What to say!  I’ve had a few posts sitting in the draft bin for awhile now.  Reading through them I realize I couldn’t even seem to complete them with partially coherent thoughts.  I’d type a sentence and then stare at the screen, “thinking” for a bit, delete the sentence, retype it and stare at the screen.  It’s a bit of a vicious cycle and perhaps a little what writer’s block may look like.  I would never be able to write a book.  I’d get stuck eventually and the grand dreams of being published would be crushed:)  However, it’s weird how coming back to them much later doesn’t change the truth of them.

In a previous post, I mentioned a variety of life changes that have occured in the last year.  One of them was hitting 40!  Thankfully, I have a wonderful group of friends that celebrates the milestones together and my significant birthday was no different.  We have some fond memories of our “fancy digs”, aptly named for the less than desireable location and overall beauty of the accommodations that were much more appealing in a picture on the rental site than in person.  However, we made the best of it and laughed, cried, argued and made up all while listening to the stomping of our upstairs neighbours and promises that I would never again be responsible for booking our accomodations!

However, the months that followed that celebration left me feeling a bit overwhelmed by the quagmire of the dreaded “middle-age”!  Okay, that sounds ominous and terrible but honestly that was really what I was feeling.  A constant pit in my stomach, tears at the drop of a hat, perhaps not unusual for me but this felt different somehow.  Actually just constant anxiety was filling my days, something I had never experienced before in my life but was clearly struggling with.   I was concerned about finances as we managed James being self-employed and for Sam managing to find the financial means for his first year of university.  Add to the mix some incredibly deep shifts in my spiritual journey.  Questions, conversations, contemplations, readings, podcasts, etc. that left me reeling a bit about what I had grown up with, raised to believe, raised my children in and framed my entire being around, my mental capacity was filled beyond what it could handle.  I saw my doctor knowing that how I was processing was not particularly healthy but not sure how to get things back into balance.  She asked me to do some counselling before we talked about anything else.  I was not surprised and TO BE CLEAR, I am a HUGE proponent of professional counselling.  Three of my four children have been to a counsellor, one whom sees her “therapist” regularly and I have seen it work wonders for many people.  However, that didn’t stop me from feeling apprehensive and nervous.  I can not really pinpoint why I felt this way except that it meant that I had to admit that I was not managing well and managing well is my specialty.  Having said all that, I took my doctor’s advice and saw a professional.  She is amazing, I felt heard, she validated my anxiety, she gave me a number of suggestions and I went home to use them.  They worked for awhile and then they really didn’t.  I think there were two things that made me realize I needed something more than counselling.  The first was lying in bed every night not being able to sleep and usually waking up in tears and the second was calling my best friend and crying on her shoulder over the same issues again and again.  I realized I needed to put some things on the back burner so I could manage the practicality of life.  I had to take stock of what was most important and in this particular time I needed to focus on getting my anxiety around finances in check and focus solely on my kids and work.  I set aside my spiritual quest, understanding I would need to come to it when I was in a more healthy mindset.

Heading back to my doctor was humbling.  I felt defeated as I told her that I was not coping well with life.  She is also a great physician, she’s not particularly warm but extremely professional and matter-of-fact.  She explained to me that sometimes a chemical imbalance is created when a person is under a significant amount of stress for a long period of time.  I was relieved to be understood and to have a solution.  It’s been a few months and it’s taken some processing to work through the need for medical intervention, I can feel the difference it’s made to be taking something to balance out the chemicals that were not in-balance in the first place.  I am also a huge advocate of medication, when necessary, but it’s hard to feel complete and comfortable when it’s your own body betraying you.

Fast forward to now and things are manageable once again, life is back in balance with a few tweaks to make it just right.  As I have begun to manage the practical parts of my life, marriage, work, kids, etc. I feel some freedom to delve back into the area that I’ve put on the back burner for a bit.  There continues to be some deep contemplation and absolutely beautiful conversations with people who are also experiencing some deep shifts in their understanding of self and faith.  I’ve been reminded several times over the last weeks of how easy it is to put our best foot forward, when we present ourselves on social media.  It’s also easy to stop short of asking some pretty big questions and opening some uncomfortable conversations.  As I re-enter the world of writing and sharing online I really do not want to do that anymore.  I want to step into the uncomfortable, engage in some deep questioning and discuss the conversations that some might try to bury.  Perhaps that’s a bit of a reason for the write, delete, write, delete cycle that has plagued me.

