growth – Page 5

Dealbreakers?

I had a long convo with a close friend last week and through the twists and turns of that conversation came the idea of dealbreakers.

When we are young and chasing the youthful love that our 20’s bring we don’t think of what WE need. Life just feels good and is intoxicating. It never occurs to us that we can say “you are a nice person but not the person for me” because…. Mainly because at that stage of life we don’t know ourselves – let alone know how to really see people. Be it friends or lovers our emotions rule over our heads and the gut instinct you develop from life kicking the crap out of you just ain’t there yet.

But when you find yourself at the mature phase of life, seeking out someone worthy of your time for whatever reason, the rules are different. You know yourself (or should) better than you ever have. You know what you are looking for and admittedly it can seem like a needle in a haystack. But following the idea that there is a glove for every hand – settling for someone who only checks two of your ten boxes just to not be alone is insane.

For me personally? I’ve had love and I’ve been treated like a queen. The standards are high. A huge dealbreaker this time around is anyone who doesn’t have at least a little wanderlust in their heart. Seeing this huge world is the focus on the next chapter of my life. I’ve done bills and babies and hectic schedules. I want to sit on a patio in Greece and watch an incredible sunset with someone who will appreciate it as much as I do.

That someone should love animals and be able to handle craziness that comes with my nutballs. Be able to melt at a pair of puppy dog eyes as quickly as I do. Be open to the zoo that lives in my heart.

Must be a southern gentleman. Someone who makes me feel safe while making me laugh – at myself and everything else. I’ve had too many tears…laughter is required in this season.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I’ve only dipped my toe back into the dating world as it is a SCARY place after almost 20 years of being devoted to one person. The world has the same number of nutballs as it always did and I’m afraid of being a magnet for them. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But it is empowering to know that with a mature heart logic can at least have a chance over lust. Fred always told me I wasn’t meant to be alone – I have too much love to give. I used to dismiss him when he said that. As I’ve healed I realize he is right. I have so much I want to do and see and while I don’t NEED anyone…having someone to share it with is how God intended life to be liven.

What are your dealbreakers?

Blessings y’all – Amy

Life After 40…

Growing up I couldn’t see myself ever making it (literally staying alive) until I was 30. Was quite sure my abusive childhood would lead me into a situation that would kill me before then. When 30 came around I was happier than I had ever been in my life. I had married my best friend and had a thriving household. It was an occasion we celebrated and I didn’t give any thought to what 40 would bring.

Fast forward 10 years and I celebrated my 40th birthday without my love. My children made sure it was an amazing celebration – checked off a couple bucket list items for that trip – so I had no reason to feel sad but I was. On this birthday the future was all I thought about. All I had ever known myself to be was predefined roles. I didn’t FEEL 40! There was a part of my brain going “this can’t be right”.

Society pushes us to seek love, marriage, and the baby carriage as ultimate life goals. Most of us rush at them like a runaway freight train and then wonder a few years later why. What we don’t learn is how important taking care of your own self is to those goals. Literally we judge others who put themselves first. I learned to be afraid of judgement from others and expected to conform myself to whomever I needed to be to serve the situation. Fred pushed me to at least be able to start the process of finding myself and my voice but when love, marriage, and the baby carriage either died or started to leave the nest chaos ensued.

With a lot of hard work, making many mistakes along the way, I am starting to figure that out. I know I am not alone in this season of discovery…heck I’ve even see that there are books written on the subject about finding oneself after 40. I’m surrounded by good people that revel with me on whatever new thing we have discovered is not as we always thought it was. I’m in an exciting time of life where I am having a blast. It’s just flat amazing how empowering it is to not have to consult with anyone before making choices. Realizing that others are so lost in their own pain and survival that they don’t even notice the thing I used fear was a neon sign above my head. The most powerful discovery for me personally is someone else’s reality isn’t mine. I am not whatever label someone else has tried to stick on me. Someone else’s judgement of me is about them and their insecurity and fears, not me. Try that one on for size. It’ll blow your mind.

