It’s raining.
​ For the past few days there have been periods of steady, rhythmic rain drumming against the windows that box me in. I love this sort of downpour. It quiets the world in ways that fly under the radar of cultivating discontent.

There has been so much discontent lately.
The kind that’s sticky and alludes to unfiltered pain. The sort of dissatisfaction with life’s happenings that oozes from others desperate for a place to put it down. Frantic word vomit sputters onto those unarmed, unequipped, and many times unwitting.

I tell my husband frequently that I wish I possessed the skills to be mean. To be able to bluntly shut down something that is not serving me, and to be able to relentlessly attend to my own needs above others. Something in the universe disarmed this ability within my soul and added an extra splash of empathy. My empathy for other’s experiences outweighs my own needs time and time again. It’s chronically exhausting.

Lately I feel like Lucille’s sign ‘Psychiatric Help 5 cents’ has been nailed to my forehead. Those I know in different ways have been showing up with such forceful, palpable pain it’s slammed me into a chokehold of holding space. Disarming internal bombs before they detonate. Panic whipping wild within their eyes.

Their eyes.
Windows to the soul when in a romantic setting, but geysers of trauma in a realistic sense lately.

I just want to hide.

The work I do is raw, vulnerable, heavy, and inevitability dark. There’s hardly a day that escapes from the reminders of how woven tragedy is into our DNA. I’ve been trained on how to compartmentalize and hold space, but y’all, I am just a human.

When I leave work, I am breathing through a bendy straw. My chest is tight, and my heart is shaking off the ache of others. My mind hurriedly attempts to leave all the ick at the door. I am thumbing through the pages of my memories or current events that donate levity to my soul. Thankfully, my daughter and husband are good at these contributions.

I know I know.
“You need to be better at holding boundaries.”

But how do you hold boundaries in the moment of distinct agony?
How do you death grip your bendy straw when the other’s straw broke in half?
How do you turn away from the eyes that haunt you long after the gaze has been broken?

These are the moments my soul cries out for Sadie. The creature who traded my bendy straw out for a proper snorkel. It feels so silly to still grieve an animal as hard as I do. But who would really know?

Sometimes, other’s view of me makes me feel so disposable. Like my depth doesn’t have a place because it doesn’t appear to be hemorrhaging. Most of the time, I am used to this, and I am at fault for giving in. But other times, I crave to be seen. I have a deep need to remember the good. Not just for levity, but for survival.

We all do.
It’s within humanity’s blueprint to play. It’s tethered to the foundation of resiliency to catch our breath in the face of the unimaginable. Even our mechanisms for crying demand we ‘come up for air’, as we can only heavy cry for 10–15-minute intervals before our system drags up to the surface for a break. Seriously. It’s kind of neat.  

It is vital to our livelihood to remember the good. Even if it feels like utter bullshit in that moment.
​
Because here’s the thing.
It’s temporary. Every single bit of this life. That feeling, that job, that situation, that age. None of it is doomed for permanence. Even when permanence is begged for. Life is a tumultuous rollercoaster crowded by twists, turns, drops, and highs you never fathomed. It’s up to us to decide how we lean into the turns, or shy away from the chaos.
 

I miss the newspaper.

My childhood memories are sprinkled with sleepy barefoot walks down the driveway. Memories of my nose crinkling as I gingerly picked up the soggy blue plastic that kept the paper crisp despite the morning dew and Florida stickiness. Toddling back into the house, carefully freeing the paper from its confines, and shuffling the ‘life’ section from the rest of it. I’d hand the bulk of the ‘boring stuff’ to my dad, while plopping down in the adjacent seat at the kitchen table with my waffles, the comics, and horoscopes.

These memories dance through my mind as I sit perched in a fake leather chair, HGTV blasting in my right ear in a surgery center waiting anxiously for my dad to toddle out from hip replacement surgery.

Time is such a wild phenomenon.
While it’s constructs are completely manmade, its themes and tempo perpetuate the fragility of it all. Something about its constructs rob us of intentionality to truly marinate in a moment as quiet and routine as leafing through the paper with your father on a sleepy morning before he shuffles you to school. On the mundane car ride he haphazardly flips through your hastily scribbled out flashcards, quizzing confidence into your Spanish-challenged soul before a daunting quiz.

