I think part of the reason it’s been so hard for me to write the past few weeks is because my words feel incredibly familiar.If I am being completely and utterly honest–these words feel like 2009.

And I don’t know what to do with that
I’ve tried to make some strides. I’ve emailed mentors and (maybe) started looking for a therapist.

I have tried to remember.

I’ve tried to remember that I am different. 

This season is different. 

That I am not the same human as I was in 2009.

I have lived since then.

But that’s the thing about familiar grounds isn’t it?

When we return to a familiar place it can suck all the new life out of us and place us right back where started from.

Situations that reoccur are the same. 

Whenever my mom goes into the hospital–it’s 2009 all over again and I am sitting on my bed in my old apartment. I’ve done that feeling more times then I want too. Or when July 7th hits. It doesn’t sting as bad anymore. It’s a dull, faint ache. But it’s there.

And then there is when the emptiness hits. The empty before caused me to need drugs and therapy and to cry on the floor. The emptiness that caused me to not show up.
Here’s the thing:

This year has been a struggle and there are moments where it feels an awful lot like 2009.

I have wanted to run. I have wanted to stay in bed and not show up.

I have erased more words then I care to admit because they sounded ugly and devoid of hope and whiny. I have erased words out of fear that they will speak that I am back to that.

When you’ve done what I have done, and gone through what I have it’s hard sometimes to admit that you need help. It’s hard to admit you’ve reached something rocky.

Because it was already rocky and you already asked for help.

I have cried a lot the past three weeks (read: I have cried a lot in 2016) I have felt crazy, unstable, inconsistent and a host of other things.

But here’s a fact I know to be true: it’s not 2009. I have been through things. I have faced down giants that I stared at most of my life. I’ve gone around the world and I’ve felt things I didn’t even know were things.

So, right now, I feel empty. I haven’t really known what to do. I have begun to hate the word fine. 
But goodness, at the bottom of it all, the bottom of the tears and the confusion, at the bottom of the bevy of all of things I would like to do (run away, not be present), at the bottom is a beautifully tiled foundation that wasn’t there before.

There is a moment from my second term in Spain that feels like a hug; a moment that is apart of that foundation. I was standing in the Mijouse living room amidst so many people and Andrew came up and put his arm around me and asked me how I was. 

I said I was good.

And I wasn’t lying. I was good. I was stressed and felt a lot of heavy feelings. 

But I knew I was finally in a place where I could figure out how to live through the situation I was in.

And then he looked me in the eye and repeated the question (which meant he was asking as a father). And I said I was ok, I was figuring it out, I would get through it and come out the other side.

To which he replied, “Of course you are good babe, you have Christ inside of you”.

I didn’t hear that as belittling. Because it wasn’t. 

It wasn’t brushing my feelings or emotions under the rug. It’s wasn’t “faking it til I make it”. It was choosing to know that I would come out the other side. It was choosing to know that I had the tools and the people and the heart to move through it. It was choosing to know that doing dirty, messy soul work wouldn’t stop me from living.

I have trouble sometimes ( a lot of the time) asking for help. I have trouble verbalizing in the midst of something. I have gotten better. I have learned and grown and expanded my emotional vocabulary.

So when it feels like 2009. When it feels like a mishmash of emotions.

When I feel like a burden for opening my mouth-I am still able to show up.

 I know that something doesn’t need to feel true to be true.

 I know (so much more of) who I am.

I’m choosing to keep showing up for my life. I’m choosing to ask questions.

I’m trying hard to have grace for myself and to rest. 

I’m choosing to allow myself to cry.

Because it’s not the same mountain. 

There is a different horizon I’m looking upon.

It’s not 2009.

And there is so much more.