To the man in 8B,
I did not want to talk to you.
From the second I sat down next to you though, I kind of knew I was going to end up talking to you but I didn’t know why.
When you got up about halfway through the flight I took a deep breath. I stretched out a little, but couldn’t get settled. Something was stirring up inside and I knew that even though it was something that I detested-I was going to talk to someone on an airplane.
You know this now- but I talk all the time. To my tiny humans, their parents, to my friends, to my boss.
All the damn time.
On an airplane I like to read or watch movies or sleep.
Not talk.
But, I felt the need to ask you about your book you had been holding in your hand for the whole flight but never opened.
And then the dam broke.
You proceeded to tell me story after story about your writing, your 42 years as a lawyer and everything in between.
And then you disagreed with me when I made the statement that we are all connected. You refuted my statement with story after story about people who were truly lonely.
But, man on plane next to me, I hate to break it to you; you are the reason none of those people were truly lonely.
In all of your stories about your days of being a lawyer and of standing in for those who had no voice, you frequently said that you were the one they trusted, that you minced no words with them.
I hate to break it to you man on the plane next to me, but you were their voice when no one else was.
You gave people the hope that it all would end, that there was a way out- even if that way out was death.
As we talked I saw your heart breaking for the people you had helped in your past. I saw your joy when you talked about the moment when you got to lift 13 years of shame off of someone’s shoulders. I saw you be grateful for a moment that you had the ability to tell long forgotten stories in your writing.
And I had this feeling for a moment, that you were passing something down to me, as I gathered you and your wife had no kids.
You said a few things to me that stuck with me and will stick with me.
You told me that I was going to get burnt out doing what I do. And that you and my mom were in it together in battling the sicknesses that had been dealt to you. You reminded me that it was ok to have two brains- a writing brain and a teacher brain and that I had to shut off the teacher brain to write. You told me that my parents had done one good thing and that was putting me in the world.
You told me that you normally don’t talk to people on planes either- that you normally just shut down on your flights to and from Seattle. That you’ve made 20 of those flights essentially in the last year and you always bring a book but never read it.
And the very last words you spoke to me were this:
“Good luck saving the world one child at a time- remember Obama was a three year old once”
I think you believed I might actually change something. I think you believed that I had that ability.
I think maybe, you thought I knew what the hell I was doing.
I think you thought that because all those things are true about yourself.
You have changed something.
You know you had the ability to do it.
And you knew and know what the hell you are doing.
To the man in 8B,
You have lived an incredibly full 67 years.
I know you don’t know how many more you have left; but I want you to know this:
You have changed people. You have slayed dragons on the behalf of those who were unable to pick up a sword. You have brought people peace who thought they had no ability to feel that feeling.
You have stood by someone and let them be lonely but not alone.
I wanted to tell you all of this- but I felt in my depths that you’d be overwhelmed by those words. That the plane was your safe space from everything that was happening and had happened in your life and the fact that you told me those stories and listened to my words meant more than I can say.
To the man in 8B,
You matter.
With love,
Meg
Tag: hope
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I write fluffy words a lot.
I write words that ask you, the reader, to step into the next. To be encouraged, to grab onto your own strength.
Sometimes all I want to do is yell and cry.
I had a moment on Friday, during nap time where I just wanted to walk out the doors. The why doesn’t really matter, but just know that I wanted to walk out. Instead I walked into the storage closet and shed a few tears and took a deep breath and walked back out.
Then later that night I had my second panic attack in the last month.
I don’t say this all to say my life is awful or for sympathy (because it’s not and I don’t need it)- I say it to tell you what I did next.
Saturday morning I went out to breakfast and read a book. I opened windows and cleaned my room, I drank a glass of wine and ate bean dip straight from the casserole dish on the floor of my friend’s house.
This morning I slept in and went to a coffee shop and did some prep for a bridal shower.
What I’m trying to say is I kept moving.
Sometimes I have shame that pops up from about ten years ago when I stopped moving. I didn’t go to work and I hid in a hole and my roommates pulled me out of the hole and gave me space all at the same time.
