Forgotten/Remembered

I was on fire to write but couldn’t find the computer, by the time I did and logged on, the thoughts had evaporated. Too many passwords and distractions, too many side quests to stay focused. What did I come here to write?

Seven months ago my world fell apart and I’ve been putting it back together, like so many women before me and the many that will follow. As I rebuild, I’ve been so focused on the work of it that I didn’t see how much I had done. The self work and the determination not to slip back into self-destructive habits

And I didn’t.

I didn’t. I walked through hell, and as Winston Churchill advised us, I kept going. I didn’t slow my pace to prolong my suffering. I didn’t sit down and watch the flames char my skin. Nor did I strut through them, raking my hands through the fire. But I kept going. Every day.

Every day I got up and took my medicine and most days I had breakfast and some days I got dressed but every day, except for a very few at the beginning, every day I got up. Maybe not for long. Maybe just to go back down again but I kept getting up.

And I started seeing miracles around me (I know that sounds intense), but little tiny things, like the way a hummingbird’s beak fits into a flower and how sweet some humans are with their animals, and how a weed or a wildflower will defiantly sprout out of a crack in the cement.

I stacked these experiences on top of each other, brick after brick after brick, layering proper rest and hydration between to cement me together. I built myself back stronger and more tender than I was before. Smaller, perhaps, but not reduced, revealed. And larger in a way I never knew possible.

I’m proud of myself, which is a rare and fairly new feeling. I am waking and facing every day with as much bravery and kindness as I can muster (levels may vary from day to day), I’m choosing grace over judgment more and more often. I am recognizing and remembering myself. I am naming my history so I can claim my own life.

For so long I had no idea who I was and yet was terrified that someone else would find me out. There were those who claimed to “have me all figured out,” and I would have loved it if they’d clued me in. My fear and self-judgment separated me from who I was in my bones. I tried to be everything to see if anything fit.

But now I know who I am. It took me longer than some, sure, but a lot of folks never get there so I’m grateful for this self-knowledge, it came at an extraordinarily high cost.

That fiery and forgotten thought from earlier this afternoon will return, those brain worms always do. But for now, things are good.