In my small group last week, I shared something I don’t usually share with others.
Just a while ago, I had to hide a bunch of my old posts. They were the reflective, depressing, conflicted posts that I posted on here once in a while… they were therapeutic in the moment, but they were quite sad when I reread them. They went back as far as the very beginning of this blog site in 2009… I guess I didn’t realize that I was probably having a bunch of problems that were a lot deeper. The past two to three years have been hard for me and this past year was probably the most mentally challenging. So for the first time, I looked for help.
Going back to my small group, one of the last questions we discussed was on the notion of letting go and how we know when that is the right time… this entire past year I’ve struggled with maintaining my friendships and trying to open myself and ready myself for potential new relationships… as a result of my own problems, I’ve pushed a lot of people I care about away… at the same time, the people I thought would worry or care about me kind of disappeared, leaving me feeling more alone than I’ve ever felt. Scary thoughts became more frequent, and a thought I would have maybe once in a couple of months quickly became thoughts I would have every other day and then every other hour, and then every other minute. After a really big cry during another one of those sleepless nights, I closed my eyes really tight hoping that no more tears would come out and quickly prayed to God for peace. I was exhausted and seriously really close to giving in. But I didn’t want to give up.
The fears that this whole experience gave me really pushed me to think about why this was happening, why I was still affected, why I felt hurt for whatever reason… I prayed for signs of what to do next and every solution I came up with I felt so uneasy about. Nothing felt right. So when I shared with my small group about my struggle and about learning to let go, I finally said it out loud that I was letting this hurt that I was holding on to, go. My voice shook, like it often does when I feel vulnerable. I wanted to cry, yet at the same time, I felt at peace.
The past month, I had packed away a lot of memories, I cleared several pictures from my Instagram, and then finally yesterday, my electric blanket, it stopped working. And that, that simple malfunction, that was the cherry on top and and the answer to my prayers for a sign. I’m tearing up again while typing this because it still crushes me. But I’m holding on to the small hope that this is what is supposed to happen and is the best thing to happen.
I am more convinced of God’s love in my life through this struggle and in the process I’ve leaned on my small group to help me lean more into God. I am far from where I want to be and I’m definitely a work in progress. Here’s to the end of one chapter that I never expected, and the start of a new one.