What I am trying to say is keep moving, in some way. Make some brownies or clean or read in a coffee shop or treat yourself to a delicious breakfast sandwich and a good book.
Walk outside, breathe, get vitamin D.
I spend 40+ hrs teaching tiny humans how to listen to their bodies. What it feels like to be mad, sad, happy or when you need to go to the bathroom. But how often do we as adults truly listen to our bodies unless our body is screaming at us?
Self care and soul care is so trendy these days. Not that it’s a bad thing. But what I want to remind you is that self care looks different for everyone. Self care to me is cleaning with my window open. It’s laughing with friends. It’s sitting across from someone at a coffee shop and not speaking.
I have made it a point to keep moving forward. To always show up. And when I don’t want to necessarily leave the house- to do something anyway.
It’s so important how you respond to the lows in your life.
I’ve learned over the last ten years what responses work for me and what responses don’t. What responses give me life and what responses cause me to drown a little more.
It’s an important value in my life to be as honest and open as possible in my writing. There are things I won’t talk about, not for lack of desire but in all honesty it’s just not everyone’s business.
But this, my response to my lows is something I want to share.
Knowing what to do when your body yells is just as important as what you do to not make it yell.
Responding when you fall down reminds you of ways to keep standing.
So to you, my friend reading this, know that it’s 100% ok to fall.
It happens.
But, start noting how you stand up. Note, how you stand up taller than when you fell.
You’ve got this.
Do the damn thing
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I have a Bellingham tradition.
It’s a moment every winter. I stare at my pants and socks and boots and layers and I just say screw it.
It happened yesterday.
I was getting ready to leave for a few hours and I was staring at my pants and boots and socks and legging and layers and I saw them. Tucked into my closet, long since worn.
What was it you ask?
Why my gold shorts.
Because even though it was 42 degrees out and there is still snow in my yard that hasn’t had enough concentrated sunshine to melt, I am READY for spring.
It hasn’t been a hard winter beside our snap of snow the last few weeks, but it’s still been winter.
It’s funny because as I sit here I think of how there are SO MANY WAYS that people use the theme of winter in their stories. I mean I’m share I’ve done it numerous times. You can talk about darkness or the lack of light and the absence of movement and things dying away and hibernation and all of those lovely ways you can paint a picture of the season.
And then when spring comes there is new life, rebirth, resurrection, light.
For me?
There are gold shorts.
When I bust out my gold shorts even when I have literally no reason to be wearing them because it’s still actually cold out, I am saying NOPE ALL DONE. I am saying to the world around me, let’s bring the color back, I am saying, let’s move on to the next.
Let’s take a deep breath and go.
I’ve spoken in church the last two weekends. (Insert eye roll here) and I’ve been reminded that I have something to bring to the table. I have words to say and give out and be apart of.
I’m more prone to forget that in winter.
I’m prone to forget to I have purpose and movement and can do more than I am doing.
The winter make us forget. It blankets our brain. It scoops up all the lies we’ve ever heard or been told and pushes them under the doorframe with the cold.
A few weeks ago on a Sunday all the lies crammed under the door and hit me. The anxiety started rolling over me and I felt it. I felt the thoughts pour over me. All the lies and anxieties and life struggles started to aggressively taunt me and remind me of everything I had and hadn’t done.
It was a completely familiar feeling that I’ve experienced so many times before.
I did what I needed to do, I took deep breathes and I laid on the floor and I talked to friends and eventually calmed my body down.
But since then I have been trying to push off shame and figure out why my anxiety has been spiking recently and figuring out what I need to release out of my life.
And then I put on my gold shorts again.
I put on my gold shorts and stood for spring. I stood for light and hope and for the ability to keep moving. I remembered that what I do is important. That I have a voice. A strength. And an ability to make change, bring change and bring peace.
I put on my gold shorts and took a breath because it’s coming. A breath, a push, the wind.
I put on my gold shorts and decided that spring was going to be here.
Spring is not coming, it is here. Spring is inside of us. The ability to make new, to bring light and hope and realness to all that is around us.
I did something I haven’t done in a long while today. I grabbed my bible off of my shelf.
(I know right?)
Anyway, there’s a passage in Nehemiah that came to mind today while I was thinking about things I give space to in my life.
