When I had my first fight with my best friend, and I mean gut wrenching, crying on the bed, heartbreak of a middle school loss, I was inconsolable. If I could remember what it was about, I'd tell you but it's been years. I do remember that I lost someone I thought would be there till the end and my dearest dad gave me his words of wisdom.

I was on my bed, deleting our over edited pictures off of MySpace when he knocked on the door and sat next to me.

He said you can only accept the things you cannot change and when something is empty and has no value, it's is trash.

"When you take the trash out, close the lid on it. No contact, no stalking, blocked on everything, and especially no sightings. I practice my forgetting till it works, some days are hard and some days not so much. Toxic people are trash. Hate as hard as you love. Its there loss, get away from trash."

Now, I thought he was being over dramatic like some parents can be just to make you feel like petty situations could actually be a significant and traumatizing issue, until recently. I just had to do one of the hardest things I have yet to face. I left the father of my child.

All I wanted to do was run back to him after being sent his pitiful text messages begging to keep our relationship alive and using our daughter as a pawn in his game to try and keep us afloat but going through what he put me through, I had to be strong. I couldn't cave in when I had the beautiful life so pure and innocent with out an ounce of knowledge on hate and deceit watching my every move and absorbing information more and more every day.

Relocating and starting over is hard but doing it with an infant is even harder. We move across the great state of Louisiana back to my home town where I've heard multiple "we told you not to!" And "why didn't you leave sooner?" To be honest, you don't realize what is going on until you're on the outside looking in.

When you have to keep that contact for the child and their other parent, it's tough. Things are said that you want to believe is encouraged of the thought of your children but after analyzing messages hours after receiving them, you realize the plot of destruction they've tried to lay out for you.

After moving home, it took me a whole month to gain my composure and set a plan. I was going to do this and I was going to make it out alive. I sat on the foot of my dads bed while my daughter was asleep crying and asking what I could do... He put his hand on my chin to raise my face up, told me to stop crying and to realize what had to be done. I had to take out the trash and shut the lid.

I lost that dead weight that weighed me down to think that I had to be with him. I had to conform into what his family and himself tried to mold me to become. I lost that weight that made me feel like he was the only world I could ever get out to explore. I lost the weight that was the past so I could move on to the present.

So here is a lesson; when you feel lost and consumed by the guilt that is forcing a gravity on your conscious, when you feel like the only way to turn is back into a relationship that is toxic and unhealthy for your soul, take out the trash and shut the lid... then walk away.