After moving to a new place with high hopes of starting "fresh" I have felt anything but. I have spent the last ten months battling homesickness, ambivalence, and a myriad of physical problems from the exposure to new germs. I had hoped to find renewed purpose and instead have found grating unhappiness this year.
Which is a problem.
Not that I am dealing with very real emotions. That is a normal and healthy response to being uprooted and navigating life with chronic illness. Those kinds of life circumstances harbor fatigue and worry and anger. I am thankful I have the ability and resources (community, counselors, Christ-centered practices) to deal with those. Being emotional is not the issue.
No, the problem is where I keep finding myself: in the Past.
I have had an incredible time being alive. Seriously. I had the great and unwarranted fortune to be born into a loving family, raised by a healthy community, and given opportunities to flourish. When I think back on the past thirty years it brings to mind images of Nutcracker costumes, Yosemite trails, Sunday School lessons, and Nigerian thunderstorms. I have met and loved so many wonderful people. Seen and experienced so many beautiful places. My life has been rich.
It is wonderful that I have loved my life. That is not the problem.
I noticed a few weeks ago, practicing one of the centering activities my Counselor taught me, that when I close my eyes to breathe I always find myself in the same places:
Standing above a bowl of cloud in Big Sur.
Laying in the Timber Mountain field covered in snow.
Opening my lungs for pine needles and ocean waves and peach trees.
I always find myself somewhere else. Not here. Not now.
That is the problem. I am not able to find calm in my Present.
My Present is filled with uncertainty and is seriously wanting routine (not for lack of trying). I found a job I enjoy but struggle to find the energy to work. I am part of a loving community but I desperately miss my friends who have known me for years. I am married to a wonderful man who is doing a good job of taking care of me but also has to do a good job of taking care of a whole flock of other people.
It takes me an hour to wake up. I can't eat or drink what I want to. I pee constantly. Most of my days are spent on the couch reading books or at my dining room table assembling jigsaw puzzles.
I feel like I fell asleep after an epic adventure and woke up forty years later; tired, confused, and pushing old age.
With the help of people like Kate Bowler, Courtney Carver, and (the man himself) Jesus, I have been able to find words I could not comprise on my own. I am thankful for fellow Struggling Optimists who believe the Past and Present (and Future) can all be good. Even if it sucks.
With their words and stories, I am able to live a little further into my Present and own the grit that comes with this time. I do not have to abound with happiness. I do not have to pretend that things are what I had planned. I can even escape to my Past when I need a breath of fresh air. But I need to own this part of my journey, too.
Cheers to the Present.
(Now get your s*** together so we can make this work.)
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