*I apologize if this is a bunch of ramblings. As I have a strange "writing process", I will not be rereading, editing or revising this piece. Hopefully this stream of consciousness makes sense.* Well...here we are... Day one of 2019. Congrats all, you made it! I wasn't even sure that I was going to be writing my annual #Oneword post. In fact, I was pretty sure I wasn't. But it has been tugging at me since last night, when I read last year's: Possibility: #Oneword2018. But here is the thing, it took me awhile to even convince myself to read it. Why? I had totally and completely forgotten the word I had chosen. And when I saw it, I wept. My heart hurt. I couldn't read. Why? I had totally forgotten that word was supposed to be my anchor for the year. How could I possibly forget it? I remembered how seriously I took the process. I remember how much time and thought went into it. I remember that the word was a driving force in 2018...for awhile. I remember that I had a bracelet made with that word "Possibility" to go with my others- just so I wouldn't forget. Well, guess where that bracelet is? I am embarrassed and saddened to say that it is gone and so are the others. About a quarter of the way through 2018- I hit a few bumps...all at once. Honestly, they weren't major tragedies- but in my mind- they were. It was the collective hit of these things, at once, that derailed me. I remember this as clear as day- well maybe not so clear, because I don't even remember the particular catalyst. But what I do remember, is sitting in my car...looking at the bracelets. I took them off my wrist and with all my might, I broke them each in half. Not my proudest moment. That is something pretty out of my norm, and I regret it. But there they were...broken. 2018 hasn't been a stellar year for me. But one thing I do know; one thing that kept me moving forward was the fact that I tried...no matter how hard...no matter how sad...no matter how mad...no matter how happy...no matter how excited- one thing that got me through was looking for the learning in every situation. Always looking for the learning. And what I know to be true is (with a lot of help from some friends)- when you look through that lens, you begin to see possibilities you didn't see before. You begin to realize possibilities that weren't there before. And you begin to change your perspective. But it's HARD. And it's SLOW. And it's PAINFUL. And it is a JOURNEY. And I for one, am not healed from 2018 and I don't know if I want to be. I don't want to heal, I want to grow. When I sat down to write, I intended to write my #oneword2019 post on "Understand", but that obviously isn't what came out of my mind...heart...fingers. So as usual, my hopes are that this post resonates with just one. That these vulnerable words help someone else to understand that there truly are peaks and valleys to life and at any given moment, someone is feeling the same way. My call to action is this: Give yourself some grace. Give someone else some grace. And above all (a phrase that has been repeated to me so many times, I can't even fathom): Don't be so hard on yourself. Treat yourself like you would treat someone else. Walk with yourself as you would walk with another. As I was writing this, a new #Oneword2019 popped into my head: Seek. Let's see if it will stick?
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Mother, Teacher, Presenter, GCE Level 1 & 2, Encourager of others.
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March 2019
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