Sobriety

Quiet Aftermath

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

People want breakup stories. Clean cause and effect. Something they can file away as “this is what went wrong.” At least I did. But the truth is usually messier than that. It’s layered. It’s timing. It’s emotional history colliding with a new connection that feels bigger than your nervous symptom can realistically hold. 

Before this relationship, I had already lived through the collapse of an engagement. Two, actually. 

That kind of ending doesn’t just disappear because time passes. It rearranges you. It changes what you expect from love, from stability, from yourself. After that, I got sober. I rebuilt slowly. Quietly. Away from social media and everything I knew. I tried to become someone who didn’t rely on chaos or intensity to feel alive. Someone who could sit with themselves without needing to escape. 

And I did manage to build something stable for a while. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a real effort. It was learning how to exist without numbing everything I felt. 

Then, I fell in love again. 

After 3 years of celibacy, connection hit differently. It wasn’t just attraction or companionship – it felt like a flood into a part of me that had been sealed off for a long time. I didn’t realize how starved I had been for emotional intimacy until I had it again. And once you feel that kind of connection after deprivation, it can become incredibly hard to separate love from survival. 

I started reorganizing my life around that feeling. Not in one dramatic decision, but gradually- emotionally first, then practically. The relationship became a center of gravity without me fully noticing it happening. 

That’s something I understand more clearly in hindsight: it wasn’t one choice that changed everything. It was a slow accumulation of small ones made under emotional intensity. 

And intensity is where things get complicated, especially with Bipolar II Disorder. Because emotional states can come with a kind of certainty that feels absolute in the moment. Not because the compulsions are correct, but because they feel undeniable. Love can feel like fate. Hope can feel like instruction. Fear of loss can feel like urgency. 

Looking back, I can see how much of it was happening inside me: the attachment, the longing, the meaning I was assigning to everything, the way my nervous system latched onto connection after years of holding myself apart. 

When it eventually started to unravel, what hurt wasn’t just the loss of the relationship itself. It was realizing how much of my stability, identity, and emotional regulation had quietly become intertwined with it. 

And then I had to face everything underneath that – the grief from before, the sobriety I had worked for, the parts of myself I had been trying to protect – all still there, still unresolved, now fully exposed again. 

Not because someone took them from me. 

But because I had been carrying them alone all along. 

And I want to be clear about something I’m still learning how to hold without collapsing into shame or resentment. 

I’m not resentful. 

I don’t look back at this with anger toward a person, because that isn’t what this was. What I see now is 2 people trying to love each other without the tools or understanding to recognize what was actually happening underneath the surface. My symptoms would flare – my emotions would spike, my attachment would intensify, my fear would get louder than my logic – and what I needed in those moments was stability, grounding, and understanding. 

But neither of us really knew that at the time. 

So instead of support there was distance. Instead of clarity, there was confusion. Instead of naming what was happening, we both reacted to it. I can see now how easily that can look like pushing away and being pushed away, when in reality it was just 2 nervous systems trying to protect themselves without language for what was going on. 

I don’t believe that means what we had wasn’t real. 

I think it was real – just unsustainable in the way it formed, because it was shaped by intensity, timing and unrecognized mental health dynamics I didn’t yet understand myself. 

And I’m learning to hold that truth without turning it into a story of blame or failure. 

Just honesty. 

Just grief. 

And they understand that sometimes love isn’t enough when neither person knows how to speak the language of what’s happening inside them. 

And I’ve been thinking about how this doesn’t only live inside romantic relationships. 

It shows up in families too. In friendships. In anyone trying to love someone who is struggling with mental illness without having the language for what’s happening. 

Sometimes people don’t leave because they don’t care. 

Sometimes they leave because they don’t understand what they’re seeing. Or they don’t know how to stay close to something that feels unpredictable or overwhelming. And sometimes they disappear not out of cruelty, but out of their own fear, confusion, or emotional limits. 

And on the other side of that, it can be devastating. 

When you’re the one struggling, their distance can feel like abandonment. It can feel like proof that you are too much, too unstable, too hard to love. It can reinforce the deepest fears you already carry about yourself. 

Both things can be true at the same time. 

There can be real pain in being left. 

And there can be confusion and helplessness in the person who leaves. 

I don’t say that to soften what it feels like to be the one who stays behind – because that pain is real and heavy and it lingers in the body long after the moment is over. 

I say it because I’m learning that mental illness doesn’t just affect one person. It moves through relationships. It distorts communication. It creates gaps where language should be. And if you don’t know what you’re looking at, you can mistake symptoms for personality, or intensity for incompatibility, or crisis for rejection. 

I wish I had known that sooner – about myself, and about others. 

I’m still learning how to hold all of it without turning it into blame. Without turning it into shame. Without erasing the love that existed just because the connection couldn’t survive in its original form. 

Some things are real and still don’t last. 

And that truth is painful – but it’s also where understanding finally begins. 

There are 2 relationships that I keep thinking about when I try to make sense of all of this. 

One is my ex-girlfriend, who I loved romantically. One is my brother, who I’ve loved and looked up to my whole life.

And what connects them in my mind isn’t blame – it’s distance that formed during moments neither of us fully knew how to handle. 

I’ve been on the side of intense emotion, spiraling symptoms, and not having the right words to explain what’s happening inside me. And I’ve also been on the other side, watching someone I love disappear into something I didn’t understand, not knowing how to reach them without making it worse. 

Both experiences leave a kind of silence behind them. 

But I don’t see either of them as villains in my story. I don’t even see them as failures. 

I see people doing their best with the tools they had at the time. 

And I can finally say I’m trying to do the same. 

Not to rewrite what happened. Not turn it into something it wasn’t. Not to force it into meaning that erases the pain. 

Just hold it more gently than I did before. 

