Maybe even more than feeling like God might be leading me to Indianapolis is the sense that I just need a fresh start in life. Life for the last 2.5 years has been rough to say the least. I couldn't have planed it, and Colorado has come to represent some really hard times in my life unfortunately. I love the beauty of this place and the weather, but it has also come with some extremely hard heartache too. For that, I think I need a new start, somewhere that's familiar, but doesn't represent such striving and heartache. Where I can be closer to my family if I need them. I know Indy will be a LOT of work, getting a new job, church, making the friendships I have there deeper, pretty much starting over in most aspects of life... but the last few years here have been so difficult. I don't ever want to do that again. I have learned a lot and God has forged character deep within me for it, but in many ways, I feel as though I have been proving a point, and haven't seen the outcome yet. Maybe I won't for years, if ever.
This summer has been tough. I chose to stay in Denver to work on my bucket list and get a part time job to explore Colorado, but had no idea that my room would flood and my renters insurance would do nothing, would lose my computer and my computer liability would also do nothing, I went without a computer for almost 6 weeks and am now starting over on a new one but can't find my external drive where all of my old files were stored on my old computer, I'd have to switch rooms mid-summer, my part-time job would be miserable, my community would begin to not be there for me in the ways they had previously, my friendships here would seem distant as people had babies and got married, I would feel alone, switching over to Medicare health insurance would prove to be such a nightmare and no one would seem to have many answers for me, and my grand-mother just passed away. This summer since graduation has pretty much sucked, as if things before graduation were "rosy"... and I've had to learn this summer as well, how to let go of people's expectations of me- as a daughter and sister, and as a friend. I think for better or for worse, I've held up these "I have to be" expectations" that were unattainable for me and were just striving in the wrong direction and making me feel like a hamster on a wheel.
I've been called out from friends and family for my "negative attitude" when really, I just want to say in response, life has been really shitty lately. Yes, my life isn't "comfortable" and I know that makes some people squirm and not know what to do for me, when that isn't my problem. I'm learning boundaries with my counselor right now what what I can control and what I can't control... which is SO good for me to learn, even if it's a lesson that's taken me 30 years to learn. How would you respond? I don't want cliches or trite answers, and that makes SO MANY people uncomfortable. Americans aren't ok when people are hurting. We want to make it all better somehow, and when we can't, we feel we have failed them. SIT WITH ME. JUST BE WITH ME IN MY PAIN. My place was flooded and the things I thought I had in lace to protect me aren't covering me. My job stinks. I feel alone here. I've been taken advantage of by a few internet scams and career counselors in a time where I just need to get my life back together. I went from having extreme structure in my life to having almost none. My chronic pain with my headaches got a lot better for awhile but has seemed to have gotten worse in the last few weeks again. I'm back volunteering at Craig hospital, which is great, and is a reminder every time I walk in there of how FAR I have come in the last 2.5 years, where the Lord has brought me, and how He will continue to use me. Some days are just harder than others.
One thing that has really messed me up and been on my mind as of lately has been accepting and receiving compliments. It's never been something I have been good at, and especially after the stroke as I was getting abilities back, it was hard for me to hear "that's awesome that you are walking again" or "improving with X" because I couldn't SEE those daily gains, I was busy living life! I've been chatting with my friend Danny in Indianapolis about this, and he's been telling me the most wonderful things to hear, but because I can't remember (loaded word for someone with a traumatic brain injury) ever really hearing those things when I was younger from my parents, it feels weird to have them said from someone else. It's not as though I have never heard them from other people in my life that aren't important to me, and I know that my parents deeply love me, but the words come off hollow and somehow without some meaning because I can no longer recall those memories of times with my parents, and I think we all want our parents approval or validation somehow, regardless of how old we get. So right now I'm processing a lot.
Processing that I've come a long way (yesterday was 2.5 years, came and went and I didn't even realize it was the 25th until today), life;s circumstances are crappy but I'm choosing to look at the positives, like the fact that Office Depot GAVE me a credit on my old dead computer and I got to get a new one this week! WOOHOO! So things might not be all rainbows and sunshine, but I'm realizing that's ok and a part of life in this season comes with pain. I'm accepting that and trying to look for the greater good that will come out of this, even when it hurts and I hear things that are insensitive and I don't want to hear, which is pretty much hourly. I'm choosing to live for today, even when it's hard and I don't want to, knowing that there will be a purpose in it, even if I don't see it at the time. So tonight, I'm going to celebrate Myelle Swanson and her daddy Andy and tomorrow celebrate 25 years of the Downing House, and choose not to think about the other 100 things that aren't going right in life. Those things are things that I can not change or do anything about,so I need to celebrate the things that I can. And for that, I will make a little toast tomorrow at the party :)
Love,
Amy Christine
No comments:
Post a Comment