I'm here for the (pity) party

I want to write important things.  Doesn't everyone who writes?  We want to feel like we existed and laying our thoughts and feelings in words is an existence in itself that could potentially live here after us.

The words that I use today are quite different than the words that I would have used 15 years ago.  Then it would have been painful and I would suffer to tell the tale of a lonely soul who found love and walked away from it with their skin shredded to ribbons.

10 years ago I suffered under the weight of my soul-crushing desire to have a child.

5 years ago I rejoiced in the promise of an answered prayer.

Today my thoughts and feelings, though still full of those other times and sufferings and joys and grace and despair, also smack of vitality and renaissance.  I am woman.  I am 40.  I am passion and purpose and art and fury and all the things I held restrained within me at 24.

I hadn't yet learned the beauty of stillness.  I hadn't yet heard the heartbeat of perfect love.  I hadn't yet borne the despair of infertility.  I hadn't fully lived.

And yet...have I now?  I do feel that I am on the precipice of something.  Not just being 40, but finding a fullness of myself.  I'm not sure what that even means, but I'm ready for it.

Until I get there, are these words today enough?  Have I meant something?  Have I existed in these words?  Have I inhabited my speech and my thoughts and my feelings?  Have I left something good with my family, my friends, my community, full of warmth and passion and a true deep well of happiness that is encapsulated in my life?

When in doubt, live.  Tackle that voice telling you no or you can't.  Put those words down and give them wings by letting them breathe in the light.  I'm certainly going to try because I have hope for more than today.

Be

Lord, I am so frightful. I am reaching blindly, hoping to catch on to something solid. I want so much to live a life unafraid...and then darkness comes.

Why? Why does every night end in pleading for rest, comfort, peace? It's a never-ending cycle of anxiety. It is like Sundowners, anxiety-version.

On the way home, I feel a weird twinge or my stomach starts hurting or I can feel my heart kicking out weird beats. There it goes, a whirlwind that lifts me off the ground and makes me dizzy. I feel sick and being dizzy makes me sicker.

I desperately want to cry. I need the renewal that comes with choked sobbing.

I have had this feeling all week. It paralyzes me and makes me crawl into bed to do nothing. I forgot to pay our monthly bills on time. I forgot to submit something important to the church bulletin. My dishes are piled up. My laundry is overflowing. I haven't cooked a real meal in over a week.  I have been wearing dirty clothes to work all week and no shower, just perfume and deodorant to cover the smell. This is me at my worst.

Rock.
Bottom.

Misery.

Give me relief Lord. Jesus, I trust in you. I hear what you are telling me and I am willing to concede that point.

I think it may be time for more therapy. I am not ashamed, but I am afraid. Will it work? Release, relief, I crave you. Let me snuggle down in the dark and never worry again. Please God...help me be still and know.