Hello! Today is:

SEE WHAT'S NEW!

Wake up, what were you thinking?

Who were you, and where did you go?

There was an article I shared on Facebook a few weeks ago entitled, "To the Woman Who Hasn't Been Herself in a While":



To the woman who hasn’t been herself for a while
Stay hopeful…
That your spark will reignite soon.
That this weight will heave itself from your tired shoulders, soon.
That you’ll recognise the girl in the mirror again someday. 
Soon.
Don’t let the fear rise up and engulf you in the middle of the night anymore. It’s not real. It’s a lie and it’s keeping you down.
This will pass.
You, you’re still in there.
Hang on.
The thing is, my friend. Life can be heavy, it can be draining and sometimes it can feel like you’re the only one getting it all wrong.
You’re not. 
You really aren’t.
Look around any room and I promise you everyone you see, has felt the same way before, or will someday in the future.
And it will pass.
You’ll be back.
To the girl who hasn’t been herself for a while.
Don’t worry.
This is just a chapter not your whole story.
Never believe otherwise.

I shared it and it got only a few "reactions", but what surprised me is a few days later when Mandie told me she didn't know I was feeling that way. Really? I thought my family was missing her (me) even more, but if they were, they apparently weren't really aware of it.

There was a day somewhere between the day I shared that post and the point at which I felt myself return. It was a glimpse of the woman I remembered, and it gave me hope and took me aback at the same time. It wasn't my imagination that I had not been feeling like myself lately. How long had it been since I actually felt like myself? I can't pinpoint an exact day or week, but I know the season in which it started to happen. It was a season that I will compare to a long, gradual, uphill path that you walk and don't recognize the additional effort required because it is so gradual. A little stress here, a little stress there, a little emotional challenge over there, worry all around... it boils up around you while you try to carry on your normal day-to-day stuff. I wrote about spiritual erosion in my blog - this would be more like emotional and mental erosion, and I don't think it's an accident that they tend to occur concurrently.

We are spiritual beings. We have physical bodies and brains for thinking and making choices, but they are connected, intertwined in a way that we can't separate these aspects of ourselves even if and when we try. We were created this way, and if we don't recognize it and live in that truth, we just create a lot more trouble for ourselves than need be.

And then one day last week or the week before, I don't remember exactly the day, but I think I could nail it if I tried a little, I was me. Something changed and I felt as though I had returned to my body and my mind and my heart and my spirit were reunited. Hope awakened, and I could see possibilities again. I am thankful, and also a little sad, because the shadow of me that was acting on my behalf was thinking and feeling things that I don't fully understand... how awful it feels to know that these are the last days that I will see that little boy first thing in the morning, and hear the sweet boyish gurgle as he grins and giggles, and holding him as one of my first acts of the day, I'll feel his smile as much as I see it.

It is probably the last time one of my grown children will return to live in our home for a time, and bring their struggles and their joys with them. Somehow that makes me sad, and at the same time glad, because I know that it means they are doing well on their own. Effort will have to be made to enjoy time together. The woman who held my spot while I was absent? I'm not sure she was up to the effort, but I am. I'm glad I returned just in time.



Comments


@keep_it_simple_susan