What will it be? Or maybe the better question is, what was it? I am referring to the “tipping point” - the point where I wasn’t letting things continue as they were, I wasn’t trying to wait it out, I wasn’t trying to suck it up and deal with it. The tipping point became the thing or things that sent me over the edge to plummet gracefully (or maybe gracelessly) into 2025.
I remember in my 20’s heading out with a bunch of newly minted friends to Six Flags over Texas theme park during the annual “insanity” of Halloween. There were haunted houses everywhere and I, honestly NOT a fan of horror, was barely keeping it together. But, I wanted to impress my new friends and be part of a “fun” group outing. We hit a few rides before the rollercoaster from hell and everything seemed fine. I was doing great for the first few turns and loop de loops and then…someone threw sand in the air and it hit me in the face…hard. Note here, I wear contact lenses and am, without them, almost legally blind. Ever get sand in your eyes? Ever get sand in your eyes with contact lenses on? Ever get sand in your eyes with contact lenses on spiraling super fast on a roller coaster with fast curves and multiple loops?
You get the picture, right? I spent the remainder of the ride “crying”, blinking, closing my eyes, and generally incredibly uncomfortable, nauseated and irritated. Gone was the fun ride and the adventure and the group outing. My eyes burned and itched and were sticky. My stomach was disgruntled by my blurry vision and constant blinking.
Hello 2024! Let’s come back to the tipping point here. For me, every tipping point brings me back to that rollercoaster ride and when it turned from kinda fun and feeling brave and maybe even starting to relax into irritated, annoyed, blurry, and deeply unhappy (and maybe nauseated too). I met a friend tonight for dinner and I told her that somehow in my brain, I have literally, quite literally, deleted 2024. The grief, frustration, pain, sadness, and legal probate drama were SO much that I have deleted the year from my catalogue. When I reference things from the past, I mistakenly say they were 2024 when they were 2023. It’s as if the whole year was SO BAD I just decided to hit the delete button and move on.
Just wishing I could delete it from my emotional catalogue too; but, that’s another post to ponder.
Tipping point. My friend asked at what point my year long drama turned into my take no prisoners attitude she was seeing lately from me. It was the moment I sat down and realized that the person I was wrestling with legally stole not only my mother, her story, her legacy, and her life, but was stealing MY LIFE as well. My time, my energy, my focus, my dreams. I was allowing him to slowly and steadily leech all of this away from me. Even my mental health was in a spiral and after years of escaping the depression traps I suffered from in my teens and 20’s, I was falling into deeper and deeper hopeless depression periods that I struggled to come out from under.
It was the endless legal papers, demands, push back, nagging, calls, emails, pointless delays, energy draining on a daily basis. I lost part of my business, I lost hours and hours of time, I lost the energy to even try. And let’s not even mention the drain on my relationships - family, friends, co-workers. Losses, losses, losses.
The tipping point came on the day I received a writing prompt, a bit like this one, asking us to list how we wanted to “feel” each day, our dream life based on feeling. My first four things on the list:
stable
safe
free
peaceful
Where I was, on this day in 2024, had NONE of these things in it. My life was unstable, living in one state for 21-45 days then bouncing back to another state (and essentially life) for 21-45 days (rinse and repeat for over a year). I felt unsettled and frankly, lost. I often felt unsafe - from driving 11+ hour trips (14 times so far) across desolate areas and small towns alone to wondering if today would be a violent outburst or confrontation with this person. Due to the ongoing litigation and legal issues in question, I had no autonomy. My freedom was dictated by legal red tape. And peaceful? Yeah, not feeling that much at all.
So, take no prisoners attitude. I am taking back my life. Even though there are aspects of it I have no control over and cannot change given the present situation, I can CHOOSE to change my perspective and my focus and I will actively engage in ways to make these things a reality (for my sanity as well as my health and wellness). In 2025, my focus is on my own safety which means making arrangements for this in whatever way I need to. Safety is a core need for all of us.
I will make plans and arrangements so that I can begin to feel more stable and grounded in each place I am residing. This may mean something as simple as a photo of my family or art work from my kids on the wall when I am away to building rituals and habits that support a sense of grounding and stability no matter where I am.
And as for that freedom - I am exploding that concept wide open. Free your mind (Matrix fan here). While my physical self isn’t free to do what I want and be where I want to be, I am opening myself up to more creative expressions such as here, on Substack, through writing, and also as a yoga and meditation teacher - weaving the lessons I am learning into sacred spaces for others who might be sharing similar experiences. I am opening up to new art styles and methods and today, I reminded myself that I have been wanting to learn to play the guitar. Why not now? Creativity is freedom.
As I tip over the edge…this is my mantra for 2025:
PROTECT your peace. Protect YOUR peace. Protect your INNER PEACE.
So mote it be…
Reflection questions: Have you ever had a tipping point? What was it and how did it feel? What do you think the thing is that pushed you over the edge? Was is small or something much larger? What does the tipping point mean for you? Share in the comments or create your own post on this concept and how you want to explore it.
And thanks to
at The Curious Detour and Moon Arica at Dare to Fail for the Kaleidoscope Project Monthly Challenge. I am so excited to play here on Substack with the prompts!
What a fabulously vulnerable journey you took us on there. I'm sorry your 2024 turned out to be a kind of "Floor 13" year. But now you've deleted it you're free to move on, to drop the all of the baggage you were carrying and move on lighter into 2025.
Thank you for sharing this Aprille, it can't have been easy to choose to do so, I think it's a perfect addition to the challenge. I hope the fact that you went over the top leads to the kind of 2025 that you want to frame and hang on the wall to look back on for years to come.
Keep the raw emotional posts coming, they make reading so much more relatable when people share the bad instead of just the good!