Growth

Today, I feel encouraged. I feel empowered. I feel in control. 

This last feeling, of being in control, is particularly funny to me. I have struggled with feeling out of control for a very long time.

Even before my mom took her own life, I wanted to be able to help fix her, fix our lives. My mom has been on my mind a lot these past few weeks. This last Sunday was Mother's Day, and we are coming up on the 4th anniversary of her death. Since she died only a week after I graduated college, it also marks 4 years since I graduated from the University of Minnesota. 

I graduated college. My mom killed herself. Then I unraveled, and I lost myself. Our family struggled to make sense of it, and we struggled to remember how to be a family. Even still, my family was often the only obstacle for me between this world and the next. For a long time it felt like I had one foot on the other side. Things got left behind, like our house, and all the contents within it, but we endured. 

It is difficult to move on, and to feel like you are leaving something, or someone behind. 

I am learning to let go. Little by little. Letting go doesn't mean forgetting, and it doesn't mean you don't care, and it doesn't mean you are "over it." This is true for the death of a family member, or of a relationship, or when you move, or when you decide to move on from something. 

Letting go is now helping me to be in control. It is funny because it seems counter-intuitive in some ways. That is probably why there are so many self-help books out there who try to advocate for letting go, but it is a concept that can be easy to understand, but difficult to practice.

Letting go of my need to control things, to be perfect, it doesn't mean that I am now giving up responsibility of myself. It is realizing that I can't do it all. I can't fix every sorrow in every friend or change the mind of every enemy. I can't solve all of the world's problems, and in all reality I may never solve all of my own. There is not enough time for me to read every book, watch every movie, listen to every song, master every subject...

See, for me, I often let myself get so caught up in planning, and so carried away by all the things I feel like I want to do or SHOULD want to do, that I get overwhelmed. All of a sudden I am very unhappy because I feel a failure because I simply can't do enough. I let that feed into my struggle with just being ENOUGH. I get stuck because I am afraid to move forward without "having all my ducks in a row" which is a funny saying anyways, because even if you spend enormous amounts of time trying to get your "ducks just right" there is still no guarantee that all your little ducks are going to make it.

So I have been working on letting go. I am giving myself a break, metaphorically, and also physically because I have reduced my work hours for the summer. This has been my first week of working part time, and the stress reduction is already amazing.

I am re-evaluating, and readjusting. I still have a plan, but every day I am learning more and more just how flexible plans need to be. I would like to apply to an MFA program in Creative Writing, so I will be setting some rigorous writing goals for myself.  I have started spring cleaning so that my boyfriend and I can finally get 'settled' into our apartment.

My boyfriend and I have been working hard to become financially responsible, and because of the seeds we have been planting, we were able to afford the risk of me quitting my job. As it turns out, one of my supervisors asked me to stay on and continue working part time. It just feels like sometimes when you take a leap, things start to fall into place. Or maybe it just feels that way because I am clinging less and less to any ONE notion of what my life path is SUPPOSED to look like.

In the end it's not the destination anyways, it's the journey, right? So how I get there is half the fun.

Life hasn't been easy the last few months, but I am proud of myself.

In December of 2012, I had high hopes for 2013. I talked about it with everyone. 2013 was going to be different, I could feel it. I just KNEW it was going to be my year.

Then, my dad fell. Literally, he just fell and died. I miss him every day. I miss my mom.

Even though this year started off with a tragedy and a series of unfortunate events, I am proud because I have still already accomplished some of the goals I had set for myself for this year. I have gone to the dentist, we joined a gym, and we ran a 5k. I have reconnected with my friends. My little sister and I have been keeping in touch. I have taken back control of my career path. I got new glasses. My boyfriend got formally re-accepted into his college program. Little or big, these feats were accomplished.

Oh, and Minnesota made marriage equality a reality. It feels good that sometimes equality and goodness do triumph.