So Many Feelings

I woke up this morning feeling the weight of the last 2 weeks. It was if all of the stress and unknown had settled into my heart. I laid in bed hoping it would all just go away. I've done that a lot over the last year, hoping problems would just disappear, pretending things are fine and powering through. Eventually though, you have to settle in and dig deep, get dirty and fix the problems.

I can't fix what's going on in the world but I can work on me.

I spent the morning journaling, realizing that I'm still grieving the loss of my mother, and accepting that I probably always will be in some way. I wish I could talk to her right now and know that if I could, she'd be a wreck, soaking herself in Fox news and ultimately would be no help to me... yet I still wish I could hear her voice.

Being an adult sucks.

According to social media I should be cleaning every hidden corner of my house and organizing closets. I should be sorting through all the unnecessary things in my house and getting rid of them. Homeschooling my children in some magical educational area I've constructed for my children's optimal learning. Working on DIY projects that I've been putting off until I had more time, well I have more time now. Exercising with the millions upon millions of at-home workout options available to me. I should be pouring myself into creative endeavors: content creation, writing, photo editing, recipe creation, etc.

I can barely focus long enough to put words to my feelings.

But in the words of my mother, "You can do hard things."

And I can.

And so can you, my friends. We can do the hard things. Maybe we won't write the next great American novel or change the world with our social media rantings. I'm probably not going to feed the nations with my recipes or motivate the masses with my self-deprecating quarantine fashion posts.

But maybe we learn to live into grace a bit more. A little more kindness for ourselves and our fellow man. Maybe we do start a new fitness routine, and it helps us keep our calm with our kiddos and our spouses. Or we start journaling for own sanity and find we really do have something to say. Maybe we record something to make our friends laugh and find that in their laughter, we can hear our souls again. Try something you've always wanted to do but could never find the time for.

Or just sit and watch TV. You do whatever you need to do to survive. No apologies needed. It's so hard to sit in our own mess and just let ourselves be, but maybe this stillness is the time we need to learn a bit more about ourselves. Whatever your days look like, they're perfect and awful and real... and they're yours. Use them however you see fit. You don't owe anything to anyone.

And neither do I.