I want to be authentic and allow my experiences to be useful and honest for myself and those around me.  I want to engage purposefully, carefully and bravely and help others who are similarly questioning to have a place to begin to process.  I hope for a safe place to process the changes that have happened as I’ve entered this stage of life.  Over the next bit I want to unpack some of my spiritual journey in order to encourage others to journey through it as well.  My eyes have been opened to realize just how many people are on this journey but feel stifled and uncertain as they deconstruct their belief system. 

It has been an incredibly long time since I blogged and honestly it’s not for lack of thoughts or happenings in my life but really more about time, not really feeling much like sharing and maybe just giving the whole blog thing a break when more important things need to be focused on.  However, this week has been interesting.  Full of inner turmoil and so many thoughts in my head.  If you are reading this, I guess I did decide to share it but there is a small part of me that wants to keep it for myself because not everything has be shared publicly right and it’s an unfinished, unanswered part of my life journey?!  But we share so we can learn, share so we can support each other, share so others may know they are not alone in how they feel, or share for the sake of making a difference.

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I had this great moment of realization and reassurance awhile back.

My oldest was asked to babysit for a friend.  Her boys are at just the right age for his first experiences babysitting for someone other than his siblings all on his own.  I was impressed to see how enthusiastic he was in this adventure and her boys were happy to have a “boy babysitter”!  The thing is that I recognize how rare of an opportunity this is.  No matter how much of a natural instinct boys have for caring for children it is always going to be the girls that will get a call to babysit first.  I get it…when Sam and Jake were still young enough that they needed a sitter and the girls were just little I didn’t feel quite comfortable having another young man in the house to make sure they got into their jammies, tucked them in and give them a snuggle if they needed it.  Somehow that worked okay for a young woman to take care of those things with my boys but not the other way around.  Having said that I have met a few guys over the last few years that I may have reconsidered for and my experience as a momma of older boys has given me some perspective on that as well.

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Living with the blur

We all know there are times when you just aren’t sure exactly what the plan is and you don’t even know where to start to figure it out.  I feel a little like that these days.  I have nothing to complain about in the big picture of things so I won’t do that, but I do often wonder what the bigger picture actually looks like.  This week has already been amazingly interesting and it was only Tuesday night when I started this and it’s only gotten more intriguing, although, I guess in fairness there isn’t much in my life that’s just quiet and slow-paced.  Most of my life is lived in a bit of a blur and while I know there is constant encouragement from various places to just slow down and live in the moment I literally feel like this stage of my life is somewhat out of my control when it comes to the pace.  I know I can choose to add things or not but quite frankly there is little I can take away at this point.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about why my life is what it is!  Sounds like a deep question right, but honestly it’s not!  The last few weeks, in particular the loss of my sweet nephew, the changes happening in my career and schooling, and some changes happening at James’ work, have got me thinking about how my perspective has shifted.  It’s little things I notice here and there, nothing major or dramatic but little moments that 2 months ago may have put me over the edge that NOW just cause me to shrug my shoulders and keep plodding forward.

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Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”!  For those who do not believe in God or the bible and for those who are struggling in their faith right now those words probably feel like a slap-in-the-face.  I acknowledge that because as a believer who feels growth in my relationship with God I too feel like this passage is immensely hard to grasp.

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I have spent a great deal of time wondering, praying, hoping that sometime soon I’d have the opportunity to move forward with a desire that’s been on my heart for many, MANY years.  The time has finally come to move into a new phase of life…change directions for awhile and refocus on a new stage in my life.

When I was younger, I’ll admit I thoroughly enjoyed bossing my younger brothers around.  I vividly remember being told that I wasn’t the boss or to stop being a mother hen.  But the truth was that I LOVED being in charge, showing them how to do things, telling them the right way.  As I got older (okay not really older but once you hit grade 7 you finally start feeling older), I participated in peer counselling programs, started baby-sitting, helping in the nursery and other kids programs at church and just generally began feeling the groove of where my travels may eventually take me.  I can’t really pinpoint the moment I realized my life calling became apparent to me but I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that all my life experience has led me to the inevitable conclusion that I was meant to be a teacher.

