt insignificant and alone. She began to think “What did I do to deserve this? How is it that I always gave so much to everyone but in return always get shafted by people I thought to be my friends” For weeks this question loomed over her head and she became sad and despondent.

After yet another long weekend of disappointment and her being alone, again, and attempting to make the best out of it which turned into yet another “bottle of wine to herself , pint of Ben and Jerry’s with a blockbuster movie” weekend , it hit her like slap in the face from Naomi Campbell.

She decided then and there that she was going to have to let go of everything she once thought, once felt and the people she once considered to be her friends and strip off all the fakeness that  surrounded her. In doing this it was time to let go of her past, meaning that it was time to let go of the future she so intricately patched together being married and make her own way in her new life, alone!

“I am scared” she said to me one day at while brunching at Spago’s. “What if I never find my own path, my own voice? Even worse, what if I do find my voice but it’s never heard? I want to make a difference, I want to see the world and I want to do more then what people think I am capable of because I , at one time in my life, strived to do so much and believed in myself”

“All of these fillers that I was using, the fake friends, the shopping and lets not forget the many nights at Extraordinary desserts. I almost feel as if I am stuck in this cycle and might never be able to change. But most of all, I am scared to be alone because then , and only then, will I have to take a good hard look in the mirror and strip myself of everything I once thought I was, which , I don’t even know , and that’s was scares me”

She got up to leave the table and I grabbed her wrist,

“Just let it go, take a breath and realize that if you don’t give your self the chance now, then your right, you will never know what you could have accomplished on your own but it’s that desire and in a way that fear, which no one can take from you, that well help you to be who you want to become” I replied back “ You always say how you want to change the world, well go out and become the change you want to see and that is when your voice will be heard and you will have found yourself”

“You are right “she turned and smiled back

She did just that. She let go of the “friends” that were anything but; she stopped living in the past and quit dwelling on the future she had lost. Sandra realized that she would never get to where she wanted to be if she didn’t start planning out her future.

She is now planning to go back to school next year to finish her nursing degree and even more exciting her first trip out of the country for her 25th birthday to France, Switzerland and Italy for a month. Alone! As scary as it was to think about being alone it was even scarier to think of living in a life that was not real, not honest and not what she wanted it to be.

Love Peace and Purity,

xoxo Shayna