My Inner Fight Continues – retirementtransition

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As I look at the words in my morning journal the past few months, my emotional healing challenge is obvious: Shattered and scattered. Disheartened. Anxiously waiting. Slogging through the mud. Hard to get out of bed.

I am learning to live in a world that spins on while mine feels like it has stopped. Other’s lives continue on with plans, major trips, and yes, health challenges. Trauma has stripped away my sense of time… days seem to disappear, it’s mid-August and we still don’t have a build permit, it will be a year since the hurricane and there is not any endpoint in sight yet. I feel like I’m standing still waiting, not really living, and yet time passes.

Thinking clearly, which used to be my innate strength, now feels like an up-hill battle. Simple tasks feel monumental. Conflicts feel insurmountable.Tears flow seemingly without reason. Anxiety erupts quickly – from a reel on FB, a comment made, an angry curse overheard, a peek at the news, a novel’s plot line.

I am consciously trying to focus on the positive (the baby steps forward, appreciating what I have), and not the dark (the steps backward, the future uncertainty). I find an unscheduled day uncomfortable as it gives me too much time to think, and then feel exhausted with a day full of activities. Do I plan or not?

We took some time away, didn’t think about the house at all and I felt like I was living fully again. But, we came back to absolutely no forward movement at all on the house. All the dark came tumbling back in and I am back to the waiting.

I am looking towards inspirational readings to help. And they do. Here’s some paraphrases:

You are wanting to rush forward, but everything moves so slow. The waiting, the uncertainty. You wonder if you will ever get to where you want to be. You can’t find the rhythm anymore. Just trust. Trust that good things are coming.
Courage is choosing to see the light, even when you’re still in the shadow, to believe the storm will end even as it continues to rage, to have hope in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty. See the light. Have the hope. Allow yourself to heal. Healing itself is an act of courage.
Even if the sky is still stormy and the path uncertain, find the persistence to slog through. Believe in yourself. You will survive the storm. You are stronger than this storm because you have the tenacity to work your way through it.

When the weight of the uncertainty brings in the darkness and leaves my soul exhausted, it’s just step by step, moment by moment moving forward. Trust. Hope, Tenacity. And trying to celebrate the smallest of steps forward. Celebrating a club meeting where everything clicked. Celebrating sketching out my first garden plan for the new house. Celebrating a few days away without a major mishap. And celebrating a friend who pet-sat while we took that quick trip away from everything.

What small thing can you celebrate this week?

Picture; The ceiling of the Reading Room at the Library of Congress -what an amazing building!