A Time For Healing

I’m starting to think I need to make my magnesium supplement part of my routine a little more consistently. That and maybe some sleepy time tea. All I know is that important things are happening in my head when I’m supposed to be sleeping. And when something is bringing me out of a dead sleep, it must mean it’s important enough to give it proper attention. So what brought me out of my peaceful slumber you ask? As my eyes opened, the only thought running through my head was “What is 2024 going to mean to you?” Weird, right? And ‘tis the season. Gotta love a new year.

As I lay there, there was no sleepiness, no grogginess. Just clarity. I keep either a notebook and pen or my iPad by my bed. Don’t come at me for the bedside tech. I usually read before bed and I love my ebooks. I can hoard hundreds of titles on it with everything I could possibly want to read for whatever mood I’m in. Anyways, I reached for my iPad and began to type. If you’ve ever done a brain dump, that’s basically what it was. Any and every thing that entered into my mind was written out. My fingers were flying over the keys, typing as fast as they could so I didn’t miss any details. Once I had nothing left in there, I closed the case, put it back on my bedside table and went back to sleep. When I got up the next morning, I didn’t even remember waking up. I went about my regular routine and then when I went to check my social, I noticed the note open.

As I read through my late night notes, I thought about my vision for myself this year. 2024 feels personal to me. I feel pulled to confront my shadows, continue my work on healing the parts of me that I don’t speak much about. To get honest with myself on why I am the way I am and the reason I feel stuck. To break through my limiting beliefs. To share those stories and experiences in the hopes that it can offer some sort of comfort and support to someone out there facing something similar. Throughout much of 2023, I felt lost. Sad. Alone. Unsure of what I wanted and not confident in what I was working towards. Looking back, I felt like I was losing pieces of myself. I don’t want it to be like that anymore.

Somewhere along the way, I gave my power away. No idea to who or when. Hell, I didn’t even realize it had happened until I was trying to come up with something to write about on a couple different occasions. At some point, I became so…worried about what people think. Of the silent (or not-so-silent) judgment. The sideways looks. It didn’t happen all at once, just a little bit here, a little more there. The ego is so sneaky in its efforts to show me what it thinks is important. I know I’m not supposed to care if people like me and that it’s none of my business what they think of me, but I’m human and part of me does care. I think there’s a part of every one that wants to feel accepted, loved and appreciated. Like they’re part of a community and sometimes it really sucks that there are people out there that are mean for the sake of being mean. I want to find a balance between compromising my self-worth for acceptance and maintaining my boundaries for the sake of my soul and sanity.

It’s no secret that I’m still grieving. Grief and I have been on a first-name basis for quite some time. There is happiness and joy that exists is so many spaces. But in the in-between, I feel it. I know it’s there. The sadness that lives just around the edges. The crazy part is that I feel guilty for still being in this place, for carrying my grief around. I hide it as best I can because some people can’t understand (or handle) why it all still affects me the way it does. When it gets too heavy to hide and it spills out, I sneak away to the bathroom, the shower or sometimes my car so I can take a deep breath and let it move through me. Then I splash some cool water on my face and return to the world. The thing about the feelings that grieving brings out is that you HAVE to allow them their time and space. To put it off or push through it only prolongs the time it takes to heal. And I know I’ve said it somewhere before, loss and grief changes you. I don’t know that it ever truly goes away, you just learn how to live around it. Healing is a continual process that requires patience and grace. I think my grief has made me vulnerable to more bullshit than I would normally allow. That’s likely why I’m all up in my feelings these days.

2024. Already. If you can even believe it. Time absolutely flies. I hope to have the courage to share my year of healing with anyone who dares to enter my little corner of the internet. I plan to, just need to get better with blocking the bullshit. Ahhh, boundaries. Seems to come back to those a lot, doesn’t it? Rest assured that I’ll remain the same foul-mouthed delight I’ve always been, I’m just going to work on being a better, more healed me. That’s always the goal, with every lesson, every experience. To walk this path, share what I learn and make myself and my world better for us all. I am ready to release all the things that no longer serve me on my path to healing.

Cheers to new chapters.