Denial

Not sure if its just denial but I am starting to feel strong again and remember who I am.  I'm beautiful and smart, and I survived everything the world threw at me: poverty, oppression, racism, abuse of all forms, neglect, abandonment, breaches of trust, and worst of all being surrounded by people who are supposed to love me and care for me and protect me and having very little of that present in my life.

So am I in denial that I have a mental health disorder, or am I just in this moment feeling strong.  What is really true in this world anyways when an individual's perception of something can change so quickly.  One moment I can feel vulnerable, and question the legitimacy of my emotions, thinking so hard about it that my whole body gets tense and my mind goes into freeze mode.  Other moments I feel so together and confident and sure of who I am and what I'm all about and everything makes complete sense in my head.  I don't know what causes these extremes but they come...and they go... as they please.

Today:  I feel strong, and confident.  I am happy with where I'm at in life and no matter where things end up for me, there is no way they could ever be as bad as they have been in my past so it's got to be an okay future on my horizon.

I am currently planning a move to New Zealand from Canada.  It's not the first time I've done this. I've lived there twice before. Once I was on a Working Holiday Visa (12 month stay) and the other time I was on a Student/Vistor's Visa (nine month stay).  Both times I went on my own either to work or go to school and travel.  Both times I fell in complete love with the country: the rolling hills and long beaches.  The green and blue and beauty in the clouds.  Aotearoa they say...land of the long clouds...and it is.  It's beautiful in NZ and when I'm there, I can be me.  Nobody there knows me to judge me, they take me as I am.

This trip is different.  Its not a trip at all.  I am applying for a work visa but the intention is for me to gain residency there.  And this time I am not going alone.  I am going with my partner who I met last time I was there and brought back to Canada with me.  The difference in this trip is that I am not just being ME.  This time it is WE who are moving and I am not alone on an adventure into the world. I am part of something bigger, something that is supposed to be the begining of the rest of my life.  A partnership.  One day maybe a marraige and kids, a farm.  It's intimidating, and limiting, and it's settling down.  I don't know how to settle down.  I am a person who goes and goes and goes and I rarely stop.  I am intimidated and I am experienceing fear when I think about this whole settling down in one place with one person thing.  I feel a loss of freedom. A loss of part of myself, and its an integral part of myself.  It's no wonder all these crazy emotions have come out over the past year.  It's not mental health. Its not a diagnosis.  It's a reality that maybe I'm not ready to enter.