How long do you think it takes to heal…?

The answer is right there in my visual today — there is no timeline on healing. One day you will be telling your story, or you will have a random thought or memory, and you will no longer feel bad, or the tears won’t fall. That is when you’ll know that you’ve truly healed.

From my last post, I told you all that I have gotten engaged, and that usually means planning a wedding!! As someone of you know, that is not the easiest task. Well, have you ever tried to plan a wedding during quarantine and shutdown of all non-essential businesses? It’s about as hard as you can imagine. In true Ms Chevious fashion, I decided to only focus on the things that I can control, so I decided to scope out the traditional Indian outfits and jewelry I need as well as gather addresses and put together a guest list.

The guest list brought me to the topic of my blog tonight. Growing up, I was quite close with my extended family on my mother’s side. My Mom has eight siblings and all of their kids I considered as my bothers and sisters. For a while, we lived like that, and it was great having so many people around. However, while we were a close-knitted family, everyone cannot be the favorite, and I am very good at justifying things away. But after a while, no matter how good your heart is, eventually you have to start treating people the way they treat you, right?

To make a long story short, I am not inviting all my mother’s side of the family to my wedding. In fact, I no longer consider all of them my family anymore. Here is a quick synopsis as to what happened. There was a fight amongst a set of siblings, and the cops were called to the family party. The situation got to the point where the siblings had to go to court, and I did not want to see anything bad happen to my cousin, someone I consider a brother (and still do). I stepped up and said what I saw to keep the situation from getting out of hand. No one else in the family went to court. I’m not sure what happened after this, but there was a definite divide that I honestly did not expect. I did not say negative towards either sibling. I was no longer invited to events or outings with other cousins, and at the same time, the guy I was seeing was no longer in my life. I was living in Florida while my parents live in North Carolina. So at that time, I was alone. ALONE.

Last December, I found myself in Florida again, nearly four years after moving, and five years after all this occurred. From the moment I landed, I didn’t even leave the airport before I had an ominous feeling throughout my body. Two minutes outside the airport, I was in full-blown tears. I was looking around, and I realized I had this whole life here. I had a great job, a house, a driveway, a washer and dryer (luxuries if you live in the city trust me.) I left because, yes, I had my life here, but I truly felt that it was not a life worth living. I picked up and left, but now looking back, I felt chased… HOW DARE I!! allowed myself to be chased?! All those thoughts brought tears to my eyes. I stopped crying when I began to think of how much I have grown, and I am much stronger. I am such a different person. Perhaps, I needed to move.

That was the first time since I moved I felt the pain. That was for leaving Florida. Now, I feel the pain when I am writing this guest list and it’s, I would say, about maybe only 20 percent of them. The childhood fantasies I’ve had of my cousins and I chatting and getting dressed together. My cousins all meeting my finance’ and giving him the 3rd degree. The endless laughs and music that would go on for all hours of the night and the absolute chaos and madness that is an Indian wedding house. Sure, I will still have all those things but on a smaller scale and with hardly any of the ones that I discussed this day with.

I will say it is easy to stand by and watch and do nothing, but that will only get you so far. There will come the point in your life when you can no longer stand on the sidelines, and you have to take a stand. I do not regret taking the position that I did. I would do it all over again if I had to…In my eyes, I can’t lose what I never had. If something so simple could cause such a big rift, how close were we?

I’m sure you are wondering what about friends or the family I am inviting? I can assure you the people that will be there are extremely, extremely important to me. That means they are friends that have become family. The family that will be there has stuck with me through the hardest times in my life and decided to love me for me. They may not have known me as a child or all my life, but they know me now and accept me now as I am, and I could not ask for anything more.