That Scared Little Girl

These last few weeks have been rough. It’s Friday night and I have nothing but these words to share. Up until this week, I’ve been pretty good about having something ready to post by Thursday or Friday, but I just couldn’t this week. I have a fairly long list of ideas to write about, but I’ve been emotionally drained. I’m tired. I’m exhausted. And I mostly feel like crap. I just can’t right now. I can’t create or neatly articulate an idea. I don’t want to try to organize my thoughts. All I have the energy to do right now is spill out what I can from my head.

And so here it goes…

It started on a Friday a few weeks ago. It came on subtly, but I noticed it. A heaviness. A sadness. A grief. I’ve learned that sometimes this happens and it may come and go for a day or two, so I didn’t best to keep moving around it, trying to ignore that it was there. There wasn’t a particular inciting incident, but it settled in nonetheless, and this time it lingered. The only thing I can reason is that it’s my “time to grieve,” which is both scary and relieving. I’ve had ache stuffed up in my heart for as long as I can remember, but I had no way of even knowing what it was, much less how to release it. But I’m learning. I’m learning to grieve.

It’s kind of like when I got glassess for the first time when I was ten. I had no idea I had lived with terrible vision until I was given corrected vision. When I saw things clearly, I realized how much I had missed. And details that I may not have seen before (good and bad) were much more noticeable.

Similarly, I feel like I’ve been gaining insights and discovering clearer vision about life and how so much of it stems from childhood. I’ve been learning to see some things as they were and to take off twisted lenses and perceptions. It’s enlightening and saddening to truly recognize and take in the loss. It puts some sense to the feelings of frustration and dissonance I’ve experienced, but it also makes me so sad and angry.

Recently, I’ve been reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Codependent No More. Both have some accurately relatable points, but the former has been incredibly eye-opening, especially in describing how kids learn to cope early on their own and how that then impacts adulthood. It’s validating to read something that acknowledges and confirms your childhood, but it also paints a pretty clear picture… One that can be hard to take in.

And so I feel like I’ve been living in a thick, dark sludge. Not necessarily physically, but emotionally and spiritually. I’ve cried a lot in the last few weeks. Some of it’s confusing and frustrating because I feel like I can’t grasp truth or reality in the midst of my unreasonable triggered moments and I feel like I can’t reason my way out, even when I try. At other times, the grief and deep tears feel healthy–not good, but like something that is necessary for good to be able to happen.

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely moments when I can laugh or moments when I feel ok, but it’s the place I find myself falling into at the end of the day even if it’s faint.

Grieving. It’s just where I am right now. It’s my place on my journey. And for now, I’m ok with that. Maybe even grateful for it.

I’m learning to grieve so that I can learn to heal.