Truth #1 Elephants not only lurk in rooms but they sit on chests too...

Truth #1 - I can't breathe. There is a gigantic elephant sitting on my chest and it's name is Florence. 

Well...that's not entirely honest, I don't quite know it's name and I refuse to ask. Something about getting too comfortable once you know someone's name and the next thing you know we are texting about our next coffee date and reminiscing about that "one time" I ate an entire jar of peanut butter without sharing. Then the stalking commences (on their end of course) because I'm a very stalk-able person-all my charisma and charm seems irresistible to some plus I don't have the savvy nor the correct shoes to lurk in bushes...

I should be forthcoming in my very first public post. I mean after that opening can you imagine what I am going to talk of next? I'm Zakia. Yes Zakia like the car Kia and Ikea the furniture store and thank you. It is an interesting name. I was named after my grandmother who I had adored. My name also matches my career in a different/artsy kind of way.  I'm an Interior Designer but most of my life I have been a stay at home mom and supporter of my husband's endeavors. I am beginning to realize that maybe I am much more than a caretaker and a supporter, both of which I know is a part of my soul and I hold no regrets but Life is about sacrifice isn't it? What puzzles me in my mid 30's and maybe this is the catalyst to my mid life crisis is that I come for the school that I want it all. Love. Money. Career. Sex. Travel. Friendship. The old saying having your cake and eating it too-yeah that's me, I really love cake.

Currently I feel like my life is one big beautiful (well I haven't seen the beauty part of it yet) mess. I feel like maybe I am going through said  mid life crisis at the tender, quite gorgeous age of 34. (35th birthday to commence in less than two weeks) I keep saying that many people have had mid life crisis at 34. I also know that many people are also not as emotionally driven as I am.  I am a mother. I am a force in the kitchen. I live for design. I breathe it everyday even when I am not actually divulged into it. I am passionate. I am a shoulder. I am an ear. I have a heart that allows too many people in which always leads to some sort of heartbreak.  I cry. I live to laugh until I cry.  I can be angry-passionate angry where I just can't bear to hold it in until I unleash my tsunami of fury. I hold onto to grudges like my father and one day I will learn to let some of them go. I am stubborn like him also. Stubborn and hard headed. I am loyal to a fault. I am not weak. I am anxious and I bite my nails and yes you can tell me its a terrible habit but I will continue to put my dirty fingers in my dirty mouth.
Saying those words remind me that the glimpses of my truth are there, yet I am currently having a hard time realizing and coming to terms with who I am now, this moment, today at the age of 34.

Truth #2 I might want out of my marriage. 

Enter Elephant. 

Liberating. I feel liberated in saying that. I have held those hurtful words and thoughts deep in my being for years. My Pandora's box. My big beautiful mess I just created by opening that damn box. I am so good at hiding. I could have hidden behind the facade of happiness for 15 more years. Some days I hate myself for letting my truth out. The feelings that come with giving ourselves permission to speak will always come with it's consequences and now I am dealing with the fall out. I am bruised and broken from falling from the grace that was and still currently my life. I wish they made band-aids the size of the moon for how many times I would need to be wrapped from my self inflicted injuries. 

I should also come clean and say I have what some would ignorantly and jealously call a perfect life. You know that life I'm talking about-the house, the perfect husband, two truly amazing, well behaved, courteous children-a girl and boy naturally. The vacations and disposable income, the non debt. Oh and of course the pet a Siamese cat with gorgeous crystal eyes, the most award winning shiny coat and a temper that gets taken out on my arm and legs on the daily with his sharp razor teeth (he is a bastard asshole cat) that now that I think of it we could most definitely live without. 

I can't complain and please don't read this as being contrite-no part of me is actually complaining. I have loved my life and still do. We are blessed. Everyday we have with our blessings is enough to be grateful and joyous. I ask myself in my torture "why then you douche am I not happy?"  Real happy. A happy you feel when you wake and wash the lingering sleep off in the morning happy. The pureness of the definition. You could ask for nothing more happy. I am complete. I have and want nothing, I could die like this happy. Why do I not feel that. Is it a superficial, unattainable generic feeling that I will never be able to grasp? Maybe. Maybe not. I am stubborn and I don't take no for an answer-my faults are written all over my skin. 

My husband. He gives me the world. He will continue to give me the world. He loves me with every ounce of himself. He is the perfect husband. Doting. Loving. Complimentary. He wants me every second of everyday. He loves my imperfections and  my emotional self. I am his beautiful chaos. There is nothing I ask for that he doesn't work to get me-and I don't mean material possessions. I am going to be the ruin of his selfless life. 

Here's a story. I have many. This one sticks out because it will show you his loyalty to me. I am a romantic and I have dreamt like many to wander the streets of Paris, lost, hand in hand, madly in love after years of marriage (and not the butterfly love people-that shit fades fast) me in my cute Parisian getup-a navy flowy dress that drapes over my body slightly dragging on the walked path hugging ever so slightly my many curves, straps that un-apologetically show off my back and shoulders, hair pulled to the side tousled ever so perfectly like we just stepped out of bed from  a morning of great sex-but I had time to throw on clothes type of look, slowly making our way to the worn pebbled pavement as he tells me over and over how gorgeous I am, how lucky he is and that I am his everything. This was my life. That was the way it would have been with him in Paris together like we planned. 

Paris happened without me. Paris was a stop on his many trips to Europe in which I never joined (why you ask-that is a book load of posts and raw emotion I will touch on in the future). I'm at home in my leggings and sweatshirt most likely with spit up and toddler food staining the fibers of a shirt that will remind me later that I am alone. I am most likely crying. Depressed and worn to my last bit of patience I had mustered up that day on little to most likely no sleep. I am sure I called him screaming and unleashing my tsunami of anger filled resentment knowing that it would cut him. I am sure I asked him how Italy was and Florence and Venice and being able to sit for 3 if not 5 hours at a dinner with amazing food and friends he made over the months of travel there back and forth leaving me with the bouncing baby and screaming toddler. I on the other hand look like a skeleton because I can't recall when my last actual warm meal was. 

Paris. He is in Paris and I can still feel the memory of my boil towards him. That was to be our place. The place I said I want to go with him to. Together. To wear my navy dress and roll out of bed, together. He stayed in his hotel room the entire day. Looking out an old secret kept foggy glass upon the cobbled gray pavement of my thoughts, the pavement we are to walk  hand in hand on laughing and smiling and loving our lives together. 

All day he spent dismissing his friends requests to leave for dinner and view the Eiffel Tower. He stayed in his room. All day. All night. For me. It's who he is in all his glorious perfection. He will give me the world. Tear it from the other men who say that they will give it to the loves of their lives and he will actually GIVE me the damned world. He wanted my dream then and he wants my dream now.  

To me that dream is a distant memory and reflection on how many years have now passed by living in a content disconnect from him and trying to convince myself that my feelings and raw emotions of my Pandora's box are normal and maybe just maybe I can hide forever in a complacent state. My heart knows it's not normal and has for years. I can't hide anymore. I have to deal with my truth. 

I wanted Paris. 

I wanted Paris with him. 

I no longer want Paris.

I want the elephant to get off my chest.