Y’all, this season of rest has been healing and rejuvenating on many levels. I love writing for fun and keeping up with my bookkeeping job in a way I could not do the last three years. I was busy with school and two other jobs–and having a family and wanting Lindsay time. Without reflection time, I will crash. And I did, many, many times during that season.
It is life-giving to feel this calm in my body now. Resting, breathing, and not trying to prove myself to anyone. I have been tested and it revealed the work I am doing is working. I can regulate even when challenged. Also, I am not resting so I can go back and be more productive. This time new and improved. As emphasized in the book “Rest is Resistance,” I am resting because it is my divine right. And it is yours too.
I also love being available and spontaneous, like I was able to be this week with Alyssa and doing yoga in the park. There is something to not being so damn scheduled all the time. I am less afraid to look at my calendar now, even though I still suck with the calendar. I found out my friend Megan struggles too. She told me there is an actual name for it: Calendar Challenged 😂 There you go. It is a thing. But it is less of a thing now that I am not so overwhelmed all the dang time.
Sometimes I look back and wish I could have done school and the jobs I had one at a time so I could have savored each one. I loved every single thing I did a whole lot–especially school. Seminary was my favorite place on earth that was just for me. But y’all, I would not change anything either. My life is better for the relationships formed by each thing I did, and I am just so grateful anyway.
Part of the reason I wish I had not been so busy is often my emotions were not in check and I really could not help it. What I was doing was too much, and my body is not a machine. I was also healing from trauma (a different trauma from the one now!)–past and present–at the time too. Y’all, I was a warrior, and I am going to name that. I believe God intentionally delivered me to this rest because that was way, way too much. A storm ended up hitting our family at the end of it all too. We were ripe for it because both Jake and I were way overextended in that season. We were easy targets–except we weren’t!
Y’all, that storm was not prepared for me! LOL! I was like “hold up, you (I won’t say the word here), I have been healing and learning things about what it means to be human and divine. You do not get to lie about me or my family.”
I am proud of myself, but I am also tired of having to fight. I was not born a renegade as the artist Pink says in her song “All I Know So Far.”
This is also why I write. What I am saying is important. And when I do get back to working with people again, and I will, I want to be somewhere I can be human. Free to be me and to make mistakes. I am going to write about that in my next post.
My therapist and I talked about what could have been in place in our systems that might have prevented the stupidity of what happened. As I came up with ideas, my therapist said this: Even mental-health professionals are not all trauma-informed. What appears to be happening is people are not doing their jobs well because they have no idea what is going on.
Me: We need systems that allow people to be human.
Therapist: Oh, I like that thought.
We can manage our reactions better when we get to be human.
There is Life Out There 