But it leads me to wonder why are we not teaching our children that nurturing your own self and being an individual is not a bad thing? What would it change for the next generation if they understood individuality with make them MORE not less? How do we break the cycle of caring and/or fearing what others think? That being a healthy individual capable of standing on your own two feet makes better relationships not worse ones? Lots of food for thought on those questions for a later post.

I’ll close with…don’t be afraid of the second chapter in life. Wherever you are on your journey about you, it’s a season of empowering change that your only regret will be not discovering these truths in your 20’s. Dust off the bucket list. MAKE a bucket list. Take the trip. Wear the whatever. Do something crazy and impulsive and do not care who is watching. Maybe YOU will inspire someone else!

Blessings y’all – Amy

Falsely Positive?

We’ve all been around those people who seem to have it all going their way. On top of that they are cheerleaders for life. Their social media reads like a motivation app. The little voice in your head screams “NO ONE IS THAT HAPPY. PUT TOGETHER. POSITIVE ALL THE TIME”. You are right. They aren’t.

As someone who used to flip past those messages as fast as I could, because they annoyed me, I can honestly say I used to think “I wish just once you’d post about having a bad day.” It’s not that we wish ill on them. It’s that we want to know they are human like us. That they hurt. That they tripped on the way out the door and had to wear a coffee stain all day. That the gorgeous dish in the photo took three attempts to get just right. Heck, even that they would misspell a word would make us feel better.

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What I am learning as I dig into this season of self discovery in my life is that those messages aren’t trying to nauseate us all. Ok, there are probs some fakers out there but I’m speaking about the good humanity I believe in as a whole. Speaking for myself, I have been surrounded in the last year by faith, apps, books, and truly good people that have encouraged me to change my way of thinking. To receive a positive motivation on my app, feel it deeply, and want nothing more than to pay it forward. It may not be as well received as the coffee I paid for for the guy behind me but the intent is the same.

Ghandi told us “Be the change you want to see in the world”. It is said that Ghandi’s full intended meaning behind the saying was to set an example and implement the right kind of changes in order to make the world a beautiful place. Left, right, polka dotted, yellow, or striped I think we all agree where the world is at this very minute could use a little change. No matter how small.

BE the change WE want to see in the world.

The best thing we can do when we read or hear things that touch our heart or that change US is share it with others. So the next time that inclination to flip on by comes over ya, I dare ya to stop and read instead. The message just might be something you needed at that exact moment to change YOUR world.

And there is nothing falsely positive about that at all. It’s just positively beautiful.

Blessings y’all – Amy

False Evidence Appearing Real

Ever hear something once and it registers but your brain kind of dismisses it? Then when you see it again…in big letters on the motivation app on your phone…it smacks you in the face? Sometimes I wonder if that’s because the way it is presented is different or if it’s because we’re in a different headspace on the second or third (or thirtieth) time of being presented with a message.

F.E.A.R. – False Evidence Appearing Real.

Ask an anxiety sufferer and they will tell you their fear is VERY much real. To them (us/me) it IS. You “normal” folks think we have a screw loose. But you can tell me that the spider that is outside my front door is NOT going to somehow climb out from under my shoe and bite me while I’m squashing it and I’m still going to be safely inside the house trembling. It’s a SPIDER. They kill people with their bites. That’s the only bit of evidence my worried brain has retained and the logical “you are 135 lbs to his .05 lbs” never gets a chance to weigh in. (Huge shout out BTW to my bestie Becky for driving over with her spider spray and killing it for me!)

Another example. Ever walk into a room and conversation stops and you are SURE that everyone in that room had to be talking about you? No evidence to support that other than that fretful voice in your head saying “do I have a spot on my shirt, is my hair sticking up, did I put on pants”? It’s the F.E.A.R. of judgement, condemnation, and standing out that makes us sure that ill timed pause in conversation pertained to us. In reality, as humans, most of us are too involved in our own mess to notice anyone else’s.

