She hath wings

For quite some time now, I have been unable to process the swirling thoughts in my head. I was overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions I couldn’t make sense of. A friend I have come to trust for wisdom and a listening ear helped me start to make sense of it all this week. Buried memories were resurfacing because it was time to take a look at them, process them, let them go and heal. Rejection had ripped out my confidence little by little until I hid behind a mask, unable to share myself deeply with anyone – the total opposite to what I was like before.

Now I see the dots connecting each of the thoughts I had. It became clear that I have run away from some aspects of who I was meant to be in pursuit of the comfortable. I had a huge setback in teaching when I first started so I decided I never would try to that extent again. I lost several major friendships so I decided that I wasn’t able to build good ones again. Some aspects of my health deteriorated so that I felt useless as a home maker, unable to keep up with housework, no matter how I tried. This made me stop trying to work on other hobbies because I tried to tell myself I didn’t deserve to have fun if my house couldn’t even be organised. On and on I went, pulling myself apart but not allowing myself to be put together again.

This week, all that changed. Happier memories resurfaced and I began to dream again. I recalled some beautiful times suppressed by hurts undealt with. I even longed to see one of the people again and wondered if I could be strong enough to withstand rejection again if it should occur.

Love can be hard if hurts overwhelm. We end up living half the life we could be living. We throw away our confidence instead of realising we are worth infinitely more than we realise. There may be opportunity to rekindle old friendships, to revisit roles we hoped to have and to overcome health challenges. Or, there may not. Should that stop me from dusting myself off time and time again? No. I don’t think so. What matters is that I stay true to the unique calling upon my life and try not to be something I’m not. I need to make my time on this earth count and love freely, unencumbered by bitterness. I think I’m slowly getting back to that. Love has returned.