Well hello my friends… yes it’s been awhile hasn’t it.
It’s been a very busy and chaotic few months for me… actually all of 2021 is proving to be “quite the year”. (As if 2020 wasn’t “enough” of a “quite the year” enough for five years.)
So many things have happened this year… a RunDisney progressive virtual running event, which dovetailed into a multi-month recovery of a fairly major back injury. There was (is) the lingering covid divide of all things anything. There was a wedding and all things involving being the mother-of-the-groom; showers and flowers, invites and cakes, shopping and spa days. There has been camping and a somewhat attempt to return to running. There is now a teenager in the house and all the things involving the aspects of a middle school teenage adopted boy dealing with normal struggles, as well as a few additional struggles that need attention and love and constant navigation. There was a middle school baseball season, with all the practices, carpools, drop offs, pick ups, and games. There has been all the financial struggles I’m sure everyone is also experiencing and the attempts to juggle two jobs, both of which are currently from my home, but one of which will soon be having to return back to the public office setting.
I’m sure I could continue on, but I’m also sure I’ve probably already lost several of you along the way as you tried to just get past the above paragraph. I know I know, it’s not just me living in a crazy fog of all the things.
So, I have been fairly silent, at least much of the time. However, I have been leaving the house much more than a year ago. I have been making appearances in public places, as well as attempting to visit one on one with a few of my closer peeps that I have not seen much of over the past 18+ months. I’m still very much an introvert, still very much one who loves to view and experience things from afar.
I have stopped reading self help books, I’ve stopped listening to self help podcasts, and I gave my social media feed a very healthy trim. I finally looked up one day last summer and realized that all the books I was reading, and many of the people and accounts I was following in my attempt to become “better” were actually leaving me worse off than the “worse” I was already at.
So I picked up some non-fiction… said hello to the glorious Twilight series of books and movies, and then on to the Beautiful Creatures series, the House of Night series, the Of Smoke and Bone series, and haven’t really looked back since.
No more For the Love, no more Girl Wash Your Face, no more Carry On Warrior, no more Eat Cake Be Brave. I’ve made some fast friends with some amazing vampires and have zero regrets closing the door for a while on the self improvement ward.
On occasion I will still listen to a random podcast now and then, but overall I have just really cut back on everything, at least attempting to hold the reigns back to all that which influences me from the outside in. My radio is not on at home or in my car. I don't watch tv. I set my phone to turn off all notifications from 7pm to 7am, but don’t get me wrong, I’m still very easily the victim of endless social feed scrolling and wasting so many of my precious minutes and hours wishing I had more of this and less of that.
I’ve also made the odd switch to running to classical music. I have always had a love for it (and you know, Metallica), but never while I was running or walking. But one day I reached that point of utter burnout that was so extreme I could no longer continue to hear or process any more words.
So in other words, yes, I’m still a hot mess. I’m still not the weight I want to be. I’m still not remotely close to the mother / wife / daughter I need to be to those in my immediate bubble. I still have a daughter that I have to visit every now again over in the cemetery, and absolutely everything (and I do mean everything) in between.
I’ve been doing some thinking about this blog again lately, feeling compelled to post something… but not sure what. I started this blog to tell our story, our story of our Journey to Faith. Our love and loss of our dear little daughter Faith MaryJo. And I did share the details of our very short life with her, and I’ve since gone on to share some of the healing and dealing as I continue to try move forward in this life. She stopped living, but I did not, and somehow I am needing to figure out all the details to all the minutes, days, months, years until it will be my turn to take my last breath here on earth and join her.
And as I think about that, I think about what I really want to write about, to share, to allow you in to see and know and feel. But I have this ever present odd little voice in my head always saying – no one is wanting to know. No one wants to see what coffee mug you are using today. No one wants to know that you ran today and how far you went. No one wants to hear about the thoughts and pangs and hurts and joys and sorrows and utter disparity continually at war within you.
And for some reason, I tend to listen to that voice, give that voice the power it does not have and surely does not deserve. I am not forcing anyone to do anything, and I do not need to believe the whispers saying no one wants to hear, or see, or know anything about anything I have to say or do.
So I’ve decided, at least for the current moment, to drink the coffee, run the miles, bake the cupcakes, pet the dog, post the photos, and … write the words.
Write the words.
Yesterday as I was in the car driving in silence, all the thoughts and all the words all binging and banging and pin balling around inside my mind, I decided to challenge myself to write and publish one thing a week for the next nine weeks. I was throwing back and forth if I needed to stick to a certain topic or not… and went back and forth over the reason for the blog in the first place.
Our Journey to Faith. "Faith" as in our daughter… "Faith" as in believing and doing all in which you cannot actually see or know, and simply trusting that it is good.
Maybe I'll try write about the joy of watching an amazing son marry the love of his life, while knowing there should be one more little flower girl coming down that isle before them with her pink rose pedals and her sparkly little shoes and dress.
Maybe I'll write about my running and fitness journey, because in reality, it took me being really sick and reaching the lowest of lows with my physical and mental health before I finally was able to find any kind of forward momentum improving my own health.
Maybe I'll write about…. Actually… why don’t you just try pop on here every now again over the next few weeks knowing I will hopefully be fulfilling my personal promise and challenge to myself and sharing whatever it is that God lays on my heart and hands in those moments yet to come.
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