Write It On Your Heart

This year has been a challenging one.. full of blessings of course but the emotional turmoil these blessings came with left me feeling like the end of 2012 to current day was more storms than rainbows.

I hate being a pessimistic person, but between almost dying from 4 month long vomit fest and being hospitalized to losing our only source of income for a month and being in a new place away from all the friends I love through all of it I guess I just couldn't find the silver lining.

But here is the thing. Ralph Waldo Emerson was once quoted saying "Write it on your heart that each day is the best day in the year" I read some other quotes of his and he was hands down a silver lining glass half full kind of guy. One truly worth quoting...

I on the other hand am not and it kills me.

I wrote in my status today "Confession. This year has been a trialing one... with a difficult pregnancy and crazy hormones I've allowed things that don't deserve it to get the best of me. I've been emotional, fearful, regretful, jealous, anxious, quick to anger, impatient, and pessimistic, I've been ungrateful, hopeless and chose to be unhappy about things. No longer will things tear me down and make me into a person I don't want to be. Today I will start my journey to joyfulness. After all I'm blessed beyond measure and hormones and certain circumstances are no longer going to win. I need to focus on Jesus more. For my joy comes from him. Today is a new day."

That is to say I aim to turn a new leaf... I have been going to bed with such a heavy weary heart, knowing that I am sooo not the person I would like my ten year old self to meet. I yell all the time, cry over everything, I am not half the mom I hoped to be, I fear every day that who I am is gonna have some long negative effect on my daughter. I just feel like I am not enough and who I am is nobody I would like to meet.

I am lonely yes. I have mentioned this in blogs of the past.. I am also riddled with exhaustion and just feel like my life is in disarray.

I need to change my focus. I focus so much on earthly, wordly things that I am being torn apart thread by thread... 

I want to be part of something bigger than myself. I want to inspire, I want to be better in every way humanly and divinely possible.. and this road to this goal starts today..

so far I suck at it..

I lose my patience with my daughter too easily, I get flustered over nothing, and so far I feel like I am clinging to the edge of the cliff of sanity about to fall off entirely...

this is gonna be a tricky journey.. I don't even know where to start...

I know a lot of my hormonal changes and what not are to blame for a lot of this.. I am a depressive person as is and I have been off my meds for almost an entire year.. then I have the fluctuations of being pregnant and then not pregnant and running on a total of two hours of sleep a night while trying to juggle a needy infant, an attention depraved three year old and an intimacy depraved husband... every which relationship I fall incredibly short in.

I need God.
I need the Joy and Hope that only the Lord Jesus can bring me.. but without my strong community of believers I had in Chico.. and all my loving friends to keep me accountable I feel so lost..

I have some people here... yes... however the connection isn't there.. I never see them and when I do the level of relationship doesn't go further than the surface.. I miss my late night talks about God and relationship. I miss staying up until early morning praying and worshiping God and feeling lighter than air.. I miss hope.. hope for the future.. all my dreams...

What if my future is now? I haven't done much in way of my industrial dreams.. that is to say.. I don't make movies, I don't work in television and my impact on the Media is about the same as an ants.. 

Have I lost myself??? I wanted to graduate College, get a degree in Media, get married, have kids.. I did all those things and yet.... I still have that "grass is greener.." mentality..

"It's hard to dance with a devil on your back to shake it off"- Florence and the Machine

I feel like Satan has a strong hold on me... he is tearing me down bit by bit and I am so drenched in darkness I can't see the light anymore.. I watch as other people achieve their goals and feel stuck I guess... I am only 25 and have an entire lifetime ahead of me.. but I forgot how to believe in myself...

How can I raise two upstanding young humans that are confident and strong and believe in themselves if I can't even have Faith in myself at the end of the day..??

I need to get back on my meds... I need to level out the chemical imbalances in my brain and I need to seek help from the one who created me... that's what I need to do..

but I feel like a failure getting back on my meds because I am breast feeding.. so what is the worse of the two evils?? Chemically imbalanced emotionally destructive mother influencing her children's lives? Or very slight medical side effects of serotonin supplements in breast milk? Where are all the answers??

Depression sucks...

Well anyway I began writing this blog entry as a source of encouragement for myself and others and it didn't turn out that way.. it turned into a vent/ whine fest and I am sorta sorry for that.... My friend Marco used to have a term for this he called it "writing in circles" It's a type of therapy for me... instead of burdening everyone I come across with all my problems I just write them all down in one place and if someone cares to have insight into my life that is their prerogative after all it is on the word wide web.. my open book.... my heart on my sleeve....

sooo to start off this new turned leaf I am gonna begin stating the things I am grateful for.

#1 I am grateful I am alive... that sickness came inches from killing me but it didn't and I am much stronger for it.

#2 I have two beautiful healthy children whom I would give the world too if it was mine to give, and they bless me very much every day.

#3 MY HUSBAND.... in our first year of marriage we encountered similar tribulations that a couple married ten years would have to face and we faced several of them in just ONE YEAR and survived.. I think we only had two really big "arguments" during that time and they were over silly things like a sandwich... I count myself VERY lucky.. marrying him was the best thing I ever did... he supports me and believes in me even when I do not. he loves me even when I am a hormonal train wreck and still thinks I am attractive when I smell up to high heaven or when I am puking my brains out... it's been a hard hard year and he has had to deal with some pretty tough stuff by himself but he never really complained about any of it... he is a much stronger person than I am and I am a much better person for knowing him.

#4 I am grateful to live in a beautiful house in a beautiful part of town. to be able to eat as healthy as I want and be able to afford the things I desire in my natural/organic lifestyle...I realize finances can be gone in a second so while I have money I am grateful for it.. my lifestyle isn't exactly posh or glamorous but I am able to buy the things I like..

#5 I am grateful that my beautiful family is healthy.. Lord knows you can't take health for granted because when it's gone your world really does fall apart.

and finally  #6 I am grateful for every day the Lord has given me and for Him giving me the life I have..

here's to seeing the silver lining and becoming a stronger better person for it.
CHEERS.

Erin.