A more personal example? I was adamant from the time Fred died that I couldn’t live alone. I didn’t know how, my world centered on my family, I am deaf enough that I am not safe, etc etc. That F.E.A.R. for four plus years damn near stopped my life. Alienated parts of my family. Made me so anxious, stressed, and afraid that my body turned on me. Like to the tune of 85 pounds lost in 11 months turned on me. Guess what? 99% of the time I prefer to be in my house by myself. I have no one to clean up after, my house never stinks, laundry “day” consists of about one load, I always have groceries and my favorite cookies in the pantry….you get the idea. Do I still wish I had someone to kill the spider/roach/whatever creepy crawly? Yep. Is that reason enough to live in fear trying to control everything out of my control to stop time? Nope. (Do I miss the time when my husband was alive and my kids were little? Every damn day.)

I was brought up taught to be afraid. Taught in childhood and young adulthood either by example or being told “don’t do this – it’ll hurt you”, “don’t say that – you’ll hurt my feelings”, and “do xyz – or something bad will happen”. Sometimes presented as rules but more often than not just presented as punishment when I did the “thing” I was being taught to be afraid of. Also taught later in life by trauma and loss that the world was something to be afraid of.

So how do we keep F.E.A.R. from running our life? I don’t have all the answers – I’m still a work in progress. Learning to push against those fears is HARD! But one thing I am finding that works is when I feel that familiar surge of panic/anxiety in my chest I stop and breathe. I ask myself “do I have any evidence that what I am afraid of can happen”? If I do – what is the worst case scenario? What is the best case? In most situations we land somewhere in the middle. (I did lose the battle on the spider!)

But it is a choice. It’s a choice to question, every day, until your curiosity and your heart are open and F.E.A.R. isn’t your driver. It’s a hard choice, the safe corner F.E.A.R. pushes you into is WAY more comfortable, but every time I’ve stared it down I’ve been dumbfounded at what I found on the other side.

See you there! Blessings y’all! – Amy

Scary When We’re Scared

As I continue to delve into what makes me tick one phrase jumped out in my reading. “We are scary when we are scared.” Holy heck what a statement. If you are being honest how many of you have a monster that takes up residence inside you when life is changing? When things are spinning out of control? When you are terrified? Probs more of you than can honestly admit. But please note that I am over here raising my hand.

I am scared of spiders. Snakes. Those creepy cockroaches that never seem to die. Normal things. Those things don’t make me loony. They are just normal fears that probably 90% of the population has if they are being honest.

The keep me up at night roaring monster fears?

Being homeless. There is scary monster fear. Growing up without security in where we lived because my mother was a fight AND (not or) flight kind of person leaves one with a solid fear of not having a stable home.

Dying. Not in an I’m afraid to die way. But in an I’m afraid I won’t go out gracefully and will leave my kids with enough horrible end of life memories that will overshadow the amazing childhood Fred and I fought to give them. As I watch what is happening with my grandmother that monster is fighting hard to get to the surface. Only God is keeping that one in check.

Never being loved again. Putting that one out there. Pretty sure that fear monster is going to run off any one who tries to get close simply with comparison to a man who was far from perfect but will always be perfect to me. Which leads right into probably my biggest fear of all in losing Fred and the kids getting about getting grown….

Being alone. Truly completely no one to take care of alone. Having to do exactly what I am now doing. Figuring out who I am inside and deal with all the demons from my childhood, losses, and life in general. That monster? She was a scary one who has scarred people she loves in ways that may never heal.

Some people don’t believe in out of body experiences but I’m here to tell you you have never been afraid enough to have the fear monster occupy your mind and your mouth. I cringe when I think about some of the things that have happened in my life the last two years. But I have learned to forgive myself. I have apologized and have accepted that has to be enough because I refuse to live in the past and won’t apologize for being human.

