I wake up every morning sometime between two and three a.m. All the stresses and worries I ignore during normal business hours, decide they need attention RIGHT NOW in the middle of the night, when the rest of the world sleeps. I lie there, under the weight of them, staring at the ceiling.
I mean, this year is just WEIRD. And even with all the disagreement that seems to be floating around the web, I think we can ALL agree on the fact that we have had it with 2020, right?
Since problems are hard to solve when I don’t want to get out of bed at 3am, I just lay there and think, trying to make sense of what I can, with a brain that is half asleep. This morning, I thought about some of the moments in my life that felt like they would just never end...like I truly might not survive (cue dramatic theme music).
Sixth grade: I raced out of my science class and puked alllllll the way down the hall on my sprint to the bathroom. My middle school was ONE hallway. Everyone heard, everyone knew. Surely I could never return to school and show my face, ever again. A sixth grade education would be fine.
Sophomore year of highschool: running the mile I thought I was going to die. Like, literally take my last gasping breath of air on the gravel track of Simms High School and die. I HATED running. I never thought I’d make it through those four laps--and if I somehow succeeded, I swore I would never run another step again.
Middle of the night, hour long drive to the hospital in labor with my first babe: every bump every corner every movement sent a hurt through my body I had never experienced before. There was no way I’d make it out of this hurt, this car, this labor. I just knew it.
But as time does, it keeps ticking. Keeps moving, even when we feel like it’s stopped. Even when we refuse to flow with it. Even when we feel like the air has gone stale and there is no oxygen left to fill our lungs...we will always inhale and breathe again.
We get through what we need to get through. Always.
I finished the sixth grade. Highschool. College even.
I can’t imagine trying to calculate the thousands and thousands of miles I have ran since that day on the track...by choice. For fun!
I even went on to have another baby!
So not only did I survive these “impossible” situations, I came out stronger, with lessons learned, more stories in my own personal Book of Life.
In the moment, in the NOW where we live, our struggles, our insecurities seem like everything. Our 2020 seems like EVERYTHING. And I know it’s much bigger than the embarrassment of my scrawny sixth grade self; our issues right now are very REAL. They hurt. They tear off pieces of us we need, and add weight we do not wish to carry. We feel burdened. Consumed. We are at capacity. Once easy breaths, now feel impossible. We are so full of worry that we wake in the middle of the night, problems knocking down our doors begging to be fixed. Did I cover all the feelings of the year?
But guess what? It’s October! Did we think we’d get this far when the world was so uncertain in March? Have you learned something new? Perceived life a bit differently? Prioritized? Reached deep inside and thought about who YOU are?
Have you looked down, and noticed that your feet are still moving?
One step one step
at a time.
I repeat this to myself, and fall back to sleep.
In my dreams, I’m running.
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