“I am carrying in a great project and can’t go down”
Nehemiah didn’t have space for things. He knew he was carrying on a great project and couldn’t step away.
My anxiety that sprouted this winter isn’t because I can’t control something. It isn’t because I am not trusting God. It’s something that sometimes stirs up more and keeps me up and opens drawers that I try so hard to shut.
And then, then I put my gold shorts on.
And I am reminded that I am carrying on a great project.
That what I am doing is good and meaniful.
That anxiety and winter will come, but they won’t stay.
Did you hear that?
Anxiety and winter will come, but they won’t stay.
So do me a favor.
Put on those (metaphorical or not) gold shorts and show up for Monday.
Show up for Monday and remember you aren’t winter or darkness or anxiety.
You are spring.
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Today while doing some writing in church the phrase “we’ve waited long enough” came into my brain.
And I got so mad.
I got mad as the words poured out of my brain and as I let pen meet paper.
We’ve waited long enough.
Have you ever been waiting for something? A package or a pizza or a phone call and then you just get angry (or in the case of the pizza-hangry). That you start to tap your feet and clench you fists either from hunger or impatience or other emotion.
The anger isn’t always actual anger but a build up of waiting, a build up of being told one thing but it’s another.
A build up of the resolve with no actual resolution.
It’s funny because in one way or another we’re all waiting.
Waiting for a phone call or a pregnancy test to turn a color or man or woman to come out of the woodwork.
Waiting.
But, we are also waiting for the moment to be who we are.
We are waiting for all the things to fall into place that we can finally be the thing we are meant to be.
And that waiting can make you angry too.
It can make you clench your fists and rage against what might not be tangible.
You could be waiting for permission to be someone you know yourself to be.
Waiting to just try.
But nothing is happening because you are terrified of doing something that isn’t just waiting.
Nothing is happening because putting the thing out into the world we cherish is harder than holding it in our hands.
A few weeks ago I went to an all day conference for work.
And it was maybe one of the most soul crushing days of my life.
(No, I’m not being dramatic).
But, as I sit here I realize that I was getting angry because I was waiting.
That day, specifically, I (well, I could “We” this one-you know who you are) was waiting on hope.
The topic for 8 hours was on ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and there was just absolutely no hope.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve gone to trainings on the topic and it won’t be the last. But, what was supposed to be a day that gave me a little bit of refreshment and a new tool or two for my classroom brought me nothing but despair.
It was a reminder that things have happened in my life, and my tiny humans lives and their parents lives that effect them. That change how we operate and learn and live.
But there was nothing at all that I tangibly took away. Nothing I could implement or help or bring change too.
I was waiting for hope and I got none.
I’m still trying to find ways to be my own hope in that moment instead of just feeling beaten down.
My waiting in that has gone from anger to exhaustion and the inability to find an answer.
But, in all of this, in the words I wrote today, I realized that sometimes waiting is good and sometimes it just keeps us from being who we need to be.
I don’t know what you are waiting to do.
Take a vacation.
Quit your job.
Propose.
Write a book.
I don’t know if you are waiting because you don’t feel enough or you don’t feel ready or you
are just stuck in the waiting because you are unsure of how to start.
It might not be my place but I want to tell you that you have permission.
You have permission to leave the waiting.
To use the anger and the energy and the clenched fist to make something happen.
To choose to believe that you have the ability to do the damn thing.
You’ve waited long enough.
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Fun fact ahead: I have an almost masters. I finished most of the components of a Masters in Leadership with an emphasis in spirituality.
I started the masters at a time in my life where I was desperate for something new but didn’t know what I wanted in my life. I was on a higher dosage anti-depressants that had at first just wanted me to be all done with everything and even though I was slowly learning through therapy- I didn’t really know how to feel better.
I had been working since with kids full time for only about two and a half years (little did i know). But between family illness and mental illness and volunteering and working in more than one place, I was running out of steam incredibly fast.
And I am going to be honest-back then I very much hesitated to say I was tired or busy or depressed.
I just would shut down when I was in a place that I didn’t have to people. I would go numb.
