Garden Of Eden

For he who loves his life shall lose it and he who gives up his life for my sake shall find it.

We are all Eve, once sitting within the Garden of Eden, naïve, happy, complete. Until we become curious, or prideful, or slothful, or choose to partake in any one of the seven deadly sins. Then, like Eve, we realize we are naked, standing before God, having eaten the apple and we find that good and evil do exist, everything we read or heard about the bible as little children, thinking they are stories, thinking they are akin to fictional lure - stories of Gods and demons exist outside our perception, they are not real, until you eat the apple, then you will see it is all very very real.

I sat in the Garden of Eden, while my own Garden of Eden, God had given me a fantasy life, a beautiful life. I had a very kind husband, a tiny child, a job I adored and felt valued and valuable in. My day to day life left me very happy. I woke up, went to the gym for an hour, started breakfast for my son, played “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” to determine which of the three foods he would eat next off his plate, drove him to daycare, started my day at work where I felt special and people asked my opinions on things that didn’t matter, things they were capable of answering themselves, but I loved to feel like they needed me, picked up my son from daycare, dinner, swim lessons, play, bath-time, stories, bedtime - repeat. This was my routine and I fucking loved it. It may sound boring or cliche, but it was perfect. Well.. It was almost perfect. I had been contemplating divorce for several years. I am not sure why I didn’t just move forward with that. I suppose it was because I saw my husband as sweet, kind and loving, and I didn’t want to hurt him.

There was nothing wrong with the marriage, exactly, he did drink too much and our interests had grown away from each other. But, we were suppose to divorce over this? We had a baby. Surely, he would eventually get around to not drinking.. so much. Plus, he was my friend, aren’t good marriages based on strong friendships?

There was just never a time. I spoke with him about drinking and he stated he would stop. I kept waiting… and waiting.. for that day. We didn’t fight, not much arguing, not much strife, the house was peaceful, but it was lacking, something. I chalked up to him just needing to participate more in the things I wanted to do. Couldn’t he go on walks with me? Couldn’t we have family dinners? Play more board games together? Do more activities together? And, life was busy, so much going on and I was immensely happy, otherwise, besides, he was so damn sweet to me - that should hide a myriad of other areas that weren’t exactly my dream life.

The years passed, and passed, and while divorce lingered on my mind, I never discussed it much with him. I know too many couples that threaten each other daily with the prospect of divorce, I never wanted to do that, if I said the bid “D Word” I wanted to mean it. So, I never said it.

There were red flags, there were many issues and concerns, the drinking being the biggest of them pushing me to want something different. It was hard though, we built this life together. We got married and near the same month I started my dream job, the same job I worked at for 10 years. He is brilliant with technology and held my hand when I struggled. Together we were able to convince people I actually knew what I was doing in highly technical situations.

We built this really beautiful life together and I didn’t want to disturb it. We still had fun together, we played computer games together, he listened to me tell him about work, my coworkers, my mundane problems, tiffs and silliness that happens within the office. He was comforting to me, he was sweet, he was comfortable, he took care of me, I liked that he took care of me. I liked that he cared for me, that he loved me, that I felt loved by him. I suppose I had fallen out of love with him at one point or another, but life goes and it goes, and I didn’t… notice? We were partners in this world, fiends, and had good marital relations, I didn’t stop to consider if I truly was IN-LOVE with him.

You know the kind of love stories we all dream of, that we all deserve, but deprive ourselves of because well.. because sometimes what is good on paper, what you are “suppose to do” isn’t always what the heart truly wants to do. The heart is crazy, the heart does not think, the heart is confused. It doesn’t see stability, it doesn’t understand when you have comfort and kindness, when you “go good together.” No, the heart wants longing, the heart wants to feel scared, the heart wants to skip, the heart wants to stop, sometimes the heart wants to fight, the heart is ridiculous. So, we sometimes choose the mind, what the mind thinks is good, what the mind thinks is right.

We use logical and reason to choose our partners, we make life decisions based on, well.. life- “This is a good partner. He treats me well. We get along. We’re best friends. We work well together. He helps me.. etc etc.” But, that is not the heart. The heart is stupid. If we follow our hearts we will probably get very very hurt. But if we do not follow our hearts, well, then we will never get hurt, but we will also never experience what we are truly meant to experience. We are meant to have heart break, we are meant to want, to cry, to love passionately, to break hearts and to have our hearts broken, to love deeply so much so that it cannot be contained because this is living.

