Housekeeping

I'm actually doing fairly well lately. I know my latest posts were kind of dark and slightly--or extremely--disturbing. But there is a healthy reason for this. I am sloughing off the excess.

I am going through my internal inventory and cleaning things up, throwing things out, dusting things off. I am choosing what I want to keep and what I want to get rid of. I am deciding what I want to encourage and remember and keep at the forefront, and what I want to file away for later or am not sure what to do with yet. I'm draining out the stagnant pools of bottled up emotion and shining light into the corners of the avoidance closets. Some of the pools are smelly and some of the closets are very dark. I'm processing and working through all these things so I can let them go or apply them proactively. It's a good thing. A hard thing, but a good thing.

Every day my foundation becomes more solid while at the same time I soar ever higher. I am making micro-changes in my world that are more permanent than the drastic highs and lows of my latest bungee jumping excursions. Rollercoaster ride is too mild of a metaphor. Bungee jumping is closer to the extremes that I was going through, the whiplash and jerking and twisting and spinning.

But now I choose, more often than not. I still have moments where a wall of anxiety hits me because of a trigger, or sometimes just out of nowhere. I had a few mornings in a row where I woke up and felt the little black rain cloud attempting to filter the life out of my day. But I work through those things and they do not control me and take away my choice like they used to.

My relationship with my kids is going through a growing phase, too, and we're feeling the growing pains. It gets a little bumpy at times. I no longer do everything for them. I no longer allow them to get away with nearly anything. I no longer enable them in their own destructive behaviors. At least, I try not to. I'm working to become more aware when I do. This is a hard and tricky adjustment and they don't like it very much. Neither do I. But we are all better for the progress and the baby steps forward. We have a very, very long way to go, but we're moving forward.

I'm still working on taking care of me. I'm still working on finding the motivation to do things like eat healthy and exercise and cultivate myself spiritually and mentally--all of those things that fall to the sidelines when in survival mode. I'm working on them, talking small, realistic steps. Making small, realistic goals. Moving forward in a maintainable way.

I'm still overly critical and impatient with myself. I'm not as naive about myself or the world around me. I understand levels of darkness that I wish I'd never witnessed. I will never be "back to normal." I'll never be able to see life through the eyes of that innocent little girl I was for so long. But that's okay. My innocence has been replaced with wisdom. I still have my youthful energy and the spring in my step gets bouncier every day. I feel and experience life on levels I never knew existed. I recognize and discern more meaning and connection with people and places and even things than I ever did before. Sometimes I don't understand it and don't know what to do with it. Those things go into the file to examine later.

Other times I feel enlightened and there is joy. So much joy. True joy and even truer joy to come.

So please don't mind me as I work on my housekeeping. Remodeling can be a bit of a mess.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”             -C.S. Lewis