I didn’t have space for my own emotions or to say no to people around me. And I didn’t know who the hell I was.
So being in a masters program that involved pastoral leadership was a great choice.
(That was sarcasm).
Now even though I didn’t finish, it wasn’t because I completely crashed and burned. I learned a lot, about my passions, what I was good at, that I had a voice, that I had things I disagreed with, people I disagreed with.
I recognize now what that season was in the midst of it all.
So, why do I bring this all up 10 years later?
Because, my friends, burnout is a bitch.
I am so apprehensive to be technically a “millennial” (I’m a different type of millennial because of when I was born in the 80s but like we won’t get into that) who is writing about being burned out.
I am apprehensive to be writing about being burned out as a person from a culture who is supposed to be “full in Christ”.
The reason I wanted to talk about being burned out wasn’t to get pity or 15 comments to take care of myself or that I “can’t pour from an empty cup” (sorry not sorry friends, I can and I do).
But it’s to tell you this:
Burnout will steal and take your joy. Even if you have a little joy in what you do or who you are, it will squelch it. Burnout will make you feel crazy. And you aren’t less than because of it.
This weekend I volunteered here and there at a conference at my church. When I got in my friend Patrick’s car when I got off work on Friday I was exhausted and numb. The absolute last thing I wanted to be doing was getting in a car with Patrick going to church to volunteer.
But I said I would so I did. (I’m a 2 on the enneagram just FYI)
A part of what I was doing on Friday was speaking out what wholeness is to me with some of my talented words friends.
When I wrote my simple sentence out about wholeness I showed it to my friend Romay. And then she responded with telling me she hoped no one ever tried to change me, that no institution tried to change me.
And I held it in. I held it in through actually saying the words on a microphone, I held it in until I got to Shawn and Victoria’s house and I looked at Victoria and she hugged me and I cried.
Not a lot, because no one as time for that. But a moment of tears and the realization that I am closer to the edge than I thought I was.
A moment of tears and a realization that it doesn’t make me weak or lazy or stupid to be burned out.
I had a moment of tears and realization that burnout is taking from me.
Burnout takes from you.
It takes pieces and you don’t know they’re gone until you search.
Being burned out causes you to question who you are and what you are doing and why you are doing it.
And if you are feeling burned out I want you to know YOU ARE NOT CRAZY.
You are not less than.
You can still be moving forward.
And there is still hope.
(I need you to know how hard that sentence was for me to write.)
That’s all I really wanted to get across.
Being burned out doesn’t always look the same.
It can still be showing up for your damn life because people need you and you need people.
It can be going until you collapse on Friday.
And if you just scrolled to the bottom of this because you didn’t want to read the whole thing:
Dear burnout,
You are not a badge of honor, even when the world and workplaces tell us you are.
You are not a badge of honor even when we choose to wear you like one.
You are not needed.
And you are taking pieces of us we didn’t give you.
You come because we expect more of ourselves than we have to give.
And yet we give it anyway because maybe someone or something needs what we have more than we do.
But, burnout, you will not win.
We will not let you.
We will take back what you have stolen.
We will regain pieces we have lost.
We will be whole.
We will keep moving forward.
We will find hope.
Peace.
Laughter.
Life.
Dear burnout,
You are a bitch and you will not win.
Sincerely,
Us
{if you are on the verge of burnout or are already there I’d love to hear your story. My Instagram and twitter handles are both @megmagnolia )
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I just reread the first piece I posted on this website five years ago.
I can’t help but chuckle at the person who wrote those words. Now not in a bad way, because everything leads us to where we are.
But, even though that girl had more hope, that girl had dreams that hadn’t been left on mountains to be forgotten about, that girl still felt like she had so much more to give, I chuckle because I am so far from her.
And that’s not a bad thing.
And I want to tell you where I am right now to remind you of something very important: it’s ok.
Because the truth is, I feel a little dead inside right now. It’s almost as if I needed New Year’s Eve to actually be two weeks of me being able to take deep cleansing breaths and wash away all the things that piled on from the last few years.
That isn’t life though. That’s not how the world works. So the year went from 18 to 19 and I was just there with a champagne glass and wondering how I was going to brush myself off and keep going.
