Well folks...I hope this post finds you warm and well in the last days of the Advent season. After an unplanned, five month break from life as I knew it, I figured now would be a fine time to return to the blog-o-sphere. I've been wanting to put up a post to catch you up on everything that has happened and not happened, but I cannot figure out how. It's just too much. So it is my hope that you will be able to patch things together in your mind as I offer snippets of the last five months throughout my upcoming posts.For now, I will at least tell you this: the last five months have been the ultimate roller coaster ride. August through October were extreme highs for me. I attended a workshop in Boulder, CO at the beginning of August, which turned out to be quite possibly the best eight days of my life. After a year and a half (at that time) of struggling with all the feelings of failure and worthlessness that are inherent to infertility, this workshop stretched me, opened me up to new ideas, possibilities and friendships, deprived me of sleep, and replaced it with laughter (and maybe some dancing and karaoke). It was...well, it was like summer camp all over again. The friendships that were forged on that trip are life-long ones. The impacts it had on my self-esteem and career are immense. And I am so grateful. Crazy stuff for being a "work trip" right?
As November ushered in cooler temperatures and longer nights, I felt the nose of my roller coaster car inching to the top of the hill and beginning to peer over into the familiar darkness that promised to come speeding toward me at any minute. I struggled against it, pretended like it wasn't coming. Then in rapid succession, a number of unexpected events set everything in motion. And here I am...somewhere in between the top and the bottom, in a free fall...not sure when I'll feel the forces of gravity again. I realize that sounds incredibly melodramatic. And it is. Did I tell you I began dancing and acting at the age of three?
But as always, I am grateful for the darkness speeding towards me. It forces me to hold onto something, someone. I have been so SO distant from God in the latter half of 2010. I am ashamed and guilty of this. I have become complacent. I am frustrated and bruised. Hurt. I have built walls. Between me and God. Between me and friends. Even between me and my husband. If I'm going to get through this season without irreparable damage, the walls must come down. I need to clear the air between me and God. Allow myself to believe He loves me despite my bad attitude and poor performances on this stage called life. Despite my neglect. Like my new friends Mumford & Sons taught me: I need to get over this hill and be open to what is there, beyond the darkness. In the midst of the darkness. And I pray I can do this with grace in my heart. And flowers in my hair...
And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
- Excerpt from "After the Storm" by Mumford & Sons
