As We Close the Doors on 2021…

I am going to be raw. There may be things that trigger some people, but I must purge all the thoughts and things so I can be released from the heaviness of it all.

I started this year with a purpose and the beginning of what I thought was a clear path forming to all He wanted for me. This was the year of becoming…what that meant and what happened…well, neither was what I expected.

This year has been one of the most challenging in ways that I have expressed that about other years. Nothing prepares you for the loss of a parent. Nothing. The grief, the trauma, the things that surround it, and the processing. Maybe if it was the only thing I was dealing with at the time, I could have figured it out more, but I truly believe probably not.

There is SO MUCH that comes along with this loss. The holidays, the triggers, the what could have been…I miss my dad. Somedays it is in the distance and somedays it hits me so hard I feel like I can’t breath and I feel that I may never recover. Somedays the loss feels so BIG and other days it feels wrong and I feel angry…even as a firm believer in when it is your day, it is your day…I just never thought his day would be this soon. I never thought I would feel this way…I have always said that i identify with David and the Psalms….from praises to lamenting, to questions and then to understanding…this is what grief is like.

It has almost been 6 months…and the thought that I will someday say it has almost been 6 years…10 years….20 years….it is unimaginable, but I am fully aware it is also true. I hate it.

And then the hits just have kept COMING. Some small and probably a true first world problem…like not having a washer at home…but I already feel like I can’t breath and to get sucker punched AGAIN…and again…the weight of the things stacking up had began to feel so unbearable….and though I know He has a plan, a purpose, a lesson a refinement…there are days I don’t want it and then there are days that because I know what it feels like to come out on the other side, I long for the lesson and the other side.

I have laid in bed so many times just hysterically crying into my pillow because I have felt the heaviness of the darkness for so long and the valley just feels so deep and I just want all the pain to STOP. I want all the day to day stuff to STOP. I want the distance I feel in my marriage to STOP…I want my life back. I want me back.

Yes, because I have lost myself in all of the swirling. I have lost my way in all of the hurting, the triggers, the grief, the fighting, the unexplainable frustration I feel in the brokenness of my family - not just in my marriage but also in my extended family. I hate strife. I hate bitterness and most of all I hate what sin and all of those things can do when there are cracks in relationships…why can’t the Peace of Heaven just be here on earth…before it is too late? Before words can no longer be spoken?

Yes, I have said marriage more than once…marriages struggle. It is just the truth…they have growing pains and hard times…we are no different. We are two people in love dealing with personal struggles that have melted into our relationship. Some days are easy and some days are unbearable. That is the truth of where we are. I will always be thankful that Aaron is comfortable with me sharing all the truth because if I had to smile and act like that was perfect right now, I literally might just crumble and never recover.

It is a crazy thing when you are trying to keep moving. Smile through the day because sometimes that is just the right thing to do. I don’t want to walk around consumed in all my suffering and pain. I need normal…and if that means making silly TikTok’s and putting hard stuff aside to enjoy a meal with Aaron, that is what I will do. Sometimes it is in the push through I realize that I can keep going and pushing and working on healing…

I am just a person. I am just trying to do my best in all of my roles. I am broken and I am a sinner who is more thankful for grace then I have ever realized. I have had to ask for a lot of it since July and I hate that too. I mean why can’t I just get it together? Oh yea, it is because I am a sinner in need of grace, full of emotions and opinions…etc.etc.

I have felt like giving up the past few months…I have sat in counseling weeping with a pain that I don’t want to feel. Someone asked me if I have felt suicidal. The truth is yes. This is something that some people will never understand…in feeling that way it was just a desperate thought of a way to make the pain STOP. A moment or maybe ten of a thought of not being able to handle all of the things and emotions coming at me at once. Moments of the inability to compartmentalize and sift through all the emotions to get back to the things I know to be true…and God was always there…whispering, showing up and pulling me close. I haven’t lost my relationship with Him at all…but I know in the New Year that I need to be more intentional in how I cultivate that.

I know that what I just said about feeling suicidal will give some over to judgement. I just don’t care…For 6 months I have felt like I couldn’t say the things I always felt and thought…that I had to keep so much inside and bite my tongue and I know that this is part of the reason I am living at an 8 out of 10 in the anxiety scale…worried about judgment, perception…and I am not doing it anymore. If I am too much, you don’t have to stay.

So here I am…sitting here just typing all the feelings and thoughts and for once I am okay with doing that. It feels like a cleansing of some sort. And tomorrow I will wake up and keep planning and organizing all of the things and plans and stuff to be a better version of the day to day me…and maybe the refinement will start to make sense…the pain start to be less and maybe, just maybe that path will become clearer and I will start to find me again.