good afternoon. happy saturday, and happy april. :)
it is time to begin again.
take a deep breath, love. you are sweetly cared for.
okay, so here is my first real blog post! i am excited to write to you and share with you a few things on my heart, things that have happened to me the past few months and ways that i am processing, with loving family, friends, and the help of the LORD.
today, and this month, i am beginning again. i am taking a deep breath in, and sitting in the pain of my heart as i process the many griefs that have been placed along my path over the course of this past year.
sometimes, i think and feel that it is best for me to ignore sadness and negative emotions, because the way they manifest themselves can make me cry, be upset, and can impact my life at work and the other places that i go. so instead, i cover up the sad emotion, trying to positive-think all of my grief away. spoiler alert: it doesn't work! instead, the intensity of my emotions run deeper, nudging judgement, grudge, jealousy, and comparison deep into the recesses of my heart, causing me to act in ways that i never would have foreseen myself acting, and to think thoughts that i hate myself for thinking.
for those of you who are unaware, this past year has brought with it deep grief and pain for me. i graduated college, moved eleven hours away, lost a relationship with the man whom i had thought was the love of my life, my kitten of only 9 months passed away, and am experiencing family grief. twelve months ago, i would not have seen many of these things coming, nor would i have wanted to foresee many of them.
last year, my idea of life perfection ruled my mind and controlled my actions, causing me to over-idealize and -analyze every choice that i made. however, my perfectionistic mindset also racked me with anxiety, for deep-down, i knew that i was not truly facing reality. yet, i thought that all love and the "right path of life" were things that i needed to chase after, perfect, and work hard to keep.
i was not wrong in the idea that love and a good life are hard work and require effort. most who love and aim to live well will agree with me there; yet my intent for perfection remained a hidden parasite. i became so good at disguising my intentions with reflections that seemed deep enough that even friends and family who know me well often mistook those reflections for genuine feeling instead of an obsession with perfection. truthfully, i am still quite good at this.
now, i would like to pause to give myself grace here. i genuinely wanted to do many of the things that i decided to do post-college, and i genuinely loved the man that i was in relationship with. however, it is helpful to identify general themes from my thought-patterns over the course of this past year, and many of the months from last year were marked by this perfection-obsession.
it is interesting, then, that over the course of the months following my perfection-driven decisions, my life started heading in the direction opposite of what i had hoped for. my long-term boyfriend and i broke up; my sweet, tiny kitten became very sick and suddenly passed away; i started to realize that my job was less fulfilling and simple as i had hoped it would be; things changed within my family structure; and deep friendships were hard to form. what i was left with...was just about nothing. i had no other thing to lean on, to jump from one hope to another. most of my firmest hopes in the world had disintegrated, almost all at once, too.
why? i wondered and grieved. why? why? this was just about the only word that i could breathe.
for many months, all i could do was take the next step forward. feeling nothing but grief, or nothing at all, i addressed nothing and continued with routine and routine only. nothing less, thankfully, but nothing more.
i am so thankful that i was preserved in this hard time. i am so glad that just enough people reached out to me, befriended me, and blessed me that i remained myself. i am so grateful for the ability to keep taking one step forward at a time, for the ability to keep my job and to drive places, and to have a routine to help me through. to put it simply, i was not ready to rest in the mess of the grief, and i needed some time to remain preserved.
for nearly three months, i stepped through each day hour-by-hour, leaning on only routine and the grace of God to make it through. my hopes and dreams for the next year were weakened and smashed; i lived moment by single moment.
slowly, week by week, i began to come-to. slowly, i was able to breathe a little deeper, to spend a little more time reflecting, and to pause and be myself a little bit more. slowly, i was able to come to the point where i am now.
here, and now, i am beginning again. it is time. it is time to rest anew, to sit in the pain and let myself heal, to rely on God's grace even more. here and now, it is time to look at hope where hope can only be found--not in perfection or in myself, but in someone far greater than myself and something far better than my simple life. it is time to rest in the life i have been granted now, thankful that it is enough. it is time to think more deeply and to grow more loving, kind, and selfless.
and i am so glad that, in this abiding, i have found and still am finding joy. hope. love. peace.
i am so thankful, for the anxiety that racked through my body, heart, and mind daily has quieted.
i am so joyful, for i know that i am deeply loved.
i hope that you, too, sweet and precious soul, can rest and sit in what you have and know that it, and you, are enough. i hope that you can know that you, too, are so deeply loved. i hope you know that you are safe in this world and that you are cared and provided for. i hope that you can know this joy, too.
i invite you to continue journeying with me, and please share your thoughts, reactions, and reflections with me by email or on instagram.
with grace, and so much love,
- karen elise
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