But yah. We are definitely scary when we are scared. And if you haven’t been that scared in your life God bless you. It’s easy to judge others when you don’t know their pain but it’s really different if you’ve walked even a minute in their shoes. That is one of the best lessons coming in “doing the work” as Brene would say. You learn true compassion and empathy – first with yourself and then with others. Emotions that if the world had a lot more of it wouldn’t be in the sorry state it is in.

Blessing y’all – Amy

Permission vs Forgiveness

Are you an ask permission person or an ask forgiveness person? What I mean is this…is your life bound by societal rules, childhood subconsciously learned rules, social pressure rules…you get the idea. Or is your life a Katie-bar-the-door they can forgive me later kind of life? There isn’t really a middle spectrum in my opinion.

Me? I’m a permission gal. Always have been. Always want to do the right thing, say the right thing, or BE what everyone expects me to be. Even in my travels I’m asking permission – in a way – by discussing each trip with my circle before really taking the plunge. If even one person in that circle didn’t think whatever I had dreamed up was awesome my mind would immediately start to worry. Undo. Imagine worst case scenario. FEAR.

In a permission life there isn’t a lot of spontaneity. You are too afraid of going against the grain. Standing out. Being judged. What I failed to realize is that those rules (walls) were slowing moving in on me. Inch by inch, day by day, year after year. As the roles that literally defined me have disappeared those walls have closed in hard. Wife. Mother. Caretaker. Niece. Granddaughter. Employee. Friend. Some of these roles will always be in existence but either they have drastically changed or I am no longer content to exist solely as they have always defined me. It has gotten almost impossible to be content being every one else’s version of Amy.

My idea of a forgiveness kind of life is being free. The old adage “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission” is ringing in my ears right about now. I imagine a forgiveness life means you are free to not think about every conversation in your head before you have it looking for and eliminating any landmines that might cause confrontation. Free to say (as Fred would have) “F*&$ ’em and feed ’em fish heads” if they don’t like it. Free from the stress of seeing all the bad (and only the bad) the world has to offer. Free from the anxiety of worrying about all the bad the world has to offer. Free to decide I want to go somewhere or do something without checking in with anyone to make sure it’s a good idea. Free to not let that sixth sense you have about people and situations completely immobilize you. Free to not apologize for my existence. Free to have the knowledge that I can am a smart, driven, capable person who can protect myself!

Along with recognizing my dissatisfaction of my roles I have come to realize that living a permission kind of life limits me. Comparing these two – both as I write this and in all the self work I’ve been doing – I can realize that a permission life was safe for me at one point in my life. It was what I needed for survival. It gave me stability and I knew what the rules are. As the universe is saying “stop hiding and start living” the permission life now feels like a concrete block pulling me to the bottom of the ocean faster than I can scream for help.

My real dilemma now is figuring out how to make the transition. My motivation app keeps me deluged in “greatness” and “chase your dreams” pep talks but my 43 year old brain hasn’t connected how to go from waiting on permission to figuring out and leaping towards my new “hell ya” season of life. I suspect the emotional weight I carry that keeps me feeling like I’m drowning is the insecurity of not knowing what rules I am living by now. What to do. Where I am going. Who my brain thinks it should be asking for permission. Who I freaking am for Pete’s sake.

My impatient immediate gratification self is going to have to learn how to just enjoy the journey. I know with work it will come in time. It’ll take repetitive conscious decisions to take actions different than I always have. Speaking openly and honestly on this blog is one of my “fuck ’em” decisions. (Ha! I didn’t do the expected thing and make the bleep ok!) You may not always like what I have to say but you damn sure are always going to know it came from my heart.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Cracks & Light

I am listening to Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly and I’ve had to learn how to drive, listen, and take notes to not forget the key sentences that grab my attention. It’s a balancing act I probably shouldn’t be doing but ya know. 🤷🏻‍♀️

One such profound sentence – “There is a crack in everything. That is how the light gets in.”