I got a picture today while I was walking. It was of a parched desert with hard packed dirt. Then the rains came. They came and they came and the water sat on top of the dirt and couldn’t sink in. It found nooks and crannies and valleys but the water had no way of infiltrating the surface. It had no where to go but to flood the life that was already growing.
Hard packed dirt that gets flooded quickly can handle the amount of water that comes. It doesn’t have enough time to saturate or sink in or make mud.
Now, I have some of the most amazing friends who give me love and support and joy and encouragement. I have parents who support me even from two states away.
But, I realized today I’ve been a hard packed desert for awhile.
So all the people in my life who have yet to give up on me I want to say for that I am sorry. I am sorry for an inability to receive goodness and joy and hope. I am sorry to you my friends and to myself.
But the dirt and the soil is hard packed and susceptible to flooding and to killing what is good.
And that’s a little bit how I feel these days.
It’s funny because I think of that girl from 5 years ago and the joy and hope that were running off of her.
And she had seen things and had heartache and hurt. She had felt lost and lost who God was, she had been there and back again.
But then, she got older.
And she questioned more and found new words and lost hope and refound it.
And now, she’s here. She’s me.
She’s a little dead inside, she’s forgotten how to laugh a little, how to smile.
And that’s ok.
It’s ok because it’s a part of moving and growing and living.
It’s not shameful or wrong.
It doesn’t mean I can’t love or give out life or hold space for someone or laugh or smile.
It doesn’t mean I’m not me.
And it doesn’t mean I need rescuing or that I am sending up signal flares.
My word for this year is release.
And among some other things I am choosing to release out of myself words so that you know you aren’t alone.
I am choosing to release words out of who I am in hopes that you will release that it’s ok to not be ok.
I am choosing to release words out of who I am so that you know that you can be not ok and still keep living and showing up in spite of it.
You can still be you.
I am that girl from 5 years ago. Parts of her built who I am today.
I haven’t failed her, I haven’t let go of her.
I’ve just learned a little more. I’ve gotten some rough edges.
I’m a little dead inside.
And that’s ok.
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I was having a text conversation with one my favorite people to converse with via text, my boss/friend Jamie. She, on a daily basis, reminds me that it’s ok not to be ok, it’s ok to ask for help and that I do in fact know what I am doing.
Tonight we were talking about peace.
One of the best pieces of wisdom I’ve received was either from Betsy or Tiffany (why not both) and it was this “follow your peace”. It’s something that gets referenced frequently in my house between Patty and I.
I know what my “peace” feels like. It’s not clean or neat, it doesn’t always evoke peace honestly, but it’s like a compass. My peace points me north. It’s not necessarily based in my faith, some days it is, lately I don’t know if it is.
In this conversation today, I said that finding and following your peace was kind of like potty training.
Explaining to a tiny human what it feels like to need to go to the bathroom is practically impossible. I am of the philosophy that enough accidents and they will figure it out. And once they do, it’s mostly their choice whether or not they listen to their body or just keep playing with the magnet tiles.
But, in that illustration, I realized something: growing up, my body didn’t give me enough warnings that I needed to go to the bathroom. I was on different bladder control medications and wet the bed well into my teens and took said medication for it until my senior year in college. I saw three different urologists as a very young child and had to have procedures and tests done that were not fun in any way, shape or form as a little girl.
I never wanted to sleep over at friend’s houses, not because I was scared of being away from home, but because I was terrified of wetting the bed. I felt shamed multiple times in elementary school when I asked for the bathroom pass and my favorite teachers in junior high and high school were the ones who didn’t make you ask to go to the bathroom.
I felt so incredibly far from normal.
My body never gave me clues. I had to really, really listening to my body as a child before I even knew what that meant. I had to make up my own clues.
And I sit here, shuttering a little from reliving some of those memories, I wonder if right now I am in a season where peace and the ability to follow my peace is a little hazy.
Maybe there isn’t supposed to be peace to follow because we need to fight for it a little bit more.
But, what I do know, is that just like I had to make up my cues for something that was already inside me, I know that the peace is already inside me. That I have a compass, that I’m doing something right, that peace isn’t easy, but it’s probably already there. My peace reminds me to stay, to dig in, to believe, to walk into the mess.
