I started a “5 minute journal” at the beginning of 2023. I wrote in it every day for the first few days, then once every couple of months thereafter. I just went back and reread it (it didn’t take long, as it only comprised a couple of pages-thanks, past me for being a slacker).
It was such a gift from past me to present me. Here’s something I wrote tonight, before rereading the journal, “I feel completely overwhelmed by the house, the kids, the mess, the chores. And of course all the obligatory ruminating on everything. All the time. While I’m trying to keep up with the house and the kids and the mess and the chores, the errands and the groceries, the stupid appointments for stupid things because my body is falling apart.”
And swing on back to March 7, 2023, “Lent. I wonder if I didn’t choose enough of my own penances. I don’t know why I feel so disheartened and discouraged and grumpy and angry and flaily. We keep getting sick. I feel like I can’t accomplish anything that I need to, much less the things that I want to. I can’t seem to climb out of the pit of chores, errands, and duties that dominate my life. That sounds dramatic.”
So there’s some perspective.
First of all, Lent is for serious.
But second of all, I’m fighting the same battles as I was a year ago. And reading on, I see that I’ve backslid from some of the victories I won last year. Not that there haven’t been other victories, but those particular ones might be forfeited, were it not for past me and her record of them.
Husband has been trying to get me to blog here, and something in me just does not want to. I think it might be the part of me that has given up. On something. I’m not sure what. We’ve just been through a dark winter, and it’s tempting to stay in the dark and hide from the light, because the light calls for action. And we’re weary. I am weary.
Past me had not just been through a dark winter. Past me, Lenten lamentations aside, was eager, optimistic, and energetic (I mean, not all the time…but in comparison to present me…)
“I think this is our year. I kind of feel like I’m coming alive, or like I have been working on coming alive for the last year and a half or so since what I affectionately refer to as my midlife crisis. And now the snowball is really starting to roll. It makes me nervous, as all good things seem to.
Who does God want me to be? What does God want me to do?
What do I want to do? What do I enjoy?”
I think past me saw something I’m not seeing right now. I think she saw the hope and endless possibility that come with saying yes to God, trusting in His plan, and jumping into the unknown.
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