What a Difference a Year Makes

I've been beating myself up a bit lately.  Stress has a way of making you focus on your shortcomings I suppose, and stress is something I've had plenty of lately. In December I started the process of moving out of my apartment and into my new house.  A friend loaned me his pickup truck and slowly, over the course of weeks I started moving my things by myself with only the help of my 9 year old son.  On Thanksgiving day, my family was scattered here and there, so Charlie and I decided to move our kitchen table, and our Turkey day dishes over to our new place.  He helped me load up the table and chairs onto the truck, we bought a small turkey and all the fixings, and the two of us sat down at our table in our new home and with thankful hearts, shared a prayer of thanksgiving for all our blessings.

It took us until about a week ago to get everything moved out of the apartment and into our new place, with a little help here and there from some family members, but here we are, all settled in and happy with our little house in the country.  Only I keep getting this nagging feeling that I'm not doing enough. I work every day, I take care of my kid, I help my other children as much as I can, I try to socialize with my friends as much as time allows--but something still seems amiss.

With all the chaos of moving and working and change in general, I have not taken time to write anything at all in a long time.  As I sit here writing this it feels unnatural, forced and awkward.  Words do not flow naturally lately as they used to, my focus seems lost.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a friend a while back.  I told her that all I want is to get back to the person I used to be--confident, assured of my abilities, outgoing and energetic.  I want to be that girl who cares enough to spend an hour doing my hair every morning, the girl who dresses to impress, the girl who makes everyone laugh and flirts with men just to make them nervous.  I'm just not that person anymore and my friend told me quite frankly and lovingly  that I will probably never be that person again.  Life has changed me. It has transformed me into someone more serious, less superficial, more introspective and much more judgmental of myself.  I'm trying my best to hang onto the good changes and let the not-so healthy ones go.  I know I need to give myself credit for all I've overcome, but I have a hard time being kind to myself lately.

So today after we came in from the snow and warmed up by the fireplace, I decided to look back over some pictures from the last year--pictures of my apartment the day I moved in, with all my Earthly belongings dumped in the middle of my living room, not a soul around to help me put my life back in order.  I looked at pictures of me at work, the new people who have entered my world and shown me love--made me feel like somebody again.  I thought about all the friends who have stuck by me through all my ups and downs--the bad decisions that left me in bad places, and the consequences that were out of my control.  Throughout them all, my true friends have given me words of encouragement, they've embraced me with their love and unconditional acceptance and I feel so unworthy of them.  They are Grace at work in my life, and they are truly amazing.

A year ago I sat on my couch on a Saturday morning, feeling alone in the world.  I was angry and hurt.  I was on the brink of giving up on life altogether. Now I sit here in my pretty living room, watching blue sky break through the dark snow clouds from the picture window  that looks out on the mountains.   I'm admiring the long icicles sparkling along the eaves of the house, marveling at how they just hang there and continue to grow,  and I'm realizing that to persevere through the coldest, darkest days,  is to live.  Each person perseveres in her own way, and somehow I found mine.  I have all the sketch pads filled with drawings and doodles and hand-written phrases I wrote to myself on days when I needed a kind word but had no one else to give me one.  I have painted furniture and hand-crafted creations that kept my fingers busy while my mind turned its gears and helped me cope with the chaos that was going on inside my soul.  I have a beautiful little red-headed granddaughter who looks an awful lot like my own baby picture, and whose big smiles and sweet giggles fill my life with a whole new kind of joy--a joy I thought I'd never get to experience.

There is a dirty dish in my kitchen sink and I don't feel like I'm a bad person because its there.  In fact, I purposefully left it there this morning just because I could.  Sometimes I take naps on the weekend and I don't feel guilty or lazy or worthless.  I don't always cook dinner--sometimes we eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in front of the TV.  I hang clothes on my clothesline when I feel like it and sometimes I don't bring them in right way when they're dry. I step over baby toys on the living room floor and I'm okay with that. I'm living my life again without frivolous rules and regulations imposed on me by someone else.  I know that my inner compass will always point me in the right direction when it comes to the important things in life.

Dishes be damned--let me always be able to love unconditionally, preserve my own soul by shielding myself from those who would do me harm, and let me, to my dying day, remain committed to my transformation even from this life into the next.