I feel like I’ve been trying for years to get back to writing. To get back to everything.
Some people work to become something new, to grow into themselves, reaching forward to a new version of themselves.
I am reaching back. I am trying to unbecome, to untangle myself and I am reaching back, trying to be who I have been.
I had alignment that I strayed from. I had a self that I abandoned. I have been here too long without her. Part of her is here, in the writing.
I told myself a goal is to write here once a month. 12 posts a year. I barely made it this month. I thought about it a few times but put it off. I had other thoughts, other ideas, more interesting ones. But here I am with these thoughts and these words.
It’s okay though because I am working on keeping promises to myself. Part of the abandonment has been letting myself go. It felt like I was being self-less in the beginning. It was encouraged in all kinds of ways – to forego my needs, desires, and preferences in favor of making sure someone else got theirs. I thought maybe I had been too selfish before, not conscientious enough of others. I thought this was growth. It’s weird the way my mind was skewed – skewered. I slowly stopped giving my own self any space. All else took priority, me last. And if I didn’t get anything after all, it was okay, I could do without. And I could do it quietly too – no martyrs here. And then at times I started working my way back to myself but then…life. Survival mode hit and I had to wait. I let myself wait. I really didn’t know how to actually move myself. I was stuck. I was longing, but kind of numbed out and just making it through.
I have to keep these promises to myself. When I tell myself I’m going to a yoga class, I’m going to church, I’m going to write, I’m going to put my phone down to sleep…I have to just keep the plan. I’ve had a hard time with plans as an adult. I’ve not done well with them, I’ve derailed and discouraged too easily. I’ve stopped having goals or doing anything with intention. It was all just living by going through the motions – not living and being alive. Those are two different things.
I turn 40 this year and that makes me think harder about how I’m living my life. What I allow and what I create. I could have another 50 years (or 60). I want to own by life. I want to be myself. I want to embody my body again. I want to look forward to my years with joy and peace and purpose. I want to reacquaint myself with the fullness of my being. I want to let go of the mistakes and missteps and bad habits and wrong paths. I want to align again and rest in that elemental place.
Another promise kept. Farewell February.