Dear human reading this,
The world outside kind of sucks right now, peace feels fleeting on many different levels. But I want you to know, as cliche as it sounds, you have peace inside of you. It might be old peace, peace you fought for in a story that feels lifetimes ago. It might be borrowed peace, because things don’t make sense, but you need something to grab onto.
You have peace inside of you, I promise. You might call it by a different name, but it’s there.
And it’s needed.
This week, I am going to do my best to remember I have peace inside of me. And if you need the reminder yourself, shoot me a message because I got your back.
Meg
PS. With all that’s going on around us, with the hate, and what seems like the inability to be kind, I also want you to remember this that just like potty training:
Peace is not still.
Peace is not passive.
Peace demands movement.
(And hopefully not like potty training)
Peace can very much be loud.
So, let us be loud as we pass our peace to those who need it.
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Here is the thing: Right now, in this moment, I am choosing to have hope for fall.
Not just for myself but on behalf of those around me.
We all need some hope after a summer of drought and I’m going to find it for us.
When we were kids, the physical seasons meant more.
We waited for summer break, fall meant seeing friends again and the thrill or terror of a new school year. Winter meant Christmas and break. Spring brought sports and school plays and the rounding out of the school year.
And then summer came once more.
Life was built around the actual seasons and it worked. We knew when one thing would end and another begin.
But in adulthood, seasons mean something different.
The ever lovely full of wisdom teacher Victoria has one of my favorite illustrations and reminders to me in regards to tiny humans.
Victoria’s tiny humans are 12-24 months. When they experience things like teething or a diaper rash or a sickness they can’t verbally explain, she likes to remind the other teachers in her classroom of this when a tiny human is incapable of being consoled (the following is as direct of a quote as I could remember)
“They don’t know what’s happening and they don’t know if the pain is ever going to end. All they know is it’s happening now and this is how life is now. They’ve only been around for so many months, so like, this must be how it is now.”
New tiny humans don’t know about seasons, they don’t know the pain is going to go away. They probably think this is just how it is.
And that sucks.
I’ve realized that there are things in my life, seasons in my life that have felt so permanent that I feel that same way.
“This must be how it is now”
And that sucks.
Have you ever thought that? Like you don’t know if something in your life is ever going to end. It just showed up, you don’t know where it came from, but that must be how it’s going to be.
It’s very defeating.
And that’s why, to the best of my ability and strength I am going to fight for hope for myself and on behalf of others.
I’m going to decide that the changing of seasons does change something.
That is does mean something.
Just like when we were kids.
The fall can once again mean something new. Something fresh. Another chapter.
I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt we have the ability to turn our own pages. We can choose to say “all done friends” to something, someone, somewhere.
So, to you my sweet friend reading this, whether or not I’ve ever met you, I want to remind you of something.
This is not how it’s going to be forever.
This is not how your life is now.
This is not a new appendage you have to carry.
This will end.
You can turn the page.
Fall is coming.
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I think, currently, my life is full of a lot of boxes of “things I shouldn’t talk about”.
My brain and heart feel empty and full all at the same time.
Last week, one of the father figures in my life was in town and as I walked up to him to hug him I automatically felt the need to put on one of the many cloaks in my life. This one was the “it’s fine, everything is fine” cloak. I had enough concealer on my face to cover up the bags under my eyes and the lines on my face and the wrinkles from stress.
(The fact that I didn’t automatically burst into tears when he hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek said enough for my ability to hold it together).
A little later when I was talking to him, he mentioned something he always mentions (if you know who I am talking about you know what it was: “where are all the men?!” 😂😂)
And I responded, “yes, but I am good. Sometimes it’s harder, but I’m good”.
And he responded how he always does with me, “I know”.
But then, he told me I looked stronger.
He didn’t mean physically, I haven’t been pumping iron (just throwing axes, but like that’s another story). I didn’t tell him much in our short conversation, but basically just said that I’ve been wrestling with some things.
I think, well, I know, the reason I haven’t written much this year at all, actually hasn’t been because I haven’t had words. I believe I have.