After four years of Spanish do you think I retained a thing?

Nope.

Did I pass every year with As and Bs?

Yep.

How?

The dutiful and lighthearted commitment of my sweet Papa on these drives to school. He was just as foreign language challenged as I was (and still am), so his meanderings through the pronunciation of words made it impossible to fight a smile and helped my perfectionistic soul not take life so seriously.

This surgery is my first, existential reminder of the fragility of my parents. As amorously privileged as this is, my parents have been projected as invincible superhumans within my narrative. What a blessing it is that it took thirty-one years for the realization that my Papa is undeniably as human as I am.

But still, big yikes.

Spirit oozes from my father, the legacy of those before him ebb and flow from his wisdom. Even when faced with debilitating pain, you’d never known the toll. His dedication to fatherhood has been unwavering, yet untraditional. Just as his father danced to the melodies of time without a desire to control it, my father danced to the melodies of raising a daughter. His grip on my will never tightened. His voice never rose. Fear was never a part of enforcing the rules.

Somehow, along the journey of time, my Papa shared the spirit within the tempo of time’s gift. He showed me how to soak into the small moments, lean into gratitude of joys big and small, and to never underestimate the power of a genuine smile.

Today, and so many days before it, he’s tap dancing to the melody of fearlessness. Because at the heart of it all, fear distracts our spirit from the gifts of time.

When we lead with fear, we sidestep the beauty in the journey. The bravery of our growth. We deny ourselves the opportunity to see the beauty in all the unusual places.

So, here’s your reminder to reacquaint yourself with the quiet moments. The subtle ones that fly under the radar due to our own daunting tasks of time. Shake off the tradition of fear and stress to conform to constructs that inevitably wear out our spirits.
​
Smile at the silly.
(Like bears!)
Seek out the comics.
Feel it to heal it.
And look for the beauty. It’s out there, I pinky promise. 

Being a therapist is strange. Everyday promises anything but monotony. What will I bear witness to today? What will folks bring into the space? A retched experience with a boss, a horrific, sudden loss of a parent, extra flatulence, a treasured pet snake… the possibilities are colorful.

Today it was a fist fight.

A sibling had apparently met their quota of sly comebacks and the other’s patience had had enough. A sucker punch and some odd swings later they were wrestled apart.
This sounds like something that should phase someone right?

Yet, I sat in my grey, cozy chair unflinching.

“Yikes” was the monotone, stand-alone reaction that floated through my thoughts.
Later that night I remembered the family session and recalled (ethically appropriate) parts of the story to my husband. The inflections embedded within the narrative mimicked one that would mirror a story read in the newspaper about a neighbor lady’s flower garden. A space filler, something worth commenting on but hardly thought provoking.

My husband looked at me with a smirk and said something along the lines of “You should have led with that story when talking about your day.”

In that moment I realized how detached I had been to my day. Something so far from ordinary had become my threshold for normalcy.
Yikes.

I am fairly certain my newly adopted survival technique of muted attachment isn’t a recommended one. I chatter every week about the necessity of ‘healthy’ self-nurturing yet here I sit, leaning heavily into the purgatory of detachment. This fog first set in after the cacophony of pregnancy and postpartum complications I transparently experienced a bit ago. Looking back, it’s quite a phenomenon of how well I was able to ‘pretend’ to function last summer when I was nothing but a faded shell of a well-witted human. I’d put on a mask made of hurriedly- crafted porcelain, only to hurl it toward the wall the moment I exited the therapy office.
I was a mess. A tattered, questionably existing, mess. Cheers to therapy, a fierce tribe, a loving husband, and the promise of change that time doles out.

But the fist fight woke me up to the work I still have ahead of me. My soul is still under construction. My identity hardly resembles a put-back-together-humpty-dumpty. I had quickly glued some pieces in place and accepted that as ‘good enough’.

Aren’t we worthy of more though?

The ‘good enoughs’ aid in our pursuit of survival, yet leave us wobbly on the ledge of anything more. Survival can bring about short-term contentment when that ledge overlooks a calm, comfortable day. Yet, when the winds pick up, we realize how tired we are from holding on so tightly when the weather was nice.

