"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to BLOOM…This is the Element of Freedom"

-Alicia Keys

31 March 2010

Waking Up & Being Grateful

{Let me preface this post with this tidbit of important information: as you all know, I used to have a problem with being on time to work. I say USED TO because I have not been late for work in almost 2 months. Really. TWO MONTHS! Thank you, Jesus. Take That ADD!}



image from here

{Life in a Glass Bubble. I Need Out!}


I am tired. I am tired of having/being/suffering from ADHD. I am tired of having no one around that even remotely understands what it feels like. I am tired of feeling like I am swimming in circles while slowly drowning at the same time. I am tired of trying to tell someone about it & having them not understand or worse, having them laugh. They don't usually laugh at me, but they laugh because they don't understand. I guess that I could explain it like this:

I feel like I am in a glass bubble, looking out and seeing the things that I am good at and the life that I want to some day live {designing, living a creative successful life, staying home with my kid, etc.} and it is so close that I can feel it, but I can't seem to get there. I try and I try and I have been trying for years (basically since Reese was born) to get more organized and timely and orderly and better with paper and correspondence and paying my bills and trying hard not to fail like I thought that I had been for years. I was trying to be a better person by not being who I am because I felt that I had failed myself and others when I was myself. I think that I have tried so hard for so long to be someone that I am not, instead of trying to be the best Elizabeth that I can be. I need to be okay and happy with who I am and I am having a difficult time doing that. I think a lot of it has to do with working at a job that goes against everything that comes naturally to me, I spend all day in front of a computer, or filing or other non-creative {mind-numbing & torturous} activities. I come home to the usual craziness of kid pick-up, dinner, clean-up, bath, book, bed, more clean-up, laundry, lunch-making, reading & then sleeping and then getting up the next day and doing it all over again. Waiting for the weekend, so that I can finally catch my breath. Thinking that "wouldn't this all be easier/better/more joyful if I didn't have to work full-time? or had more time by myself?" All of these thoughts and feelings and dreams and loss and fumbling around, all while trying to love my little family and create a life for us that is genuinely happy {and by happy I mean with all of life's bumps and bruises and loveliness and craziness/beautifulness}...

All of these thoughts have lead me down the path of Feeling-Sorry-For-Myself: which inevitably snowballs into What-The-Fuck-am-I-Doing? I-Suck! I-am-So-Bad-At-Laundry-Housework-Being-A-Momma-Being-A-Wife-Being-A-Friend-I-Have-Gained-30-Pounds-I-Hate-My-Clothes-&-My-Hair-Style-Sucks-and-I-Haven't-Blogged-In-A-Month-and-Basically-I-Feel-Like-Shit Attitude Problem. {I am not a shitty momma by the way. or wifey. and I do hate my clothes, but I did just get a haircut and I love it}.

Then, I read this beautiful Birth Story from the wonderful blog Enjoying The Small Things. And I realized something that I have known all along, but can't seem to fully grasp. Life isn't about being perfect. Or having an vision of perfect. It is about being loved and giving love and letting yourself be just that. Yourself. Her story is beautiful and sad and inspiring & wonderful, but she lets go of perfect and embraces life..."No, life is about love and truly experiencing the beauty we are meant to know." I went on to read some more of her blog and found this quote by author Anne Lamott {which was in an article in O magazine as part of a feature topic of figuring out who you really are meant to be}:


"We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be..." -Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott goes on to say this "...The only problem is that there is also so much other stuff, typically fixations with how people perceive us, how to get more of the things that we think will make us happy, and with keeping our weight down. So the real issue is how do we gently stop being who we aren't? How do we relieve ourselves of the false fronts of people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for power and security, the backpack of old pain, and the psychic Spanx that keeps us smaller and contained?"
{You can read the whole article here}.

I know now that is what I need to do for myself. I need to gently stop being someone that I am not and embrace the creative, weird, imaginative, colorful, hilarious, joyful person that I know that I am inside. God did not make me who I am to dangle it in front of me. I think that He is waiting for me to stop trying so hard to be the Mrs.Planner-list-making-time-watching-routine-living-power-suit-wearing-briefcase-lugging-type-A-house-in-perfect-order-walls-painted-the-perfect-shade-of-beige kind of woman. Because Honey, that ain't me.

So, an attitude adjustment is in order. God wants me to appreciate who He made me to be and trust His plan for my life. I have been working out and that is helping. I need to be a bit more mindful in how I care for myself. I have been going to bed earlier and I have been enjoying the 6.5 to almost 7 hours of sleep a night. I need to get up earlier and have a few minutes of the day to not rush. But most of all, I need to be grateful for who I am and enjoy the journey of getting to the place in my life where I come into who I really am. Here is another quote from Enjoying the Small Things:

"It's just that I have learned so much about this perfection thing these past weeks, and I am finding myself cozily curling up with a new me. A me that has been cultivating for years, but is truly arriving to the place it's needed to be. The concept of perfect is not flawless or four-point-oh. It's happiness. Happiness with all its messiness and not-quite-there-ness. It's knowing that life is short, and the moments we choose to fill our cup with should be purposeful and colorful. And that's perfection. And our Nella--what the world may view far from perfection--has begun to teach me that."

Another quote that cheered me up was on one of my favorite blogs, Domestic Reflections. She wrote this post on Gisele Bundchen and the birth of her first son. Gisele said this about life {read this article in Vogue}:

"The first is wake up in the morning and be grateful you are here, alive and healthy. And the second is: Give."


Seriously. That is the truth. Thank you for reading my lengthy post & know that just taking the time to write it out helped me figure out some of the shit that has been swirling around in this brain of mine.

I will sign off with a photo and caption from Enjoying the Small Things:


"Life is freakin' fabulous. Live big."


4 comments:

  1. Beautiful post, well put. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Amazing post! This is something I struggle with everyday (minus the ADHD component, which I am sure multiplies the anxiety around it all by about a 1,000.) There is such a huge difference between being who we think we should be and being who we are meant to be - and I applaud you for taking the first steps to make sure you are the latter.

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  3. What an incredible post - thank you for sharing. My husband and I just had an argument about this tonight because I have completely bought into the idea that if I perfect myself everything will suddenly become perfect in my life. He always tries to remind me that it's the little things that matter most and that imperfections are natural and beautiful - but you did a much better job of phrasing it. Must be a woman thing - I honestly believe we can communicate better amongst ourselves - boys just don't understand...
    But seriously, thank you so much. You are a super-neat person.

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  4. This!!!!!

    This is precisely what I have been going for over the last few years.

    I finally figured out that I am best when I am purely, solely, utterly ME.

    So what if sometimes our house is a disaster? So what if sometimes our kids don't get straight A's in school? So what if I make a mistake-- even a big one, because dammit, this is MINE to experience. This is MINE from which to learn!!!

    THANK YOU for being another beautiful soul on a similar path to my own. I needed this.

    ReplyDelete

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