Day 1
It’s on my wish list to begin writing again. It’s so hard to start after so long absent!
A few years back, I began to get a hold on my depression and turn my thought life around. I held onto a word for that year – the word was “hope.” I remember making a hard medical decision for Daniel. It was one of those decisions where I wasn’t confident that I was making the right choice. It was risky. It definitely would involve pain. The possibility for failure paralyzed me. As it has paralyzed me so many times before. But I made that choice… by laying CLAIM to hope. I claimed it. It was mine. I would hope for a better outcome than I feared.
A more recent year, I chose a new word: Joy. This one felt right and I even received some confirmations from something bigger than me (God?) that this was my new word. That it was something for me to claim and be blessed by. Joy. Joy? Joy. How? And what is stopping me? I don’t supposed I’ve ever been a particularly chipper person or a huge joker and I’m rarely very playful. But this depression… it’s been here for a long time. Joy. I’ve been carrying so many rejections and a lot of lost faith and questions about my identity as a fundamental, conservative, old fashioned, Christian, woman. So many questions. So little faith. So little… hope? Joy?
I’ve re-claimed the hope again with a new phrase: “What if it works out?” What if it does? What if the things that might fail… might work out? What if this blogging, which I’ve failed to add to for months and months… becomes a place I can work out my thoughts again? What if I can begin to untangle a lot of my inner thoughts here and what if I’m brave enough to share it here? Why would I share it? Because authenticity is a core value of mine. And if I cannot be open about my inner self… I don’t feel like I’m being myself. And I need, more than some, to be fully myself all the time. The public “face” has never fit me well and I hate it.
I think this is enough for today. I’m going to go put some frozen fish in the oven and some broccoli in a steamer basket. Then I’m going to eat dinner, drink the last beer, and listen to the audiobook (36 hours long!) of book five of The Wheel of Time, because I’m nerdy and I got so excited about their being a tv series of it with awesome costumes and a fabulous looking cast! EEeee – I’m so excited!