Feel the Real

“Do not fault yourself for how you feel. Accept that you must only fault yourself for ignoring how you feel.” – H aka my own personal Master Yoda

I’m on a bit of a journey right now. Have been for the last several months actually. I think it all started when I decided to take a work sabbatical the beginning of this past summer to just focus on the kids. I found myself really pulling inward, contracting. I went from spread thin between work, friends and kids to pretty much just kids. And me. What I found was that buried beneath the life I had tried to create for myself here, was a lot of unfinished business.

That unfinished business has arisen in a variety of forms. Mostly in me being crazy. But also through starting to write more in the last 6 months than I’ve written in the last 6 years and having far fewer social interactions, but the ones I do have are so much more honest. For better or for worse. At least they’re honest. I’m not such a good chit-chatter anymore and small talk escapes me almost completely. But I’m re-finding my voice. And that is a gift.

It’s been hard. Hard on everyone around me. Hard on my friends to have me disappear and then reappear crazy. Hard on my kids to have me being so inconsistent. Hard on my husband to not know where I am or what I’m working on in my head. Hard on me because I have to just keep walking, feeling and breathing. And when you’re bogged down in guilt or anger or even overwhelming joy, it’s hard to keep moving.

The guilt has been huge. For past, present and foreseen future transgressions. Which is where H’s quote from above comes in. He and a couple of other friends keep reminding me that it is worse to consciously choose to stay in the coma in which I’ve been. That I do indeed already possess the courage it will take for me to choose to be happy. And that, most importantly and hardest for me to believe, that I deserve to be truly, utterly and simply happy.