When It Hurts, It Hurts

Disclaimer: I wrote this at 2am and haven’t had a chance to edit it. I am posting so I can hold myself accountable and not back out of it. I will go back and edit when I’ve had a sufficient amount of sleep. 

I’ve been struggling to write a post for the last several months. When I started my blog, I was motivated. Invigorated with fresh ideas. I had finally begun to do what I had been trying to do, wanting to do, for the last four years. What happened?  I was getting married. I had started a new job. Everything was seeming to fall into place. I had other new writing ventures. I was so excited and pumped about so many things. So, what? Life happened. In the way that life happens when you think you finally got it all figured out. The way that it happens when The Universe has other plans. And your plans just sort of fall out of your hands. Planning weddings can consume your everything. The payoff is totally worth it. But. If I said it wasn’t stressful, I’d be lying. And it hardly left any time to write. My wife and I had a beautiful ceremony which our daughter refused to be a part of. Instead, she threw the mightiest of threenager tantrums when it came time to put on her dress. After the ceremony was over she came out in her Minnie shirt. And cowboy boots. We all laughed about it.... later. But I got to marry my best friend and that’s all that matters. The new job I had started, wasn’t all it turned out to be. While I had gone into it with the full reservations that it might not work out how I hoped and was promised, I really wanted it to. I quit writing at some point while I was there. People from work had started reading my blog, and comments were made that ultimately made me self conscious about my new baby to a point where I put it on pause, and tried to keep it safe. I write for myself. I write for all of you who take the time to read it. I do not write for my words to be twisted into a weapon against myself or anyone else for that matter. I had very limited time to write anyways, so, I just stopped. Once things became unbearable at my job, I left. Which caused it’s own sea of emotions. There was unbelievable drama and I’ve reached a point in my life, where I choose not to participate in those negatively charged situations. It’s been a few months now that I’ve been gone from the Gym. And they have been somewhat of a whirlwind of chaos. There have been so many changes and excitement in our household. Our daughter started school, we went from a one-working parent house to two. We’ve had family trips. I started working on a podcast. And a ridiculous amounts of colds and flus. And while nothing is exactly quite wrong. Everything seems so out of place and off. I feel so out of sync and out of touch with what is ‘normal’ to me. Maybe that’s because a new normal is forming. I’m not really sure yet. But that Unknown has sent me back into a battle against my own worst enemies, my anxiety and depression. And in the chaos of everyday life, I’ve done what every mother does. I’ve just pushed on. I’ve pushed my own feelings to the side for the best interest. To get things done. But that just leads to stress, frustration, exhaustion. It’s two o’clock in the morning. I should be sleeping. Everything in me wants to be. Yet, I’m still awake. Struggling with it all. I found myself scrolling through my earlier posts. Trying to find my own break from the chaos. Or maybe I was just trying to find a reminder of my motivated self. Instead, I found a reminder to love myself first. It’s okay to not be okay. And we tend to forget that. Especially as mothers. We beat ourselves up when we can’t keep everything together. Even though every one of us has had a moment of not keeping it together. We forget that we’re human. We let go of our self-care. I’m blessed to have people in my life that help make me feel better when I’m down. That bring me back to myself when I fall into these kinds of ruts. My wife and my mom are the best support system I could ask for. And the joy my daughter brings is brighter than any gray clouds. I read some interesting little facts about sunflowers the other day and I’ve been thinking about them since. When the sun is out, sunflowers will face the sun to take in their energy. But when it’s covered by clouds, they will turn to each other and share their energy. I’m not sure how accurate it all is, but the general idea touched me so much. I’ve been hearing so many stories lately of people just feeling out of wack. There’s a tension in the air that seems to be creeping all around. We as people are so much better when we come together. Maybe if we all just took our positive energy and turned it towards each other, like the sunflowers, the clouds would go away. So, today, I’m taking my advice from the sunflowers. I’m not closing myself off anymore. I’m done hiding. I’m done letting my anxiety and depression win. I’m done not doing the things that I love the most. I am taking my positive energy and turning it out to the Universe. And I hope you do the same. When it hurts, it hurts. And that’s okay. But one day, you have to get up and say enough is enough. For me, today’s that day.