“What’s so important. Whats you got here that’s worth living for?” “Trueee looovveee”

If you are not truly, and I mean head over heels, cannot wait to see your person, missing them when they are away, anxious when they don’t call, can’t stop thinking about your partner than you aren’t living. I understand, years fade emotions and comfort kicks in, but our life, the reason we are here is to experience love in its fullest extent. That doesn’t have to be with a partner, it can be with your children, it can be with your friends, it can be with your cat. But, be sure you find one area in your life that you are LIVING for because love is what makes the world go ‘round.

What I didn’t realize, is that while I was happy, I was enjoying life, I was not living. I was existing. I was comfortable. I was content.

I loved my life. Looking back, Its more than a little unnerving the extent that I loved my life, at least what I had built and projected to the world. I worked at the same company, for the same people, for 10 years. And, I worked hard, for someone else's dream. I started as a web developer and did everything I could, all hours of the day and night, my work became my hobby, my happy place, a source of pride. I put everything of myself into it. After many years I worked to gain more and more responsibilities, integrating all their systems and processes and after many years they gave me the ultimate title: COO.

I was a COO.

This is not a life or a title I could have, or would have dared dream for myself. To me, this was beyond what I deserved as such i was exceedingly grateful. This brought me such a sense of value and pride, it was a core part of my entire identity. To lose this job I had been given, someone had trusted me to do, and paid me well for.. well, to lose this, I will later come to find out, would be to lose my entire sense of self. I had invested my life into someone else's dream, but it never bothered me because it was more than felt I deserved.

I felt happy. I loved myself, and my life. But, unfortunately, my value was driven externally and if your entire sense of self, and value, exists at someone else's mercy, especially something so meaningless and insignificant as a job… Someone elses company, and someone elses dream, you may one day come to see you are in for a bad time.

At least I was in for a very bad time. I never saw it coming but when it hit, it hit like a car accident - fast, hard, and out of nowhere. And it felt like total destruction. My world broke open and there I was standing in the light, in truth, and I was devastated. It felt like everyone saw through me, everyone knew everything, and they always had, my secrets, my sins, my soul was on display and I was truly ashamed because for the first time in a long time I saw who I had become, I truly saw my behavior the way i believed the world saw me, the light exposed it all. I didn't know this at the time, but I now believe that light to have been God/truth/reality whatever you want to call it and I looked upon my shadows and I felt true shame, fear, and humiliation. But, that point is closer to the point that I begged to die. That I refused to walk towards God/light/truth, closer to the death of Michelle Payne.

It started a year before the day I chose death. It started out of arrogance, pride, and ego. It started because I was no longer grateful for what I had, I was comfortable.

My marriage had been on questionable ground since the birth of my Son. His birth changed me, I wanted to be a better person for him. I had a picture in my mind of what a family looked like and we were not that. I dont know where I came up with my pictureske family, maybe TV, maybe social media, maybe my assumptions of what my coworkers lives looked like but I believed that I wanted my life to look like something else, something other than it was. I wanted to sit and have family dinners, i wanted to wake up early and hit the gym, have a family breakfast, send my son to preschool and work. I wanted family time, and to go on evening walks, to play board games at night.

My sister's have that kind of life, they tend to their families and enjoy walks at night with their children and husbands. They do game nights and craft nights. My coworkers talked of similar ways they were living life. I started to get to the gym, I started to better myself, the way i supposed I was supposed to, I started to feel pride in myself, my body, my looks. And all outward appearances said “My life is perfect.” It was. It was perfect. I was successful, I had a beautiful child and family. My husband and I worked together.

I was honest with high integrity- because it was easy to be honest with high integrity. It was easy to tell the truth when the truth was something i was proud of. It is not as easy to be honest and integral when the truth brings you shame. It is then when you find out who you really are. It is only when the truth threatens everything you have, and everything you love, than the truth is much harder. When the only benefit to being honest is for the sake of honesty itself, and nothing else, then is when I found being honest to be impossible. This was a hard realization for me because I had been so honest for so long, as I had nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to hide so honor came naturally. Until I had something to hide, then I found I had no honor.