Hidden

 It's been a bit since I last wrote. I feel like yet again that life has been and continues to be this whirlwind of emotions and happenings, and I am struggling to keep up at times. I am usually a pretty open and transparent person when it comes to many things. However, when life gets hard, I retreat. I go into some sort of hiding. Hibernation, if you will. I haven't always done this, but it's something I've had to learn through recent years and months. To some degree, I still reach outward, but I am learning more and more to sit with myself and just reach deep within. It's almost like sitting in my closet and becoming still so I can get into touch with my knowing all over again. It's difficult and amazing, and it's defnitely a process. 

I cannot and will not get into details as to what I am walking through in life right now, but I can and will tell you that there are a plethora of emotions involved. If you know me, you know I enjoy all things human behavior, including what's called the Enneagram. If this means anything to you, I am a type 4. I am someone who is very in tune with her feelings and often times goes to those feelings to process them. This mostly commonly happens alone in the secret place where no one else has access to me but myself. This is the place where I can experience love, pain, shame, fear, anger, and just about any other emotion out there all in one sitting. It's strange and good and hard, but it's healing. Healing is good. Healing is where I'm at and what I need. 

So yeah, I am taking some time to hide myself. I am limiting a lot of my contact with other people, with a few exceptions of course. The funny thing, too, is that I don't even feel so lonely right now. I enjoy being around people and gain energy from that, but I also gain energy from being alone. I am a cool kind of weirdo. Haha. 

Yesterday was hard. I felt like my emotions were playing tricks on me, and I didn't know how to respond. I tried working out. I tried taking a nap. I distracted myself for a bit while hanging out with my kids, getting some laundry done, and making dinner. I took a warm shower and went to bed early so I could read before falling asleep. I slept terrible. I woke up today exhausted. I did manage to get a kickass workout in today though and talked to a good friend of mine who has been by my side for many years. But yesterday? Nah, dude. That was a rough day. It was tough with the exception of one thing: reconnecting with my faith. 

While upstairs on my rowing machine, I decided to throw some gospel worship music on. If you know me or have read any of my previous posts, you know I have been in what's called a deconstruction of faith process from evangelical Christianity. This part of my journey alone has been quite the rollercoaster ride, and it hasn't quite let up just yet. Anyway, I went to Barcelona in August 2019 alone to celebrate my 38th birthday. It was a dynamic trip that I will never forget. It was one that changed me. I came back home a different person. During the evenings and mornings in my Airbnb, I would listen to this gospel worship group called Maverick City Music. They had just come out with their first album, and it was and is fiyahh! I remember sitting on the couch and just weeping and singing through the tears as I was crying out to God with my questions and uncertainties. While singing the lyrics to those songs, I felt seen, I felt heard, I felt understood...I felt loved. So this is what I retreated back to yesterday. I put that album on, I sang my heart out, I put my hands up in surrender, and I cried so so many tears. I prayed. I prayed for myself, for certain situations in my life, and for a couple of people near and dear to me. It was good. It felt weird and liberating all at the same time. It even scared me because I just kept thinking that I refuse to go down this rabbit hole all over again after all of the religious trauma I had experienced for over 30 years of my life. But I then I thought, if I am going to do this, it has to be genuine. I have to be able to do it on my terms with all of the freedom in the world and not a single guilt trip anymore of how I will never measure up to him/her/them/(fill in the blank). No, I am taking baby steps. I don't know when or if I will do this again, but God was there in a moment when I needed Him/Her, and I am forever grateful for that. I felt peace. I still do feel that peace, even through my restlessness. I know I will be okay. My life will be okay. I already am, and it already is. Just because there is some turbulence at the moment, doesn't mean it's forever. It's just a few more layers of the emotional onion that is me being peeled again, and I am here for it. I am here for it. I am here.