The point of this tangent is to remind you (and me) that our happy doesn’t belong in the ‘good enough’ category. It’s OK to feel tired of wrestling with your hurts, your icks, and your shame spirals. It’s OK to pause the pursuit of joy in trade of a respite.

However, don’t let the respite morph into your normal.

Or else you’ll find yourself snapping out of it in the face of a fistfight.

Duck!

There is a common collection of questions one might ask when getting to know another.

“What do you do for work?”
“Where did you grow up?”
“What sports team do you root for?”

Amongst this ritualistic curiosity typically comes the question “What TV shows do you like?”. Most everyone has one simmering on the surface. Some gravitate toward dry humor such as The Office. Others find comfort in cringy reality TV and the ridiculousness the cameras tend to catch. Then there are folks like me who have a show running on repeat for the rest of forever. Without a doubt that show is Friends. It’ my lullaby, my Sunday morning cartoon, and the cozy noise that hums in the background of a particularly lonesome or lazy day.

I had a handful of friends painfully reach out to me Saturday night to gently share the news of Matthew Perry’s death. Their pensiveness was endearing, and it’s made me thoughtful of our connections to the actors and actresses that play such subconscious (or sometimes all consumingly conscious) roles within our life stories. Media is as blended into our identities as the colors of our eyes. Quotable moments of movies, episodes, and blurbs circulate our thoughts. They are the essence of our generic coping tools.

I didn’t discover Friends until I was in college. Each character was differently relatable, and each episode brought such random and cozy comfort. No matter the chaotic rhetoric of the day, Friends was undeniably always there for you. Twelve years later, and the motely crew continues their jovial meanderings as my bedtime story.

When we think of secure attachments, it’s the consistent and reliable presence of a caretaker within our early years. Our attachment styles predict our tendencies to form certain types of relationships within our adult lives. For many, attachment styles stray from secure and lean more into the insecure styles led by anxiety, avoidance, or overarching disorganization. Not only did Friends showcase each type of attachment style, but they did so in an approachable and relatable manner. In a way, the cast was present for so many people when others in their lives were not or could not be.

(Hop over to Different Spectrums Podcast to listen to the episode where I had the delightful honor of exploring attachment styles within Friends with lovely humans if you’re curious.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpyWBgZezio&ab_channel=DifferentSpectrumsPodcast

Motion pictures in all forms have the potential to provide security. This is something that is an innate human craving. We need connections for survival. When our realities contribute uneasy insecurities, it is valid that we turn to worlds that offer stability. Predictability. Endings we can expect.

Matthew Perry was one of those contributors to peace. So many sought solstice within the confides of his humor. His projected spotty self-esteem. His profound love. His masked pain.
Rest easy Friend. Enjoy a hot cup of joe with Gunther for us. 

Hush little darling, don’t say a word.
The ones who turn into mommas are no longer heard.
Sacrifice your body, hand over your identity.
Hope to God there’s some sort of motherhood affinity.

As a woman, I had heard whispers of the rumor that postpartum women are sorely uncared for. Politics are obsessed with our wombs, doctors are persistently checking our urine for proteins and listening to the fetal doppler as we cook our little humans, and there is nothing but chaos upon the grand entrance of our babies. Once that cry pierces the air, ‘congratulations’ shower all around. Love bombards you. You hardly have anytime to remember your name as your focus shifts haphazardly to the shrill cry bubbling from the brand-new human no longer cozy inside of you. They are a ‘them’ now and it’s overwhelming for all parties involved.

The noise peaks.
Then comes the ‘hush’.

My anxieties were hushed as I white-knuckled my existence through the first few days of human functioning after being torn apart. Those first bathroom trips post-delivery hold their own unique horror.

My body intuition was hushed as I continued to feel ‘off’ 36 hours post-delivery and my blood pressure marched its way higher and higher.
“You’re just nervous to take baby home.”
“You are not calm enough. Just breathe”

Reality finally proclaimed my body’s truth as my blood pressure peaked to the 170s.
“Oops, you have postpartum preeclampsia.”

