the re-start of me...

Deep breath in...exhale.
It is hard to start, harder to keep going. And the re-start? It might be the hardest of all. But I must begin. For me.

I have been marking time for too many months, in too many, if not all, aspects of my life. Maybe I cannot change the way my body & soul react to an interrupt, but at forty-four, I know that I need not stay there. That I can't, because there is too much life and living to do.

In the interrupt, the limbo {which I am so not good at}, I have captured the daily gifts in small ways, let them bring me joy for the moment, and then... forgotten to celebrate them the way that makes me whole. Forgotten? Perhaps I've been incapable. Or maybe it is a mix of both, with some stress, fear, and sadness mixed in.

What I know is this... I am not fully me, not living my best life, without the celebrating. 

For someone who is not great at finishing things, it surprises me that I feel I need to finish one stage of my life to move on with the next. After the graduation party, after we get him settled at school, after the surgery, after the recovery, after... And life goes on, happening day by day, month by month, while I wait to get through the next big thing. Maybe I had to many big things happening all at once.

And then the unexpected... my job imploded. My boss resigned the week before Christmas, leaving us truly heartbroken. It was her only choice, the circumstances ugly, and as a team of three, we could hardly go on. It only got worse in the limbo... additional work, added stress, an uncomfortable replacement, and the hope for something better seemed unrealistic when we had already had the best. But hope, we did... until there wasn't any left.

I started a new job in June, and I am finally resurfacing from the dark. In the meantime, I repeated the October surgery (it went much easier this time) and am hopeful that this time will be the last. Two weeks ago we took our youth group back to New Orleans for the NYG, and finally, I feel like time might be on my side.

Time. We all have the same 24 hours in each day... but it is up to us to figure out how to dole out the hours, where to spend the energy, who we can please and who we can't. I am so thankful that all of this is covered in Grace... that God renews us each and every day.

Today I am choosing to accept that renewing... and return to the practice of beauty seeking, celebrating, and being me.