You know those books you read (or listen to) that make you squirm with their dead on application to your life? Brene speaks about perfectionism being a cover for shame. As a shield for vulnerability. Lots of squirming going on over here….

As one of the perfection seeking individuals Brene is directly speaking about in this book I’ve gotten quite good at hiding my “cracks”. Or so I thought. A little extra good deed here, a little extra work there, just keep it all together and surely you must have it all together – right? Keep spackling those cracks no matter what. Somewhere along the way I got the idea that if I didn’t show any flaws people would love me more. Or more people would love me. Not sure which.

The work I am doing in counseling tells me that idea stems from an abusive childhood. Being told constantly that I wasn’t good enough. To do better. To do more. To be seen and not heard. To be quiet and not cause any trouble. To not have an opinion – and if I did keep it to myself if it will hurt someone else’s feelings. To follow the rules – no matter the cost. Even if that cost is my love tank constantly being on empty. I have an 8 year old inside me starving for love. Even now. Even after having been married to the most perfect and flawed but loving man on the planet. A man that knitted together a family to bring love and joy he always craved and a family that completed me. How can that be? How can I have known the love of my life and still feel starved for love? How can I still have cracks?

If what I am taking from Brene’s words is correct (and goodness knows it’s only my interpretation) then my understanding is this…. Those cracks aren’t all bad. Those cracks left from childhood allowed the light that was my husband into my heart. Those cracks let me be vulnerable enough to be a mother – the hardest most flawed job in the world. Those cracks are allowing me to discover, finally, who I am without the responsibility of another soul except the sixteen paws that love me unconditionally. Those cracks promise to bring love and light to my life again. I don’t have to be perfect. I just need to be vulnerable and have faith. Through having faith even when I want to just hide I know the light will come again. Because I still have plenty of cracks. ❤️

Blessings y’all – Amy

Self Love What?

“You can only love others as much as you love yourself.” – Brene Brown

When this sentence came out of Brene’s mouth while listening to her audio book “Daring Greatly” I hit the rewind button. Again. And again. And again. Since entering into counseling in September 2020 one of the themes that we keep circling back to over and over again is self love. I honestly had no idea what that phrase meant. To the point I asked my counselor “what do you mean when you tell me to practice self love”?

For me, at that point of my depression, it was stuff that should have been easy like eating and showering. For anyone who doesn’t struggle with depression you simply have no idea how hard those two things are in the middle of a really bad dip into the black hole of depression. For those of you who have been there – you know what I mean. Weeks upon weeks of just daily thinking about “did I eat today”, “what did I eat today”, “when was the last time whatever I did eat stay with me”, and “when was the last time you showered” ruled my life. Feed the dogs daily? No problem. Fuss at my kid to make sure she ate? Again, routine. Show even the smallest amount of kindness and mercy to myself? Not a chance.

As I sit now somewhere about six feet above the very bottom of the place I got to in my my mind (but by no means anywhere close to out of the black hole) in the last year I am thankful that showering has become routine. Food is still a daily thing but that has extenuating circumstances that coincide with my ongoing gut issues. Some days eating really is just not worth the trouble. Having gotten somewhere a mile up the road past those issues my brain circles again to “what is self love”? My counselor now talks about thinking about the 8 year old little girl inside me who has been through physical and emotional abuse and how I would have protected her if she was my child. The things I would have done for her to make her happy. Those are the things I am to be working on now. When I get all that figured out I’ll let ya know.

But I think the reason Brene’s statement echoed like a gunshot in my head is I have always given 1000% to those that I love. Or in my mind I did. That one sentence opened up the Pandora’s box in my mind…if I had been able to take care of myself all these years could I have done better? If I could have told myself “good job”, or “it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks if it makes you happy”, or any of those things that we should be telling ourselves when we are happy and whole…could I have done it better?