There was no time to mentally prepare for the 24 hours of pure hell as the doctors started a magnesium drip to stave off the seizures.
“Make sure to pump. Make sure to be present for your baby’s first bath. Make sure to make memories through the blinding, horrific pain of a preeclamptic headache. “

Hush.

“The medicine is over. Gain your composure and go home.”
Hurry up and make haste through the brain fog. Squint through the retinal damage. Grit your teeth through the lingering headache. You are a mother now.
“Just stare at your little girl, you won’t remember any of this.”


I remember.

My love for my daughter is fierce, raw, and instinctual. I am protective and our bodies are forever linked. I feel her flow through my veins with every beat of my heart. She is joy.

But this love does not negate my memories.

Trauma is harbored in my body. Health anxiety bounds chaotically within my heart. Whenever I become aware of my heart’s rhythm I am paralyzed with fear for a moment. I flash back to that hospital bed. To the time my eyes failed me. To the needles, the IVs, the hazy hallucinogenic flu the magnesium forced me into. The five days of blinding pain from a cervical tear.

My body remembers the time it lost all faith in itself.

Hush.
​
Women’s healthcare fails postpartum mothers.
Our humanness is hushed. Our challenges are shamed.
Our bodies are no longer an incubator. No longer platforms for political gains, no longer medical marvels.
We return to plain ol’ women.
Nonchalantly traumatized women hustling for healing whose strength is so intimidating to our systems they cowardly thrust their heads in the sand. I not so quietly hope they choke on that sand.

Yesterday, our private practice opened its doors to invite a handful of Neurodiverse teens into our well-known social skills group. It has been over two years since our last group was conducted largely due to the restricting impacts of the pandemic. The laughter and melting away of first group nerves warmed this tired therapist’s soul to its core. I did not realize how badly I was craving a hefty helping of normalcy.

While the rain stirs an array of different emotions for many, today it seems to carry a veil of calm. As if the dreariness outside fluffs the comfort within the therapy room. The haze highlights the warmth of the lightening. The music of the rainy downfall adds an extra touch of security.

Lately a theme of guilt has floated in between the rainstorms as clients come and go from my blue comfy couch. A slew of people-pleasers grace my office, and the narratives of self-sacrifice hold steady despite cravings of change. I can resonate with this flavor of client, as I am a recovering people-pleaser at heart. It’s funny how doing my own work aids in my abilities as a therapist. I have been dutifully challenging my narrative of toxic selflessness to rescue myself from the depths of soulful burnout. While bending over backwards for the sake of others’ wellbeing brings a level of fulfillment, my soul screeches otherwise.

A handful of weeks ago, I despised being a therapist.

The ‘Sunday scaries’ were ferocious as they rocked my nerves.
The restlessness I experienced in session proved to be unnervingly distracting.
The best thing that I’ve done for myself in quite a while was to recognize and validate my chosen limits. Not the limits that I previously lived my life by. Not the ones that defined survival while teetering on the edge of crumpling under the burdens. The ones that I chose after attending to my mentality’s longevity.

If we pay attention to the whispers of our soul, we won’t have to listen to its screams.

Boy, was mine loud. The howls are still ringing in my ears, as I rise from the shambles of unhealthy boundaries.

I had to dig deep to set unwavering boundaries around my work hours. I had to release the guilt of going home at 6pm vs flexing to the requests for later hours. Forgiving ourselves for our humanness many be one of the trickiest tasks in the handbook of human functioning. I had to genuinely grant myself grace for setting my schedule to a maximum of five clients a day. Every day I challenge myself to respond verses react to other’s requests of my heart. Whenever a sentence is poised with the beginnings of “Can you….” I will myself to pause and truly consider if I can fulfill the request without sacrificing myself.

It's not only a shift in priorities but it’s an adjustment of lifestyle. One we have to lean into mindfully or else we are tempted to slip back into old self sabotaging mentalities.

So, if you find your ears ringing from the shrieks of protest arising from deep within your soul…
Please listen to them. Validate their experiences.
​
For this is the only way we get back to the whispers. 

