I’m in a state of shock. It took me until this moment to be able to calm down enough to process in writing what I experienced in the process of making that bathroom over the last three months. I have 12 blog post revisions on how to even talk about it.

It’s not completely done yet, but the fact that I have an indoor shower and toilet, and that it was done before the snowstorm we just had was greatly appreciated. But it was never going to be done until it was time to be done. I finally realized that toward the end.

I’m proud and extremely grateful. I’m also stunned. What I have learned emotionally about myself while redoing that bathroom, and the changes that occured on the inside of me made me new. I’m not the same person I was when I started this project in July. All I had was me, my tools (some borrowed) and materials, and this busy, overactive mind and mending heart.

I have processed every love relationship I’ve ever had, and then every first date I’ve gone on in this quest to find love outside of myself. I’ve thought about how much I have fucked up, (so many, many times) and how others have flat destroyed my heart. I’ve thought about platonic friendships I lost because I was selfish and stupid. I thought about how dating may need to end, as it felt done. Going on all these first dates was sometimes fun but vapid and not about love. I made a few new friends through dating so that is happy. It was a good learning process about myself, and I’m glad I did it.

I’ve listened to music on purpose by playing my playlists and by “accident” by letting my iPhone shuffle the 4,000 songs I have on there. I heard Christmas songs, gangsta rap, new and old country, hard rock, metal, classical, opera, broadway, indie rock, electronic, grunge, and so. many. weepy ballads. Every song seemed handpicked for the moment, enough to make me feel like a poltergeist lives in my phone and had insight into my soul. The poltergeist is a life restoration DJ.

These were not easy moments, most of them. The processing was up and down and around and I laid it all out there. I cried a great deal. I cut myself constantly and didn’t stop, so I bled into the walls and tile and have tile embedded in my fingers. My thumbprint won’t work for my phone touch ID, it’s so worn down. I’ve used every muscle in my body to the breaking point and I regret nothing.

I’m not interested in comparing my story to anyone else, because it’s mine. However, at times I thought about Liz Gilbert and Eat, Pray, Love. The book was much more important to me than the movie, but I enjoyed them both while I was doing this bathroom.

This quote, from her book, encapsulates this journey for me, too.

“I’ve come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call “The Physics of The Quest” — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: “If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself… then truth will not be withheld from you.”

Elizabeth Gilbert

It wasn’t really a “poltergeist” that helped me on my path, I know that. It was obviously God and my connection to my highest self that I’m developing. Lucy was is the vehicle that I was called to use to help reboot myself, to find out my truths and become my whole self.

I remembered what my astrologer had told me, that my life’s purpose is to learn how to accept unconditional love and to learn to BE in and with myself. I need so much time and space to work on those things, but I feel like they aren’t foreign concepts any longer. Love is a natural thing to me, it is like air in me to love others. I can give it so easily, but the receiving is difficult. I know how to allow children to love me, but the grown ups part…that’s much harder.

Loving myself, however, I learned how to love myself through this process. I know what I am capable of and how strong I am. I know myself and I know how to be honest about when I know I’m messing up. I show myself grace, and I show it to others. I have calmed down. I have calmed down to almost meditation level. That is a big surprise to me.

I know how to breathe peace into my heart. A few months ago my friend told me to say “I Love You” to myself in the mirror every day until I actually believe it. At first I turned away, teary eyed, vulnerable and too scared. Now I look at her-me-and I’m full of love for myself.

I love myself unconditionally.

The last moments of doing tile were surreal. I had matched with someone right before I was going to delete the online dating app I was using, and it is hard to describe so I won’t even try. I picked up two remaining tiles to fit, and miraculously had two pieces that were exactly what I needed. This new person was proving to be exceptional. So naturally, I spent the last few hours in that bathroom grouting and weeping and praying. I found myself raw, crying, inexplicably and miraculously beginning to fall in love, and finished.

It takes so much faith to allow ourselves to be seen and vulnerable in relationships, it can be intensely scary. But I’m not going to let my past control how I step into my future. I love who I am, and I know who I am. And then that light shone out and someone grabbed on to it.

I’m not going to be writing any specifics about this love on my blog, and not even sharing them privately for now, because this bliss belongs to me. I want to just revel in it. There’s a glow on things, but it is my love for myself and what is in my heart for my own soul that has made me feel the glow. Then this person showed up and is spending time in the glow with me.

I heard Lisa Nichols talk about loving from the overflow. A place where we can be so in love with ourselves that we love others from the love that overflows from our vessel. That’s about it. Thank you, Lisa.

Namaste.