As I am in a season of my life where maturity and time on my hands has given me reflection it’s easy to armchair quarterback now. To cringe and go “geez I probably could have done that better”. Hell, it’s easy to see why others are judging and re-writing the past with no knowledge of what it was like in the moment. It’s also easy to see where those around me are struggling with loving themselves enough to be happy and whole. My “fixer” nature wants to jump in and share what I’m learning. On some occasions I do, but I recognize now that we each have to know ourselves and love ourselves enough to recognize the unhealthy cycles we are in and make the changes for ourselves. I’ve spent to much of my life TELLING people how to fix their lives instead of just leading by example.

I know I’m not done fixing myself. I also know I’ve always put myself last. Isn’t the best form of self-love now to keep working on ME the way I should have done all along? Will I be able to love those I love most better if I keep on with this journey I am on? The answer is a resounding “YES”. Since I have no desire for the second season of my life to be as pain filled and traumatic as the first season…I’m gonna figure out this self love thing. I’m gonna figure out how to tell the girl in the picture that she is worth something – if not to anyone else than to the creator who made her.

Blessing y’all.

Amy

Another Trip Around The Sun

43. Who knew? For a girl that literally thought when she was 18 she never would see 30…43 is like getting bonus years.

In all seriousness, some of you know (but many don’t) that this time last year my depression was so bad I would have told you I didn’t want to live to see another birthday. I was locked in a battle of wills between a past I couldn’t let go of and a future I didn’t like or want. The result was a paralyzing soul crushing “there is no point” place. Only the thought of leaving my daughter with no parents on this Earth kept me here. And I’ll tell you openly there was more than one day even that was a slim slim thread. The darkness and pain had life so unbearable I honestly would have rather have been dead to have relief from it.

Many toss around terms like “crazy” or “nuts” for covering their own inability to understand the effects that depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts have on a person. It is so much easier to judge than wrap your brain around how terrifying it can be. “Just doing it for attention” or “all talk” are two of my least favorite pass offs I hear when someone is talking about someone else’s suffering. It is because of that type of non-understanding that those who suffer from those illnesses push them down. Hide them. Keep them away from the people who love them and need them despite the voices in their head telling them all those people would be better off. It’s those types of judgements that led the great Robin Williams to leave us instead of face his fan’s judgement if he told anyone how unhappy he was. Despite how far society has come in understanding mental illness it has SO FAR to go in grace, compassion, and kindness for those who suffer.

Through so much love and support this last year – support coming from places I didn’t expect – I am deep in counseling and medical treatment of a disease I will never be rid of. It was a genetic “gift” from both sides of my lineage and one I finally understand I’ll never escape. I can manage it. I can ask for help on the bad days. I can watch for signs I’m hurting the ones I love in my own pain. I can be open and honest in my struggle so someone else will make the right choice in that darkest hour.

But I’ll always be a little bit broken. God made me that way. Perfectly imperfect! I may not know or understand His purpose for me every day but right now I think some of it is to use my voice to share my journey so maybe others have a shorter path to recovery. Life is messy. It’s ugly. Feeling alone and hurting in the agony is excruciating.

As I reflect on starting another year on this planet I can tell you I have hope. I believe God has me exactly where I am supposed to be. I have faith each of my children are firmly in His hands and that God can protect them far better than I can. I have peace that Fred and I raised good kids who will put good into the world. I have hope there is someone out there for me to share my life with. Not someone to replace my Fred – there is no replacement. But someone who can love me understanding all that I have been through before him. I have God protecting me and the ability to talk to Him daily for probably the first time in my life. I have a job I adore that supports all the changes this past year has brought me and pushes me to follow through with taking care of myself. I am grateful that I am still here. I have far to go but from where I was a year ago? Sheesh. I feel lucky to be alive.

Ok.. enough pontificating. Birthday celebrations about to happen.

