feeling sure

Lately I feel like I've been questioning myself a lot. What do I think? Where do I stand on certain issues? What if I'm not right? What if there's a better way? And while all of these questions and wondering aren't completely bad, I also think I can overdo it to a point where I have no solid opinion, and any previously held beliefs feel faint and a bit distant. It is good to be flexible and changeable, but it is also essential to feel confident and sure of oneself. And that is where I want to be. What if I just felt sure? What if I just knew certain things? On my run this morning I started to mentally list out what things I felt sure of, and even if I didn't feel completely sure of them, I began to think about the power that would come into me if I just told myself I believed them until I actually did? Here are some things I thought of:

I have all the things at my disposal to be incredibly happy
I am powerful beyond measure
The world is full of good
I will know what I am supposed to do when I need to because God loves me and I can hear His will for me through the spirit
I am loved
My physical appearance doesn't matter
I am capable and smart
I am a good mom
I am a good wife
I am interesting
I have power to do good
I can do anything I put my mind to
Failure is ok, and I can put myself out there and try new things because I am not afraid to fail
I do not need to be anxious
I can change

I feel like many of these may be a bit selfish, but lately I have felt this need to really internally change a few things about myself so I can be a better mom, wife and friend. I want to believe all of these things because I think in doing so I will be able to instill them in my relationships, especially in my kids, and relationships, especially those I have with my kids, are what matter the very most to me. Hannah is in her crib kicking the wall, ready to get out of bed for the morning so I have to wrap this up, but I just want to try to believe these things this week and see what a difference it makes. I want to sit in surety. I want to sit in a feeling of knowing myself, and being confident in myself. I think in years past, especially in my late twenties, I went through a phase of a lot of confidence in who I was and what I know, and I think I still feel that, I just let myself forget occasionally, and I want to get back to sitting in surety.

today

The world feels really heavy right now and I feel the weight of it in my chest. I have been avoiding looking at the news because the heaviness can become crippling if I'm absorbed in my phone or the media too long. Summer has come in with full force and the hot heat feels like a wake up call to my skin to remind me that we are all still alive here in in our little family, that the our little piece of the world continues to spin in many of the same ways it has in the past, and that there is still times ahead to be enjoyed. The coronavirus (Covid-19) has changed the way we live for months now. We have seen very little of family, and now getting together is mostly done outside and we all kind of just avoid touching each other. I want to hug my mom! It has been confusing to my kids, but now they are getting used to it all, which makes me a little sad. Being physically distant from people does not come naturally to them, and I'm disheartened that this may be their new normal and that hugs and affection outside of our immediate family may not be an option for awhile. There have been riots across the country, and now also globally, as police treatment of black individuals continues to be appalling and the idea of white privilege and racism is coming under a very intense microscope. The riots have become violent and some people are claiming that outside individuals are coming in to intensify these riots, people who just want to make things chaotic and violent, not the people who are actually there for the real heart of the meaning behind it all. Our country feels so divided, both with how they view how governments are handling Covid-19 as well as all of the police brutality and prevalent racism. It all feels so, so big, and in some ways I just don't know what to think of it all. People are so extreme, and although I know I need to take the information I'm given, process it and then decipher what I truly think of it all, I'm feeling more and more inclined to just shut it all out altogether. I know that's not right, because there I need to be informed and I need to be an anchor for my own family so first, we can be safe, but also so that my kids will have some sense of what is going on but also feel secure in the fact that together we can work through it all and help others as we do so. That's what it all comes down to...how we can be the helpers. I'm still trying to figure that out in some ways (hence the need to be informed) but today I kind of just want to hide away from it all. Perhaps that is my white privilege speaking because I CAN hide away from it all. Robert is still employed, we can stay safe at home, we have plenty of food to eat, I'm not afraid of the police and I don't feel a need to riot for my life and for my family's life. I cannot help that I have white privilege. It is a fact. I was born with it. Just like black men and women cannot help that they were born black. I wish I could give them what I have. I want them to feel safe. I want them to feel accepted and loved and equal. They ARE by me. They are by my family. It all us doesn't feel fair and I hate it.

