Every time I start to give up, something happens to encourage me to get up again, keep stumbling along, trying to find my way to a full wonderful life. A little unexpected encouragement, a chance meeting with an old friend, making a new friend, appreciation at work, a calm and beautiful day, a day after where the pain isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.
My life seems so completely different than it once was. The times where I feel incapable and unable are fewer, the times where I feel strong and powerful are more. I'm learning to deal with limits, and perhaps some day I'll even be ok with them or even treasure them.
A dear, dear friend told me last night that he did not feel like he knew me well enough any more, that he had not spent much quality time with me recently. He and his wife are two of my favorite people in the world and are so close to my heart that hearing him say this surprised me. Part of me thought, "Well, I'm just the same as when you knew me, when we served together, when we had some of the most sincere conversations while preparing and eating dinner in their home." But then I paused and realized that may not be true. That these years since college have taught me so much about myself, how I want to exist in this world, how I want to live this life.
I have a job that I love, I have a home that is mine and is peaceful and rejuvenating and large enough to invite people into it and large enough to have children play in it. I find rewarding things to do with my time, I'm building a circle of people that can fortify me and remind me of my strength when I've forgotten and that I can support and love and offer a shoulder or a meal or a baked good ;).
And yet, to my core, I am the same person I've always been. I just know myself much more. I surprised myself last night by being able to be myself around a new person and not feel embarrassed or unimportant or unworthy. Those feelings of isolation and being misunderstood have hindered me so much in my life, are the lenses through which I saw my life and my interactions. But they were just veils, visible only to me, veils that kept me separate from the people I loved so dearly. I'm working every day to move those veils, make them a little thinner, pull them to the side for a while.
I can be myself out loud now. It still takes thought and concentration and words of support in my head and from my friends. But I'm getting there. And when those thoughts of unworthiness come, then God gives me a new light to see things in. In one sense, I can't do much at all right now. I've gotten my priorities all out of whack, I'm not living the way I think I am or want to be. But then, I can turn it around and see that although the steps may be small, I'm taking them. Although I spend so much more time taking care of myself, it means that there are times I can focus on and be of service to others. The amounts of time may not be equal, but maybe that's partly because I'm not as practiced at taking care of myself as I am at trying to take care of others.
This weekend will hopefully be one of balance. I'm letting go of the guilt of not working on weekends, of not ever having done enough (but it still creeps up at work occasionally). I do not miss that part of grad school (though I miss the people and the places a lot). I will do some homework this weekend, but I will be able to make distinct progress. I will read the pages and do the problems and then BE DONE. I will spend some time with friends, spend some time reading, some time outside, some time working these muscles so that they will not rebel against me too much.
I will spend more time in prayer. God and I have had an interesting relationship these past few months, and I want to make purposeful steps toward strengthening that tie once more. I want to have people to pray at my house and yet I don't know if I have the physical energy to commit to it. I've been seeing answers to my humble and unfocused prayers, which encourages me to keep trying, to keep battling through the fatigue and the pain and focus on the sincerity of the prayer, not the length of it. Not to feel limited because I can't read the three page tablet but only a few sentences, because Baha'u'llah tells us:
"Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is endowed with such potency as can instill new life into every human frame."
If a single word has that potency, then how much a few sentences can do, especially more than not saying any out of a worry of not saying them all.
