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| Oh 2007....with your littles and their silly faces. |
Everything is changing.
I thought I liked change. I have been known to boast that I excelled at change, loved it. So....have I changed or was I a liar all those years? Maybe a little of both.
*Deep Sigh*
Someone I love more than life is in failing health, and I am left to sit on the sidelines waiting for scraps of information. I made choices that I believed to be unselfish, but those choices feel foolish right now. Is my heart not worth something I am left to wonder...
Isn't that the crux of most of my brokenness though? Yours?
People made choices for us. We make choices for ourselves. All of us are left to live with them.
I long for a day when I don't have a moment or an hour where I don't feel the pain of regret. Maybe that is too much to ask for on this side of heaven. Truly. The older we get, the more we have to regret. The conversation(s) we did or did not have this past week. The choice we did or did not make. The person we hurt, or the hurt towards us we left unchecked. It goes on and on. Being healthy doesn't solve it all either, oh but it did....I find myself wrestling over the good choices or the good words as much if not more than the bad. Why is that? Where did all of this second-guessing, questioning, self-doubt come from? Why can't I shake it? Why can't I get healthy enough?
Why can't I get healthy enough?
Whoa.
Why does "getting healthy" feel like just one more thing I could fail at?
I just put my head in my hands....
My counselor asked me something this week...."Why isn't it okay to just sit in the tension, the hurt?" Ummmm....because I thought all of this time and money and energy was going to FIX THIS. FIX me.
I don't deserve to be in pain.
I have seen too much. Felt too much. I know that my life with all of its pain is not the worst story out there, and I feel guilty for feeling bad. I should be happy. I should be able to weather the storms better. Glide through the loss. Deal with the grief.
I don't though. The truth is that I really feel like I am FEELING everything more now than I ever have before, and lets be clear.....THAT is saying something as I am a BIG feeler. In the words of my Sis, I have ALL the feels. Sure people tease me about it, but sh*t...spend a day inside of this heart, this mind. It will take you out. It takes me out.
Sometimes I feel like I am just a walking sponge, absorbing the emotions of everyone in my vicinity. It is exhausting. I also struggle with how to respond appropriately....whether the person is mad/sad/glad/rude/etc. More often than not, I am left silent and slack-jawed, frozen. Some believe this is just another aspect of an INFJ (which I am), but while an unhealthy INFJ will fight....I am finding that a healthier INFJ will freeze. Why? Well, my best assessment is that I am still working on my processing skills so in an effort to not fight (bad reaction), I freeze as a "healthier" alternative. Only problem is that some really bad things have happened in my past where I froze, and I have a lot of guilt over them....why didn't I stand up for myself, yada yada....so every time I freeze, it is triggering something in me that says, "See....you are not strong....yada yada." So...I am fighting that while STILL working to healthy process whatever has happened....that leaves a very noise mind sometimes. Oh....and a broken heart.
So what does all of this have to do with change. Well, everything.
Change is a part of life, and if you are a broken hot mess, change will leave you crashing your broken self all over others, leaving destruction in your wake. I have been on both sides of this; I can testify.
I don't want to be that person. The person that responds from a place of pain. I am plenty tired of living with all of my past mistakes in this area....I don't want any fresh ones. That is the thing though about past mistakes...you have to live with them....all the way to the end.
So what to do with this bleeding heart?
Love it. Live from it. Treat it well. Give it away. Let it grieve when it needs to grieve.
This is life. This is living. This is change.