lots of feelings

I don't know what in the world is going on with me but I just feel heavy sometimes. Heavy and anxious and stressed and just overwhelmed at the most basic needs of my children. On the other hand, recently I have been feeling immense gratitude for life and the beauty of the simplest parts of it; the smell of my kids, a warm breeze, the seasons as summer fades and fall sneaks in. It feels funny to be both totally stressed and yet totally grateful all at once. I had some major gastrointestinal issues after William was born and I even went to a GI doctor because they were so intense. He diagnosed me as "stressed" and told me to go do some yoga and sent me on my way. I didn't have bowel issues following my visit. I think the stomach issues were giving me even more stomach issues as it all was just turning me into a ball of stress. I had some issues again after Hannah was born. The newborn stage and adjusting to the needs of yet another person always seem to do me in, but after a few months I felt really good and didn't have any issues. Within the last month they've flared up again, and I'm wondering if not having a kitchen as we remodel as well as getting back into the swing of school and extracurricular stuff is giving me heartburn. Sometimes I don't even know I'm stressed and then this stuff comes on and then I realize I've kind of been trying to sweep it all under the rug. In some ways it's good because it makes me slow down and really try to decipher what's going on, but in other ways it just makes it all worse. Anyhow, the last few nights I tried to not eat much after about 5 pm and it seemed to help. Nights are usually the worst. Sometimes I wake up with the most intense pain in my chest or in the top of my stomach and it is so bad that I sweat and can't sleep. I've tried high-knees and jumping jacks to try and get it to move, but to no avail. It usually just lasts a few hours and then fades in the morning and I've spent way too many hours out on the living room couch watching a dumb show because there's no way I can sleep in such pain. This all feels so silly and trivial to be writing down, but I feel like lately I've been doing so much consuming to try and kind of entertain myself and realized I've kind of neglected all the things I love, like writing and documenting and really digging deep into all the parts of my life I want to remember or just think about.

I am currently a little melancholy, is it hard to tell? Ha! I don't want to be, and I'm trying not to be, but sometimes it just feels good to write all this stuff out. I don't feel like I've been an especially loving and kind mother recently and I hate it, because that is honestly the most important thing to me in this world. My kids mean everything to me. Everything. When I think about them and the fact that they might remember me as this grumpy lady who was always bossing and nagging and raising her voice it makes me want to cry. I don't want to be that. If I'm honest with myself, I'm not usually like that. There are lots of hugs and kisses and snuggles and laughs that happen the majority of the time, but there's a good 15 or 20% that is the rough stuff and I just want to eliminate it altogether. I don't feel good about it and I'm sure they don't either. I think I can get there. Sometimes it feels like I'm doing better and then I have a really bad day and it's hard to get back up on the horse again. But I try, and I'm going to keep trying forever because they are my little hunnies and I love them an extraordinary amount.

Robert and I have been a bit like two ships passing in the night. He hates that phrase so I try to use it often. Ha! But honestly, I feel like we kind of just trade off taking kids where they need to go or taking turns running errands or whatnot, especially with this whole kitchen remodel. Have I said how excited I am for this new kitchen? Like it's going to be amazing, but not having a kitchen for over a month has been totally terrible. Our house has been in shambles. I think feeling like every inch of every surface is covered in dust and nothing is where it normally is and I have to wash any dishes we use in the bathroom sink is about to do me in. (Insert heartburn here). I feel a little disconnected from everyone when I feel like my life is a little out of control, and boy does it feel out of control. I miss Robert and I really need to make more of an effort to show him my love and be affectionate. Have and then nursing a baby has really done a number on my labido and it is breaking both of our hearts. I miss feeling physically interested. I honestly feel like a blah...lacking passion for pretty much anything. Hopefully I'll get over this soon. Oy! What a depressing entry. I just figured I needed to get this all out in a quick way in a place where no one will probably ever see it in hopes that having it out will then help me move onward and upward. Countertops and appliances will be installed in a week and I could not be more excited. The end is in sight!! I am loving the weather right now. Life really is so wonderful and there is so much to look forward to. God is good and I am grateful every day to Him for this life he's given me.

starting here

I have tried to start this sentence a million different ways but my fingers keep finding the delete button over and over and then I'm staring once again at a blank screen and a pulsing cursor. What should the first line of a new journal (or in this case, a journal blog) be? I'm starting in the middle. In the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of my life. Well, I'm hopeful it's not really the middle, more like the first third or something like that. I'm 30, nearly 31, and I have missed writing. Yes, I've written in a journal for years but my right hand can only hack a few pages of actually putting a pen to paper. By the time I'm a few paragraphs in my hand is spent and I feel like I don't have it in me to write the nitty gritty details, so I just write the big main events without fluff or anything else and call it good. In some ways I feel like my handwritten journal is not entirely me. It is what I'm able to get out in 20 minutes with a slow hand and terrible handwriting. I'm hopeful this little platform here will provide an outlet I've been missing. Yes, there is certainly something so raw and honest and genuine about handwritten anything, but when it only allows me to say the bare minimum of how I am feeling, what I am thinking and what life means for me at that moment, it is not sufficient. So, here we are...a new blog just for me.

I have missed writing terribly. Lately I have thought back to my creative writing classes from my high school days and another I took my freshman year in college up at Utah State. My teachers name for that one was Ben (that's what he went by so I don't even remember his last name), and I loved that class more than I can explain. Ben was the kind of teacher that made you feel especially good about yourself but at the same time drew more out of you that you hadn't realized was in there. Writing, for me, is a necessary outlet. It's kind of like breathing and eating and sleeping. When I don't do it I feel off. In fact, I think more than that, I feel pent up, like there's something inside of me that must come out or I will explode. I'm not even sure what I want to say, but it feels good to sit down and have my fingers say something to this little computer screen, even if no one ever looks at this besides me and my trusty computer screen. Writing breathes new life into me.