Mean neighbor has an odd fixation with the cleanliness of our condo complex’s dumpster. I spot him meticulously tending to the area surrounding the green monstrosity at least a few times during any given week. His most dutiful days seem to be when the lawn maintenance humans are here. Once they buzz around on their riding lawnmowers as quickly as humanly possible, mean neighbor emerges from his garage with his gizmos and gadgets to make sure there is no blade of grass anywhere near the dumpster. He rakes around the edges, fantasizing the epitome of squeaky clean any standard dumpster could ever dream of.

(If you don’t recall who mean neighbor is, he has his own story of humility toward the beginnings of the blog. He’s hardly ‘mean’ anymore, and somehow we have meandered to our own understandings of one another.)

I am working from home today. While the world convinced me COVID and the Flu were the prominent germs floating around, here I sit, nursing a fever. Negative for this, negative for that. An antibiotic was tossed my way with little more than a “good luck” from a random Urgent Care doctor.

Life has been carrying on to its own divergent pace. The therapy room has been perplexingly darker lately, which nosedived me into a heaping pile of burnout. The trauma and abuse that’s been sputtered out as results of oversight, lack of shits to give, and overall lethargy of systems that are ‘supposed’ to keep people safe have been relentless. My ongoing struggle of caring too deeply has spun me into a fun hole of ‘I don’t want to play anymore’. Yet here I am. Covered in metaphorical tattered bandages rolling the dice with my good hand.

Life is not marching forward how I planned it to and it’s irritating my soul. Subsequently, I just rolled my eyes and chuckled at myself after finishing that sentence. Of course life isn’t following our rules. She looks at our plans and laughs too.

In my meticulous planning, the horse we ‘invested’ in would have been sold months ago, my husband and I would be sitting pretty to take on a mortgage, and we would be happily house hunting while excitedly jumping into our evolving plans and priorities with both feet. Work would be chalk full of hustling, yet manageable. The promises of Spring would keep us giddy for summertime.

There life goes again, succumbed by her peals of laughter.
​
In reality, life cannot be dutifully maintained like the dumpster in our condo complex. Perhaps this is why mean neighbor is so fixated on it. It’s a segment of his life he can rejoice in his perception of control.

The horse we ‘invested’ in is still sitting pretty in the barn she was intended to depart months ago.

Our budget is playing with options B and C to explore ways of moving into the house-buying stage.

The market is deliriously inflated.

The world is rolling in its own fire as war rages across the pond and our own power-crazed politicians gleefully stomp on our country’s attempts at progression forward.

My husband and I are holding onto one another as we jump into our shifting priorities despite the cacophony of chaos swirling around us.

Because here’s the thing.

If the past few years have taught me anything, it’s that life is going to unravel in the ways she sees fit. Most of the time, that unraveling will make no sense to me. A lot of the time I’ll question the motives and intentions of those I see are contributing to the happenstance of events. Occasionally, I’ll curse the perceived injustice that washes over my experiences.
But mostly I’ll roll my eyes at life’s melody and lean into the discomfort of learning how to not wait for the storm to pass, but to dance in the rain instead.
 

As the days creep into the promises of Spring, I am growing increasingly weary of the Education crisis that looms in the distance. As many different systems within society teeter on the edge of collapse, our education sector may be the most vulnerable to crumbling. Teachers are waving their white flags of defeat as the encumbering demands of the invalidating oversight prove to be too heavy to carry. Lines of support for students are stretched all too thin. Children are tumbling into the cracks of mismanagement. Mental health priority has all but faded into the background of distant memories.

Reform rises out of brokenness. As a therapist who dances with systemic dynamics, I am aware of this cycle of building anew. Yet, this knowledge does not give my empathy any comfort for the souls suffering at the expense of a collapsing education system. As sectors decline, the mental health crisis unarguably skyrockets.

Recently, I was informed of an exchange between support staff at a public school and a student. This student had experienced trauma woven throughout their life. While PTSD raged behind this child’s eyes, outwardly, there were no visible indicators of the demons that danced within their memories. Happenstance, triggers at home lowered the child’s window of tolerance for discomfort. Upon arrival to school, it took a simple straw to push the child over their edge of tolerance and into a meltdown. The overworked school staff huffed in exacerbation, interpreting this expression of emotion as lack of compliance. As they approached the child trapped within their feelings with little vocabulary to capture their internal experiences, the adults in the room reinforced a shame-based narrative.

