Hope

Yesterday I put up our Christmas decorations. There aren't many--just a lot of ornaments given to me by my parents over the past 20 years, plus a nativity set we got as a wedding gift. I don't need a lot of junk around, but I like that our apartment feels cozy and Christmasy now. Plus, I bought Amahl and the Night Visitors on iTunes and listened to it three times yesterday....so that helps too.

Here's how I am: I am loved. I am healing. I am learning that pain has the ability to stretch me and form quiet depths in my soul, which I can draw on when my strength is waning. Love is not easy, but I'm finding that it is much better to be wounded and broken but to be facing each other, struggling toward each other, than it would be to remain isolated from each other and numb to the pain, passively drifting apart.

I'm also learning that courage isn't always loud or bold...sometimes it means diving into your weakness and facing the worst parts of yourself. Being vulnerable and trusting that you will be accepted even in your brokenness...and that if you aren't, you have the ability within you to survive.

We will endure. We will heal. We will find greater joy in each other, and we will look back on this as the beginning of a new life.

............

Here it is: the promised update.

It's been a very weird week. Someone I care about a lot expressed concerns/complaints about me in an extremely hurtful way last week, and I haven't been able to shake it off since. I would love to write off the entire conversation as mean-spirited and unnecessary, but many of the things that were said are areas I really do need to work on, in spite of the fact that I was deeply wounded by the way they were brought up. So now I'm stuck trying to simultaneously forget about it and learn from it--not easy to do.

The strangest part is that on the surface, everything has returned to normal. There's laughter, fun, normal daily routines...I'm just a little depressed underneath it all, and small bumps in the road keep turning into major catastrophes in my head.

I don't want to be melodramatic, and I hope I'm not doing that. The honest truth, though, is that I'm struggling. I know things will get better soon. I know it's going to be fine eventually. But it's not fine now, and that's just how it is. I'm trying to learn to be present in the moment and not force myself to heal too fast, but also cope with my daily life effectively. I have to go to work; I have to pay the bills; I have to wash the dishes...breathe in, breathe out.

That's life right now. Taking breaths, going through the motions, coping the best that I can.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

New post coming soon

My thoughts have been a little jumbled lately, and I've had trouble putting them into words. But I really need to do that, so I promise to write a real blog within the next few days. I'll try for tonight. I'm pretty much just writing this so that I feel accountable to do that. So...there you go. I'll be back soonish.