This life journey is wild. It has been many years since I last wrote anything personal outside of my journal. I look back on my last blogs and see my kids when they were young, and the emotion of my discovery of Spartan racing and running, which really was self discovery. I believe that self discovery led to the end of some things, it also led to new chapters. Today I am in the "before" part of the discovery cycle.
Looking back at how cycles have gone before I recognize the void before invention and the pieces of light that start to sparkle when new understandings grow. When I look back on one of my earlier cycles, I feel gratitude for the experience. What I recognize is that although I was the one doing the hard work, it was not done without others, both mentally and physically.
I wanted to finish a Masters of Education degree back then too. When I tried, the timing was not right and I couldn't finish what I started at that time. But. I went back. It wasn't how I planned it, it was years later than I first tried, but I wouldn't do anything differently. It was a transformational learning experience. It pushed my mental and emotional limits, it ripped apart my thinking and rebuilt it over and over again. Like my friend Erin Reilly has said, you don't come out of that degree the same as you go in. It changes you in a way that is hard to describe. That was in the middle of another cycle of growth and change.
So here I am now, still in the middle of body fluctuations, post Covid, a lot heavier, and in a lot of turmoil emotionally and physically. I know all these things are inter-related. I could set a goal, weight, meal planning, calories, macros. It isn't like I don't know how or haven't done it and done it well. It isn't my answer right now. Maybe it is less about isolating the parts of myself and more about bringing them back together again. One thing I have learned over the years is that all the parts of self are interrated and impossible to separate into categories. Being human is being spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical all at the same time. My intellectual part is bored. My physical part is out of shape. My emotional part is like a void, and my spiritual part is passive. I should add that I haven't slept since June. I am tending to have a hard time getting to sleep and wake up with a feeling of dread at 2 or 3. Clearly, I am burying something that is waiting to come out. I need to be patient with the process. I will understand when I am ready and that's okay.
My house is empty more often than not. Emily has moved out, Alex and Violet both work and are exploring their freedom, all on schedule and on paper seemed totally reasonable. All I have left seems to be the last dregs of motherhood like the coffee grounds floating around when the Keurig pod has burst and not been cleaned up by an unknown person. It's not really lonely, not really empty. It just exists, and in the belly of this house breathing in and out, is me. It is an ending. I will be selling this house next year in all likelihood, and there is a mass of childhood and family memories to go through and get rid of. Where I will go, I don't know. It is hard to trust that the right thing will happen. A new job? New location? On my own? Not on my own? What I do know is that I need to figure out who I am when mother is not my main role, who I am when I love what I do again, what do I love, and who will stay and who will go when I don't fit their narrative anymore or comply with what they want? For me, that is the hardest part of allowing change. Fear of the unknown and instability. It is a great reorganization of self. It takes time, it is messy, and deeply personal.
What I do know is that my spark is gone. Goals do not work at this point. But. I have been here before. That is how I know movement will happen. It always does. I believe when I find my answers, my pieces will realign. For now, I don't see anything ahead of me. There is a lot of work ahead.
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