I have a confession to make to my ever-growing readership I've established, I think I'm at 3 people now, Google should start using me to advertise! (Thanks for reading Mom, Dad and Randy!)
Anyway, my confession is that this whole writing thing didn't start as a "pour my heart out - ask for help on my own because I'm that evolved" sort of thing. Honestly, it was an assignment from my therapist.
Of course, she didn't tell me that I had to be so open and honest, or to make it public or anything like that. I decided to go ahead and put it all out there. But, yes, it wasn't totally a self-starter type deal "thing."
What I've learned in this process so far is that I have a really hard time remembering events. Not just because I've been through a lot of crazy stuff, but because there was an enormous amount of life that happened in a small amount of time. At the very beginning of the crazy, I kept a small written list of medical happenings so that I could report them to my doctor if I had to. I realized after I wrote the list that if I hadn't kept it, there was no way I'd ever be able to remember what happened. If there weren't records of doctor visits, ambulance rides, plane tickets from visitors and seizures on calendars, I'm not sure I would remember much at all.
There are plenty of reasons I could explain that away. And definitely medical ones for sure. But I started thinking, I spend a lot of time focused on what's coming next. Like my life is one exciting mystery novel and I'm hung on the next word, the next page. I have another confession, I always cheat at books - flawed again. I always read the last page before I get to the end. I know, I know, it's a waste of a book then. That's just how I feel if I'm being honest. I would skip to the last page of my life if I could. Would you? But there's a bigger question, and I've thought about it a lot in the last week, and I think about it when people post #tbt pictures - which for anyone who isn't Facebook or Twitter literate (Mom), it means "throw-back-thursday." Don't ask me about the # sign, I think it has something to do with a rotary phone - kidding.
But how much do I look back? I think about what my book would look like. The book of my life, my story. Would I be able to complete an 8th grade level comprehension quiz on my own life? I don't even think I would know which chapter basic events happened...that is...Unless I wrote it down.
Writing isn't just cathartic for me anymore. It's become a record of my soul and life. I'm not sure how I'll ever go on without it anymore, it sort of feels like breathing.
And the connection I feel with the events I've written down and the learning that's come from those events, I'm starting to feel that if I'd only learned sooner...
I definitely think once you've written things down, it's almost like a lesson you can cross off your list, like something you've picked up at the grocery store, or an item you've found on a scavenger hunt.
Side note: Scavenger Hunt: (Generation Z and the end of Generation Y's): this is not a computer game or played on a phone. And it's not just something you do for Bachelorette parties. A scavenger hunt was/is a game, played usually during sleepovers, where we collected random things, we were allowed to play this game OUTSIDE in the DARK and we rang the doorbell of our NEIGHBORS, well...because we actually knew them, weird, I know.)
When I think about some of the lessons of the past, I think if I had taken the time to write them down, to think about them, to really understand what happened, maybe I wouldn't have had to repeat them. I'm not really making a new observation, I guess I'm just getting there in my own way, It's the classic tale that you live the same lessons over and over again until you "get" them.
But it's not just the things your forget is it? It's really odd the things you remember when you begin to reflect on how much your life has changed in one year. As I've started this writing assignment, one particular moment jumped out at me. It seemed a fleeting conversation, definitely a question I would have missed on an 8th grade comprehension question of my life. And it happened less than a year ago.
But here it is..
I remember crying to Randy one night, I was completely exhausted, I was in my work clothes and it was after 7 PM at night. It had been a particularly bad day at work, (the details of that day, I couldn't tell you, funny how that works.) What I do remember is crying, not able to eat dinner, beyond exhausted, sitting in my work clothes, slumped over the couch with my feet up, sad that he had to put the baby to bed before I could snuggle with him. I was unable to eat or move. Randy came back downstairs to comfort me, and we talked.
I remember the words so clearly now it almost takes my breath away, In a completely ugly cry I said, "I'm so tired Randy, I just need time, I just need a break. I just want to know what it feels like to be bored again. I want time, it's the only thing I can't get more of right now. I just want to be with the baby."
Now my stomach just drops every time I think back to it.
I keep thinking that I should be careful what I wish for...
I'm not in anyway saying that I caused my dilemma, or that God, in all his glory, decided to teach me a lesson and struck me down for being so ungrateful. No, not really. But what I am saying, is that maybe I wasn't really in the right life. Maybe I wasn't happy. Maybe it wasn't authentic and I was working for the wrong things. Maybe there needed to be a shift to make things right.
I don't know the answer to that. I don't really think I'm there yet. I have many more questions to answer before I can begin to understand why this happened and where I'm at and where I'll go and all of that. (See my previous post.) I'd like to think I'm a changed person, I'm reformed - I'm trying not to skip pages. I'm trying not to skip paragraphs anymore. No more sneaking peeks. If you haven't noticed, I've spent a lot of time reviewing and summarizing the last few chapters. Maybe not from the beginning, but I had to start somewhere. Somewhere is good. Right? I think I might be ready for my quiz - maybe we should make it an essay.
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