hard

This Is Me

I just cried while I was running. That’s not too uncommon, honestly. Ask my husband. But I wanted to write about this one.

I have a chronic illness that I really, really wish I could willpower myself out of. I fight depression every day.

Not all days are bad. Some days are good. So, so good. Some are even great and I am so happy!!! Those days are perhaps more amazing than face value because I know what it’s like to have too many days that have no light at all. I just can’t see the light from the things I love most. It’s like I have a curtain over everything and can’t see any good. On the rare delightful occasion, my brain tries really hard to kill me.

But some days are just a plain ol’ struggle.

Today I woke up, took the dogs out, woke up my daughter, fed the cats, grabbed some breakfast and drove my car to work. You know, adult shit.

I went to my great job where I help shelter pets. I did surgeries and discussed patients and people looked to me as if I have all my shit together. I did some paperwork for another shelter and headed home. I was already exhausted from just that little bit. I got home and went straight into the dark bedroom. 30 minutes later, I went to pick up my daughter. I asked how her day was and I was excited when she told me about her classes.

When we got home, I went right back to bed. I have rehearsal with this really incredible chorus tonight (that is totally out of my league, but I’m working on it…) and I am really really trying to run more than once every now and then. So I dragged myself out of bed. Dragged, for real. I think my shins scraped the bed frame. And I went to run.

That’s good and all but that’s not why I cried.

We are practicing a song you might have heard of: This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. We were asked to sing for a possible solo or small group part, but I hadn’t planned on trying that. (See above about it being out of my league)

The song came on and I lost my shit. If you haven’t heard the song, go YouTube it. Seriously. Go now and I’ll wait.

I’m even going to try to add a link for you to make it easy.

This Is Me

Did you listen to it? Are you crying? If you didn’t listen to it, here are some of the lyrics:

I am not a stranger to the dark. Hide away, they say. We don’t want your broken parts.

I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars. Run away, they say. No one will love you as you are.

I won’t let them break me down to dust. I know that there’s a place for us. For we are glorious!!

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down, I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out. I am brave. I am bruised. I am who I’m meant to be. This is me.

If you don’t have goosebumps, it’s because you’re not singing along in you head, like I am.

This song, you guys. It came on my shuffled playlist and I broke the fuck down. I ugly cried while running down a major street near my house.

For SO long, I hid these scars. I sat in the dark by myself and hid away the ugliness, even as I pretended to be fine.

The Incident was a hell of a way to be dragged into the light, ugly scars and sadness and struggle and all, but I’m here. I am out here trying every day. And I AM brave. And I am bruised as hell. But I am who I’m meant to be. This. Is. Me.

And you know what, you’re here too. You have struggles. They may be like mine or they may be different, but they hurt and it is hard to show up sometimes. But you are here. You are brave. You are who you’re meant to be. You are beautiful. Glorious. Bruises and scars and broken parts and all.

Addendum:

I wrote the above part during my run. So, I’m adding an addendum. I did audition (even though I only knew the baritone part until I started driving to rehearsal)

I got up and sang in front of some of the most talented ladies I have ever met. Sinus infection, dry mouth, running clothes and forgotten words aside, I stood up beside singers far more talented than I, and I faced a chorus of beautiful voices. And you know what? They were all smiling at me. Every one. I took a step out and found beauty. I will still struggle and I will still fight and I will still have bad days and sometimes really bad days, but sometimes I find beauty in the world. Thank you to everyone who shows up every day even when you want to be in a dark room alone.

I’ll be out there too.

Kid Friendly Hiking

(I wrote this 5 days ago, and as is my custom, thought “I will post this after I proofread it in a few minutes…” Yep.  5 days ago.)

I’ve missed you all!  Right now I am sitting in bed, all nice and clean, rehydrating and keeping my feet up.  I’m pretty sure I am going to lose a toenail because my feet apparently think that a 4.8 (actually 7.5 — and we didn’t even get lost!) mile, kid-friendly hike is equivalent to a marathon.

We’ve had a lot of shit going on lately but things are getting a lot better than ever.  With all the crazy family drama going on (outside our little nuclear family), we’ve become so much closer with each other within our little nuclear family and have been getting to see my 16 year old step-daughter a lot more than before.  We were going to go camping “in the wild” per the 6 year old’s request yesterday but with a chance of bad storms in the forecast, we decided that for a first time camping trip, we would camp in the backyard, so we could escape to the house if storms hit.  The tents were set up and ready just in time for the storms, so the sweet older sister suggested camping in the living room.  (She did, the little sister wound up in our bed.) So, we decided that we would go for a hike today.  We did some research and found a kid-friendly hike that was a moderate 4.8 miles and had 2 waterfalls.  Little G (6 year old) is pretty tough and has been on several pretty long hikes, so we figured it would be fun, even if it was hot.

Apparently, the travel guide writer doesn’t have kids — or know any– because there were tears and sore legs and tired tiny bodies and dehydration (due to a miscommunication about who was bringing how much water) and a very tiny waterfall due to the dry season.  We were all salty at different times, literally and figuratively (if you don’t have a teenager around to keep you up to speed, “salty” means cranky or testy or whatever we old people call it).  And I’ll soon get to see if G takes after her parents or if she gets poison ivy — the trails were COVERED! (Edit: She apparently doesn’t!  At least not this time!)

But — there is always a but — it was great.  Don’t get me wrong, I am freaking exhausted and I am going to be sore as hell tomorrow and there were A LOT of tears and scraped knees and whining and headaches.  But I learned that horse fly bites don’t hurt nearly as much as I remembered from childhood.  I got to tell G all about how awesome it was growing up with 45 acres of woods, 6 ponds and a lot of time unsupervised and about the times when we all got to swing on grapevines in the woods with her Pappy. The scenery was beautiful and it didn’t rain.  I watched G power through a really hard hike, I saw her sister be patient and wait while we dried tears, and I was reminded again how amazing my husband is (gentle and optimistic and adventurous and strong).

We all learned a lot about enjoying the journey, not just rushing to get to a destination.  We learned that we are tougher than we think.  And we learned that we don’t give up when something is hard.  (G was learning these lessons for the first time, but it never hurts for the rest of us, even Ironmen, to be reminded!)

On the way home, we were discussing the hike with the most appropriate cliches we could think of.  I was pretty proud of my “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, but J won with his “sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug”.  G thought that “today we were all bugs and that hike was the windshield.” But I’m not so sure.  I think that hike was just one adventure of many in this big crazy roller coaster we call life.  And I can’t wait to see what’s next.  Just because something is hard doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t do it!  Just ask a 6 year old who has already recovered from her most recent adventure.