Over the past year, I’ve had good intentions of writing here. I’ve had ideas pop up that I get really excited about, but then they vanish almost as quickly as they came. As much as I loved writing for the first year of starting this newsletter, this second year has brought a lot of questions and doubts about who I am, what I offer, and what my purpose is. I still do a LOT of writing, but rather than posting each week, I fill several pages in my journal each day. I’ve gone through four and a half books since I moved out last August!
It’s been really difficult to acknowledge and lean into this space. Part of my internal battle revolves around struggling to believe that my writing is worthy of being part of my ministry. When I started my job, I was very excited at the prospect of using some hours to share what’s on my heart each week—and yet, the guilt of doing such a thing causes me to freeze. Who do I think I am that I could write and dare to be paid for that time, and that my words might be relatable, even helpful, to others?
But when I’m honest with myself, the larger battle is embracing the fact that I’ve been in a transition stage, and it doesn’t feel quite right to share from this place. It’s been a little too real, a little too raw, and little too vulnerable. Since my separation, I’ve been trying to piece together this puzzle of what went wrong and what parts are mine to own up to, so I don’t repeat my past mistakes. Since starting my job and this brand-new ministry, I’ve been wondering how I’ll know if I’ve done enough and if my heart in this work has made any impact. Since becoming a single parent, I’ve struggled to balance my life as my own person while maintaining the same level of care I gave to my small people before leaving.
Each time I’ve tried to write, it feels more like poking at an open, festering wound than tenderly caressing a healed scar. Giving myself the time to work through this space, give myself what I need, and create a safe cocoon to allow my internal world to come into a new alignment has felt counter cultural in a society that says we need to push harder and be evermore productive. Holding on to the knowledge that what I offer, most of all, in my work is myself—my presence, my vulnerability, my humanity—has helped me believe that this chapter will one day become an essential part of my story.
This year has been the messiest of middles for me, and I’m starting to realize how difficult it is to sit with this part of my story. I’d rather not deal with conflict, have the hard conversations, move through uncomfortable emotions, or even admit that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’d rather look to someone else to tell me why I’m going through what I’m going through, and who will hand me a perfectly polished explanation of what I must do next. Yet, I keep being called back into these spaces where there is no certainty, no one who can tell me the narrative of my own life, and all I can do is make my way through—page by page.
At times, I’ve wanted to rush to the ending, to bypass the discomfort of the messy middle and have the security of knowing that things will work out the way I want them to. But life is in these spaces where I show up without the answers. Capacity is built when I have to do the brave thing, even when I’m not sure what the outcome will be. And trust is knowing that I will hold myself through it all, no matter what happens. As Garth Brooks so wisely crooned, “I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”
I am burning a lot of old stories right now that tell me that my needs don’t matter, that I need to do more to earn love, that I am not enough. Surprisingly, these stories are doing their best to keep me safe and letting them go is scary, because it means I need to show up differently in my life instead of waiting for someone else to change the narrative for me. I need to take responsibility for the pain I’ve caused, the love I offer, and the feelings that other people’s actions bring up in me. I need to rewrite my beliefs about what I’m worth, even if it’s with a shaky, embarrassed, awkward hand, in order to show up in a way that reflects who I really want to be.
As much as the fear tries to tell me that this part of the story will last forever, it never does. I wonder if the wealth of my 30s is that I now have enough experience to be able to zoom out of my current circumstances and see that I’ve gone through these phases before and came out more resilient, empathetic, and loving as a result. As uncomfortable as this stage has been, there’s also been a level of trust riding underneath it, a voice that tells me, “Keep going. It’s hard, not because you’re doing it wrong, but because the fire needs to burn away the stories that won’t serve you in this next chapter. You are the only one who decides how this story will unfold.”
What would happen if I started to bless these spaces, these pauses, these moments of uncertainty in my life? What if I stopped rushing to fix and sort and have the answers? What if I stopped looking to other people to tell me the story when I’m the one holding the book? What if these spaces are exactly where I get to rewrite the ending, one that’s truer and more beautiful than what had been given to me?
Are you rewriting any parts of your story that no longer serve you where you’re going next? I’d love to know! Leave a comment <3