hymn-bookAnd so the debate continues….Really to my mind such a ridiculous discussion that we have allowed to taint the times we have of praise with scowls and sourpuss faces.  Silly expressions, you say?  What I find truly remarkable, and even silly, is the type of discord that we allow to filter into our places and times of worship!  Hmmm, I guess my inside voice just snuck out:(  It makes me sad watching different generations react to certain genres of music with distain and dislike.  The thing is that we’re all guilty of it to some degree…if we’re really honest there have been times when we’ve sat in a service with our hands crossed like a small child, mad because we didn’t get our way.  I’ve watched it…I’ve seen the older fellow across the aisle with his nose turned up at the overly repetitious chorus that “really doesn’t say anything at all”.  In the same service I’ve looked on my other side to see the younger person standing with their arms folded and their eyes rolling at the completely “old-fashioned” lyrics to that hymn that “sounds like it dropped right out of the 1800’s”.  Heck I’ve even closed my eyes and viciously fought the temptation to plug my ears when the strains of a southern gospel tune hits my eardrums.  There is no denying that we all have various tastes in music and our minds process the beauty of notes threaded together in very different ways.

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I will probably write this post multiple times in my life…in fact I found its sister on the pages of my blog from two and half years ago when the letting go was merely beginning.  The fact of the matter is that life really is about letting go many times over.  We find things, people, events, moments and we reach out to grasp them.  We hold them close for a time and then realize it’s time to let go, then we repeat the cycle again with something new and fresh.  I find myself in a season of letting go and it’s really not a bad thing, in fact in so many ways it’s been very freeing.  If I were to spend time analyzing it I could say it may be the years of maturity or perhaps the realization that I can’t control everything anyway, or even better, things just being pried from my tight grip.  Regardless of the circumstance I’m glad I am in a place to experience this immense burden being lifted.

The truth is, that part of my personality has always been to maintain, organize, control (if you will) the situation.  My brothers liked to refer to me as the “mother hen” or “bossy pants”, both of which I’ll freely admit to being.  My husband teasingly refers to me as his “little planner/organizer”, again both things that I can see as glaringly obvious tendencies.  I do think that all of these qualities have their place, they’re all part of my talents and abilities and what makes me who I am, but they can also be part of my weakness.  They cause me to hold on too tight, to forget that part of our life journey is to let things go and move ahead.  Over the years, I think there are a few areas I’ve held on a little too tightly, my family, both immediate and extended, my friendships, money, reputation, just to name a few.  But the last few months I’ve felt my perspective shift a bit.  While you may be expecting an amazing experience that led to some great epiphany, the truth is that my eyes are just opening.

The reminder that things can be great and amazing without my firm grip has occurred daily.  As I’ve stepped back and opened my hands I’ve seen the great joy that comes with acknowledging that I control little and that there is One who oversees all.  Here’s a few, that over the last few weeks have brought me to a place of peace…

An evening with friends, that I could have spent stressing over the budget, or lack thereof.  I could have agonized over appetizers or not, steak or salad, a glass of wine with my meal or abstain, dessert or just have something sweet at home but instead I turned to my dear husband and told him to pay the bill and keep it far from my sight.  The reward of just enjoying myself was immense.  No knot in my stomach wondering how on earth we were going to pay for this.

A dinner with family that I walked into with the soul purpose of enjoying what EVERYONE had to offer.  No worries about what may or may not unfold, no apologies for how I handled my children, no desire or need to discuss dos and don’ts, just pure and simple being together.

A last minute dinner with my husband and a co-worker that resulted in leaving our oldest home to baby-sit and for the first time put his sisters to bed.  Then to be rewarded by coming home at exactly bedtime, for said little girls, and find both of them peacefully sleeping in bed.

A work event, glitches here and there, but trusting those whom I’ve asked to help and releasing my expectation in exchange for knowledge that what will be, will be.

A spontaneous jaunt to the mall with all four of my kids.  Usually a place I avoid, but their desperate plea to shop broke my barriers.  A few well placed words and a “letting go” of my usual need to corral and ensure they appear to be the most well-behaved children in the entire universe left me with the amazing opportunity to watch them “grow up” right before my eyes.  It was as if they physically sensed my grip loosening and with that realization came the ability for them to finally take that moment to show me just how incredibly great they CAN be.

So many opportunities to experience the peace and joy that comes from recognizing that my need to have it all together generally makes a situation chaotic.  When I choose to let go, I give room to experience the bigger picture that my Creator has designed and the ability for others to journey alongside me in the most fulfilling, uplifting way.