And it’s for this reason: I am not solely the things I am wrestling with, stressed about, struggling with, dealing with.
I am not just a preschool teacher.
I am not just a single female.
I am not just a Christian.
I am a hell of a lot more than all of that.
I am a person who truly, truly desires to speak things out, to pour out what is happening in my life to support and encourage others.
I honestly just want you to know that you matter and you aren’t alone and above all that you are allowed to take up space.
I want you to know that it’s ok not to talk about things.
It’s ok to have anxiety walking into a church, or meeting with a mentor.
It’s ok to say no to friends, and cry or just not want to talk about it.
It’s ok to not want to be put in a box.
But please, at some point, choose to become stronger, take up the damn space and move.
I think this fall will be me choosing to have conversations with people who know more than I do. It will be choosing to sit and rest more actively than I have and it will be making decisions I don’t necessarily want too.
This summer hasn’t been the best.
And that’s fine.
We are more than one season of our lives.
We are more than our jobs even if it’s all we talk about.
We are more than our relationship status even if it the first question on a form.
We are more than the boxes we can talk about and the ones we can.
You are more than summer.
You matter.
So, let’s do the damn thing, however that looks.
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Damn.
So, this isn’t something I have wanted to talk about again. It seems that there are a few topics that when they swing back into my sphere of life I desire to do everything but write about them.
I don’t really like to feel like a broken record.
But the fact of the matter is words and I haven’t really gotten along in 2k18, so I best move along with the ones that are hitting against my heart.
Before I move on I want to just leave my bottom line up here at the top, just in case you want to stop reading and go eat a taco:
Your anxiety is not a burden.
Your depression is not a burden.
Your burn out is not a burden.
Your mental health is not a burden.
I don’t know what it is with summers (well, I do but we don’t need to go into it) but this summer has been for lack of a better word; weird.
That’s been really the only word I can come up with.
Because nothing has been bad, nothing has devastated me, but I’ve been tired, drained, burnt out and much more susceptible to the anxiety that finds ways to creep up my spine.
I am surrounded by people just like me or similar to me in one way or another.
I work with people who care. You literally would not survive in my job if you didn’t care. Even the tiny humans that drive me the most up the wall occupy space in my heart.
But, what you find in my line of work is a lot of humans who don’t have the space or ability to put themselves first, you find people who want to help others, take care of others.
When I was in grad school I did a lot of research on burn out in pastors and church leadership mainly because that is what I was going to school for. And I found a lot of pieces of research, a lot of books and statistics on burn out in pastors. A lot of stats on mental health issues and breakdowns as well.
I haven’t done the research but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was the same type of findings in early learning.
And I already hear the responses, and I already can see comments being typed about needing to take care of ourselves.
Don’t you think we know?
I, personally, deal with depression, anxiety and burn out. It is not always present but it comes in waves, seasons and here and there it’s debilitating intense. But, every damn day, I show up for those kiddos. Yes, sometimes that might not be the best for me. But it’s what I do.
(The tears are freely hitting my ipad just for reference.)
I’ve been finding ways be it reorganizing my room, doing face masks, listening to pretty music, to lower my stress and to bring me back to myself.
I’m always working on it.
And I think, why I chose to write and allow my train of thought to freely take the lead is this:
Sweet lord, you my friend, in whatever you are dealing with, are allowed to deal with it.
I’m not saying to not be active. To not pursue health, to not find things that bring you joy, balance and hope.
Be as active as you can be, whether that’s calling a friend to lay on the floor with you while you cry, or bulking up your self care routine. Or getting help from someone who has a degree on the wall.
I don’t know where you are in life.
I just want you to know that we are all walking together whether we know it or not.
I want you to know that I very much have an Instagram filter on sometimes (& its 100% ok if you do too)
I want you to know I very much believe you are going to be ok.
I am going to choose to believe that all the things in life are not a burden.
I am going to choose to believe that I am not too much.
I want you to do the same.
Whether you are a stay at home mom. Or a teacher. Whether you have a corporate job or you are a pastor.
You’ve got this.
And we are here, together.
she writes on sundays 