Peace y’all. Love each other. Be kind. Life is precious and short. Make every moment count. ❤️

Reflections of a Wounded Heart

They say everything changes when you turn 40. Actually they say it all goes to hell in a hand basket. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Things droop that didn’t before, going to bed at 8 am no longer seems appalling, the eye doctor says the dreaded “bi-focal” word. You don’t FEEL 40, heck you don’t feel 30, but the number keeps climbing.

More importantly your perspective on many things changes. For some, it happens naturally and without pain. Maturity just grows along with the number of candles on your cake. For others, 🙋🏻‍♀️, it takes catastrophic events to shake them out of the protective bubble they have cast around themselves. While I wish dearly I had fallen into group “a” my life has always dictated I do things the hard way.

If you have known me long or been reading here you know I’ve been going through massive changes in my life. Some of my choosing but most, well, not. What I didn’t anticipate as I fought, scratched, clawed, disrespected, and basically did everything but throw myself in front of things beyond my control is that God was working. He was allowing me to screw up to the “nth” degree. On purpose. Letting me get to a place there was no light. No hope. No joy. No love. Nothing at all left of the stability I craved with every fiber of my being.

Before you jump ship saying He wouldn’t do that – hang on. God had been trying to get my attention for years. Aborted journals reflect that. Times I cried out but quickly “fixed” it myself attested to that. I am a “fixer”. There is nothing (so I thought) that I couldn’t analyze for all the possible negative outcomes and navigate myself or someone I loved out of danger. I mean c’mon. If you were dealing with a human that dumb wouldn’t you let them fall as far as they could before you showed them the way?

Not saying God has any such thoughts. But I certainly would have looked at me and say “you have fun with that let me know when you need real help”. Blessedly God has abundant mercy and grace. He is patient and knew long before I did that this dark season was coming. Sometimes I wish he had given me some warning but if I look back really hard I bet I can find the warnings I chose to ignore.

Recently a co-worker told me he’s finding many people our age running into self reflection. I can’t speak for anyone else but self reflection is putting it mildly. Self analysis, soul searching, self questioning, self correction, self remodeling…you get the idea. Coming face to face with every one of my imperfections and analyzing and agonizing over how I have handled some parts of my life. How it changed relationships in my past or present. How it passed down to my children. Who my own fears and insecurities erased from my life. It’s exhausting. I’m not a bad person – I know that – but I, like any human, have places I could have chosen a different path.

It would be easy to blame it all on the very broken environment I was raised in. And while the lions share of it belongs there (validated by the counselor) at some point I consciously or subconsciously made choices for my own protection from pain. I willingly tucked my family in closer than it should have been (to be healthy) because I was afraid the world would break the happiness I had found. I guarded the nest Fred and I created with the energy of a tiger protecting a steak. When I suffered the catastrophic loss of my husband I somehow pulled my children in CLOSER. Unknowingly stifling their growth and happiness.

Regardless of what anyone thinks not a single choice I have made has been with ill intention. Not one. I am discovering how very hard it is for others to know that. In a society where judging comes first and any sort of compassion and understanding comes second it appeared controlling. Only those closest to me, who know my purest heart, understand who I am. As I embrace the woman God intended me to be, and get the love I need from Him (where I should have gotten it all along), I am finding myself still battling stress and regrets but with a softer tongue and a self awareness that comes with maturity and being shaped by pain. I find myself understanding which wrong turns I took and how a different path would have landed a different outcome. I find myself letting my children know where I went wrong so they can avoid making the same painful mistakes. Fully understanding that in their young immaturity they’ll probably have to make them anyway but once a protective mother always a protective mother.

I say all this to say…take time for reflection. Allow God to speak to your heart and show you the way. If you are still young avoid youthful impatience in your choices. Be mindful of the longevity of adulthood and how lasting decisions really can be. But know that if you are nursing a wounded heart? God still has plans for you. He does for me and while I’m impatient to find out what they are I know it’ll happen on His time. And that I am learning in every second that I am waiting.

God Bless – Amy