“Use your words.”
“You have to communicate if you want any help from us.”
“You will not speak to me like that.”

Little did the staff know they were using the same trauma-laced language as the child’s abuser.
Now the child went from an emotionally fueled act to a full blown PSTD induced flashback.

The child shut down further. The staff laid on the shame-based language thicker.
Eventually, the child exhausted themselves and crumbled in defeat of invalidation. The school staff enforced consequences of behavior fueled by humanness. Suddenly, the child’s narrative shifts from a cry for help to internalized shame. Trust in the system they spend hours of their life in becomes muddled by embarrassment and confusion.

I cannot tell you how common this interaction pattern is.

Our education systems are desperate for trauma-informed care and language. Now more than ever. The World is still reeling from a Pandemic that exacerbated mental health struggles, amongst other things. Victims were trapped on lockdown with their abusers. Tensions spilled over into chaos. Our society is a battlefield of the invisibly wounded.

As a therapist, it’s within my responsibilities to serve as an advocate. Educational advocacy for our little humans is one of my passions. Despite the defeat I feel as broken systems tower over us, I will march forward. I will use my voice to enhance the stories of the voiceless.

​ Let’s continue to commit to validating our youth’s experiences. Let’s increase mental health awareness in our schools for students and teachers alike. Let’s fight for the rights and the well-being of those who will run our worlds one day. 

Time continues to kerfuffle me. One moment I was ringing in the new year with friends, and the next I’m peering at my watch in disbelief that it’s the 23rd of January.

I’ve officially started my own therapy. It’s been a disgruntling venture to try and land a therapist for a therapist, especially for one as stubborn as I am. I resonated with Dorothy and her plight in finding the porridge that was ‘just right’. While it took a hot minute, I am happy to report your girl found her ‘just right’ therapist.

And let me tell you, she brings up some good stuff.

They’re encouraging me to read a book titled The Artist’s Way. I’ll admit, some of the contents lean toward the ‘fluffy’ side of mindfulness that I find myself chuckling at. However, we all know I’m not here to judge the ‘fluff’. There have been two major points so far that have stuck out. Mindless journaling and spending mindful time with oneself. Two seemingly simple tasks that fool you into thinking they will be easy-peasy.

Come to find out, my inner ‘artist’, otherwise known as my ‘creative side’ is quite lonely and all too tired. In one of my mindful journaling ventures my subconscious wrote “I hate how deeply I care for others, but only when it hurts or screws me over. Maybe that’s why I rest in the quiet. Noise threatens chaos. Quiet promises calm.”

Another time I quietly proclaimed “I used to love reading. I could get lost in a book for hours. Yet, I stare at a pile in my living room. When did my soul become so burnt out? Where did her flicker go? She’s antsy with idleness, yet unmotivated to move in the ways that promise a remedy. What would an ‘inner artist’ date look like anyways? “What’s the point?” is a very good point.”

Through my own therapeutic work, I am coming to realize that I have been locked into a mindless, anxiety-riddled space for far too long. I zealously march to the beat of traditional productivity’s drum. Yet, without the rhythmic repetition I am anything but comfortable. I have locked myself away from myself and the vulnerability that lies within. Somewhere along my journey I became disconnected to the part of myself I used to find solitude in. The ‘creative’ part that got lost in books, spent hours upon hours adventuring on horseback, and forgot about the constraints of time. The part that loved to draw. The wildness that had fire dancing in her eyes and sass perched on her tongue.

I am on a journey to reclaim that ‘artist’ that is locked away somewhere buried deep within my soul. I find myself looking around and wondering how many other lost ‘parts’ are locked away in the hearts of those I cherish. How many of us have forgotten how the hell to be there for ourselves?
​
When was the last time you thoroughly checked in with yourself?

My ‘homework’ is to spend mindful quality time on my own. A simple gesture in theory, yet the major task will be to sit with the discomfort of disconnection. The awkwardness of mindfully spending time with myself without the distractions of responsibilities or daunting task lists. Just me, a book, and somewhere novel to read it.
​
So, I challenge you to do the same. Plan a mindful ‘date’ with yourself and embrace the awkwardness of beginning to find your ‘inner artist’ again. 

