It's Been a Bit of a Moment

Wowza.

You guys, it’s been a hot minute.

Normally, I would apologize profusely for my inconsistency. I would apologize for not uploading as frequently as I initially promised I would. But during my time away from the keyboard, I’ve been trying my best to instill a few new healthy habits. One of them is apologizing less for things that I do not need to apologize for. Another is prioritizing my mental health (even more so than before). Another is setting and following through in enforcing my boundaries.

I’m such a “yes” woman.

Several years ago, someone observed that I had experience in many random things and had held several random positions of employment that didn’t seem to ‘fit’ me. My response was that I wanted to have knowledge in as many things as possible so that if someone ever needed help, I wouldn’t have to say no. He looked at me, stunned, and stated that he appreciated my response.

Now, while I do still enjoy learning and having experience in many different areas, I’ve learned that I simply cannot take the time and energy to learn absolutely everything, just so that I can help every single person who ever asks for a favor. There is simply not enough of me to spread around.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned that every positive personality trait can have a detrimental aspect if there are no boundaries. I had to give too much of myself away in order

to learn this.

Circling back around, I’m not going to apologize for not writing until now. And disclaimer, this is going to be a bit of a ramble—we’ll get into more specific topics in the next few entries.

It’s not that I don’t have plenty to share, or that I have not traveled or that I don’t care about this site anymore, or that I’ve lost motivation or inspiration. I simply have not had the words to convey the messages that I have wanted to. And before I could even try to come up with words, I had to fully surrender to the process of the lessons that I’ve been learning over the past few months, to even know what the lessons are, to know what I wanted to convey. I’ve had to learn how to surrender and let go of control. To separate from my ego and be in a state of allowing.

Four years ago, if all of the events in the last 6-7 months of my life had taken place, I’m pretty sure I’d be down at the bottom of the barrel. Friendly reminder: keep going. Because I’m not at the bottom, and if you give it a little bit of time and a lot of hard work, you won’t be either.

Now I’m not going to sugar-coat it. There have absolutely been days where I’ve covered my mouth with blankets and screamed in the pasture, where I’ve yelled at the universe and begged for a reprieve, where I’ve eaten an entire pizza by myself and where I’ve slept 80% of the day away. There have been days where my desire to speak my truths have led me to use the wrong words, therefor sticking my foot in my mouth deep enough to warrant a future apology and clarification. There have been days I spend 7 hours doing physical activity and days where my trusty apps say I took no more than 1,000 steps. But those were days and those were moments. They did not have to be the summary of this season of my life.

However, if I did have to summarize this chapter, I’d say that surrender would be it. If I’d tried to maintain control of all of the things that were out of my power, I’d have quite literally lost my mind. This season has been one of change, of growth, of very deep loss and grief, and of learning how to walk a fine line between holding it all together and knowing that it is still okay to fall apart.

As I’ve said several times: It’s okay to not be okay.

But it’s not okay to give up.

So now I stand up, brush off the dust, and straighten my crown.

After all, it’d be hypocritical to not at least attempt to practice what I preach.