Micki's Musings

One year ago, I was on a tropical island surrounded by the people I loved. This year, I'm on a different tropical island, and I'm celebrating the new year alone. It should be sad, and it is, just a little bit. I'm still healing some, but it's more of a growing pains ache than a feeling of loss.  This time last year, I thought I was gaining a whole new family and a whole new life. Instead, I am by myself now more than I ever have been before. There is a melancholy about it for sure, but also, a peace. I feel gratitude more than anything else during this moment. I'm grateful I am not trapped in a relationship that is not healthy for me. I'm grateful my children are growing into such extraordinary humans. I'm grateful for the health and vitality I have physically and emotionally and spiritually. I'm grateful for the amazing people in my life who love me and want me to be happy. I'm grateful for adventure and new things and new places and new experiences...

Twenty-four has been one of my favorite numbers my whole life. I like the evenness of it, the way it multiplies and divides so tidily into so many other nice and tidy whole numbers. It's 2 and 6 and 8 and 4 and 3 and 12, and it's the day of the month I was born. In 2023, I decided 2024 would be the best year yet, and I started creating a world for myself where that could come true. When I got engaged on January 1st, it felt like the perfect beginning to the perfect year, and the first couple of months held a lot of promise.  Then the promises shattered and one thing after another after another threw my life into chaos and my heart into pieces. I never imagined how difficult this year would be in so many different ways. Now, we are at the end of my favorite number year, and I realize I was right. This has been the very best year of my life so far. I have grown this year more than any other five years combined. I have proven to myself that all the work I have done has not been fo...

If you give a girl a plane ticket to Hawaii, she'll want to go scuba diving. If you take her scuba diving, she will fall in love with the island. If she falls in love with the island, she will want to move there. If she moves there, she will want her dream job of working in a hut by the ocean and on the boats and in the water. If she gets her dream job of working in a hut by the ocean and on the boats and in the water, she will also need a place to stay. If she gets a place to stay, she will want it to be in a place where she can see the ocean and beautiful sunrises and sunsets. If she gets a place to stay on a beautiful island with ocean and sunrise and sunset views, she will want to explore and meet people and make friends and see everything and do everything. If she is living on a beautiful island and seeing everything and doing everything and living her dreams, she might be so full of joy she won't be able to contain it and she will feel like she is going to burst into tril...

I play a silly game when I get hurt. We all play it. I play a game where I pretend I am the victim and there is everything wrong with the person who hurt me. I play that game on the outside because the reality hurts too much at first. After I have some time to process, after I take some time to see what's real, I face my true pain inside of myself.  I went to the temple praying for healing and peace. I sat throught the endowment session trying to focus on the beauty of the ordinance, but my mind was swirling with how I had been wronged. I asked for help to cleanse my spirit of the energy, but I hadn't yet released my grip on my victimhood. I got to the last part of the session and opened my heart even more. I always feel a cleansing there. I feel something transforming me in ways I don't comprehend. I don't understand it, but I open myself to it anyway and allow it to flood my soul and heal and empower me. I stood there sobbing as He spoke to the part of me I thought I ...

What's real? This was an almost daily pleading and prayer I had when I was dating him. I had forgotten until I was praying this morning and asking for clarification on why I was still feeling such a strong inclination to block him completely out of my life for good. Am I overreacting? Is it really necessary? What's real? That phrase escaped into my prayer and I realized I hadn't asked that question in a long time. Since we broke up, I haven't needed to question my reality. Since we broke up, I haven't needed to doubt my intuition. Since we broke up, I haven't had anyone pointing out my flaws and telling me I wasn't good enough and telling me partial truths that I convinced myself were facts because I loved him and I trusted him and I had no reason to believe he would want anything but the best for me. The thing is, he hated himself, so there was no way for him to truly and safely love me. He was constantly lying to himself so there was no way for him to be h...

Stop taking things from me. That's what I heard over and over. That's where the pain was coming from. I knew I wasn't in love with him anymore. I knew I had already mourned the life we were going to have together. So why did it still feel so miserable to find out he had moved on so quickly? I felt so confused all day about my emotions. They reeled back and forth and all around trying to find footing and understanding, but then I finally got in a good cry and felt another piece of me shatter to make way for more growth. I searched the space inside the shards and found the part of me that needed to be heard. The pain wasn't from jealousy or wanting anything with him. The pain was a compounding effect from him and all the other men before him who took what I so freely gave and didn't cherish it, didn't honor it, didn't protect it. They took what they didn't deserve and they took what they didn't earn. That was the pain. I was angry at them all for takin...