Hi, hello!
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve hopped onto this platform. I apologize for the absence if that’s something that’s impacted you. Just to give you a peep into the chaos that has been the past month here we go…

Puzzle Peace Counseling has officially relocated! I am tapping away on my keyboard in my new cozy nook as you read. Oh boy, has this shift been a labor of love. For the chronically impatient souls like myself, moving always proves to be a humbling experience. There are not enough ways I can thank those in my corner for the physical and mental assist in making this transition as smooth as possible. Seriously folks, thank you. You know who you are.

Aside from prepping 50+ clientele for a physical shift in location, the holidays have not disappointed in upping the intensity of which people call on mental health counseling.
Let’s face it, 2021 has been quite the kerfuffle of stress. The opposite of what we had hoped for as we crawled out of 2020. Fast forward to now and we are on COVID-19 variant 734, the virus is floating around with its posse of flu and cold illnesses mixed in, gas prices are emptying our wallets, and tempers grow shorter-fused by the day.

Personally, 2021 redefined how I view growing pains.
Innocently, growing pains are the uncomfortable pangs of discomfort as our bones grow quicker than our muscles. Little humans wither from the awkwardness that may swim through their legs as they battle with this sensation. Yet, this is a mere surface level peek into the depth of the defining points of the phrase.

Growing pains slapped me across the face in the earlier part of this year. Within three months, my husband lost his last surviving grandparent, I lost my last surviving grandparent, and I had to face a reality that did not have my heart horse, Sadie, in it.

BAM BAM BAM. Three strikes.
I wanted to be out. I wanted the baseball reference to ring true throughout the nightmarish reality of grief that had slammed into my soul. I craved to curl into a ball and hide away from the truth that was mine without those who gave me so much structure and strength. I wanted to disappear into myself and drop my responsibilities on their heads as I cowered from the burden of it all. The world felt wrong.

Growing pains willed me to stand back up. Truthfully, sinking to the floor was my trauma response, yet I found myself gritting my teeth and hoisting my grief-tormented body into the spaces that occupied my responsibility. It wasn’t pretty, but true growth rarely is. There were days I took off from work, and times my people had to glue me back together like a real-life Humpty-Dumpty. There were times that sadness gripped my throat and tears stung my eyes in between sessions. Evenings that I would crumple into my husband’s chest and unleash the pent up yuck I had thoughtfully carried behind my eyes during the workday.
That period of growth hurt like a son of a bitch lit on fire.

Yet I sit here, so unbelievably proud of the woman who stares back at me in the mirror.
Truthfully, I grew into myself and the resiliency I underestimated.

I am publishing a book y’all.
A real-life book that will go on a real-life bookshelf. I am working with editors and illustrators to bring a story to life that would have never been written if it weren’t for my grief and the ways I chose to express it.

I am finding myself pictured in magazines attached to articles I've written promoting conversations surrounding mental health. 
​
I am a fiery advocate for those who identify as Neurodiverse and have pushed for rights of kiddos whose voices have been quieted by broken systems.

I have climbed the professional ladder into a cozy office space I delightfully get to call my own. Titles like ‘assistant clinical director’ and ‘lead Marriage and Family Therapist’ follow my name in a private practice I utterly adore.

I found a therapist I connect with. Finally.

I am here. Figuring it out. Taking it day by day. Finding joy in the ordinary.

So, hear me out.
2021 was gut-wrenchingly painful. I had to mutter goodbyes to souls that ripped my heart from my chest and the air from my lungs. There are times when my grief sneaks into my mind and my eyes cloud with tears as I yearn for what once was. I’m not sure these moments will ever subside completely. Grief is love persevering after all.  

Yet, I am actively seeking out meaning to tie to my grief. I am investing my emotional experiences into outlets that cultivates fulfillment. I am practicing gratitude for those in my life whose love I will mindfully never take for granted again. I am humbly learning and gripping tightly onto hope.

Growing pains are not only in our legs, my friends.
​
Cheers to surviving a hellacious year.
Here’s to a year of vitality, connection, and (hopefully) less chaos.