Continuing My Journey

At this point in my journey I was making great progress. In January 2010, I reconnected with old friend from high school, Nick. We have known each other for a long time, and what is funny, so many times through out the years we were at the same places at the same time, hanging out with the same mutual friends on occasion, but had never seen each other in any other way but friends. We started dating, not seriously, but hanging out a lot. We talked about everything, shared so much of our pasts with each other and realized how much we had in common and had been through many of the same type of situations in relationships, with our parents, etc. We got along so well and really enjoyed each others company.

I had started a new treatment in counseling called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) This is a process that takes the negative feelings and thoughts and helps neutralize them. This was, at the beginning, a very hard process to go through. I had a hard time separating feelings from the past with feelings for Nick and ended up putting too many of my feelings that did not belong to him on him. He was amazing throughout this process and really helped me focus on what and where things and feelings should be. He was very easy to talk to and express what I was going through and helped push me when I really needed it. I was falling too fast for him and he was struggling with the idea of a built in family. In May, we decided on a break. At this point I started running, deciding I was going to run a marathon, and was really working on myself. That summer, I took Carson's dad to court and that was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but got most of what I wanted and thought was best for Carson. He was only allowed to get Carson once a month, we switch every other Thanksgiving and Christmas, he gets him every spring break, and then 42 days in the summer. That summer Carson was gone for 2 weeks, the longest he had ever been away from me. This was the worst thing for me at the time. I really had some set backs and really struggled, but made it through it with the help of my co-workers and family. Both Nick and I dated other people during the break and in November he reached out to me again. I really was not sure about this and at the same time wanted it more then anything. We both had talked about how we compared each other to the ones we had dated and just wasn't the other person. At the same time I was still training for a marathon and had reduced counseling down to once a month, not realizing that running was like doing EMDR on myself. I had progressed so much and had really healed and gained so much confidence in myself and who I was as a woman and mother. Things between Nick and I had started to progress and on New Years at midnight he told me he loved me for the first time.