Because I don’t want the ending of these relationships to be resentment, or confusion, or self-blame. 

I want it to be understanding – even if that understanding arrives late, even if it arrives slowly, even if it takes everything I’ve been through to finally see it clearly. 

And maybe, that’s the only kind of closure that actually lasts. 

Swimming in Circles.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

A title that would probably only make sense to who this was written about.

It’s getting late. My room is finally clean after weeks of being in complete disarray. (Bi-Polar will do that.)

Laying in bed, I’m getting pretty tired as I’m trying to get back into a consistent routine. I opened my phone to scroll for just a moment and I heard Walking Away by Justin Bieber.

It hit me like a gut punch so hard it nearly took my breath away. I swiped away immediately but 5 seconds was all it took. 

It’s kind of crazy how a song can completely unravel you in under thirty seconds. Especially as I’ve been actively avoiding any and all music that gives me even a fraction of that visceral response. One second I was fine – or at least pretending to be (let’s be honest, I haven’t been fine for a minute now) – and the next I felt this heavy, sick drop in my stomach like every memory of her came crashing back all at once. 

And that’s the part that nobody really wants to talk about or deal with when you’re trying to move on… or at least I don’t. Time passes. Life keeps happening. You go to work, answer texts, laugh at things, pretend you’re healing. But then life gets quiet for a second. A song comes on. A smell hits you. A memory slips through the cracks. And suddenly you’re right back inside the grief like you never left. (Which maybe you didn’t because you’ve been avoiding it all together.) 

Tonight, I see her everywhere. 

In every lyric. Every silence. Every memory I’ve been trying so hard to outrun. 

I think what’s hardest for me, what really breaks me, is knowing I burned that relationship to the ground almost by myself. There’s no comforting version of the story where I can blame timing or distance or fate. I can’t even say I walked away. I hurt someone I loved deeply, and now I have to live with the weight of that every single day. 

Some regrets don’t stay in your head – they live in your chest. In your stomach. In your throat. They follow you around like ghosts. 

I keep replaying everything. Every moment I should’ve been better. Softer. More patient. Sober. More honest. Less afraid. I keep wondering if there was one conversation, one choice, one version of me that could’ve saved everything before it all collapsed. 

And even though deep down I know we weren’t meant to work, and even though I know staying together undoubtedly would have kept hurting both of us, I loved her so deeply that I genuinely don’t know how to picture a life without her in it. And tonight, that’s sitting on me like a thousand pounds directly on my chest. 

So many of my decisions after losing her were made out of hurt. Out of rejection. Out of desperation to distract myself from the reality of what I lost. I kept trying to convince myself I was okay. Trying to move on too quickly. Trying to numb myself with anything and everything. Trying to fill silence with noise so I wouldn’t have to sit alone with what this actually feels like. But the more days go by, the harder it becomes to pretend this doesn’t break my heart. 

I’ve tried to move on in all the wrong ways. 

Distractions that didn’t last. 

In people who were never her. 

In pretending I was fine when I wasn’t. 

In convincing myself that if I just stayed distracted enough, I wouldn’t feel it anymore. 

But grief doesn’t disappear just because you ignore it. It waits. It lingers. It finds you in the quiet moments and plays everything back in high definition when you least expect it. 

And in all honesty, there’s a part of me that hates myself for how long I’ve been running from that truth. 

I don’t know how to rewire my mind after years of loving someone. I don’t know how people just wake up one day and stop carrying another person inside of them. She became everything. The biggest part of my day, my future, my understanding of love itself. And now I’m standing in the middle of the aftermath trying to figure out who I even am without her, or who I was even before her. 

And maybe that’s the hardest truth of all is that I’ve finally accepted that it’s over. 

Not in the dramatic way movies portray heartbreak. Not all at once. Just slowly. Quietly. Painfully. Like something sinking to the bottom of the ocean. 

I think part of me kept believing there would be another conversation. Another chance. Another version of us someday in which it could work. But I know that’s not reality. 

There’s this unspoken idea that you’re not supposed to talk about something if it didn’t work out- like if it ends, it somehow becomes less real, less meaningful, less worth saying out loud. But I don’t adhere to that in the least. Because whether it was right or not, whether it was meant to work or not, it meant everything to me. 

She meant everything to me. 

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? 

Because when you love someone while still being deeply broken yourself, you don’t just love them – you lean on them in ways no one person can carry forever. You start needing them for more than they can realistically give. And when life really bears down on you, it requires a kind of love that doesn’t flinch, doesn’t fracture, doesn’t leave when things get heavy. 

And unfortunately for me… I didn’t always know how to stay fully present in it. I may not have physically walked away from the relationship, but I escaped in other ways. I numbed myself. I lost myself in addiction and avoidance and everything I thought would make it hurt less. 

And in doing that, I lost her. And I lost myself too. 

I don’t know how to begin grieving something that once felt like home. 

I used to tell her I’d see her on the other side of healing – like we would both become whole again and somehow find our way back to each other in a better form, in a better time.  

But now I don’t think that’s what this is. 

I don’t think I’ll see her on the other side of healing anymore. .

Because some things don’t come back around. Some loves don’t circle back to each other. Some endings don’t reopen into beginnings. 

And I think I’m finally starting to understand that this isn’t something I’m supposed to hold onto until it turns into something else. It’s something I’m supposed to put down, even if my hands still shake when I do it. 

I loved her. I really did. Not halfway. Not temporarily. Fully, messily, imperfectly. With everything I had at the time – even when I didn’t know how to give it properly. In so many ways I still do – I don’t know if that ever goes away, and I don’t know if I would ever want it to.

I think I’m finally at the place where loving her doesn’t mean keeping her anymore. 

It means letting her go. 

Not because she didn’t matter. Not because what we had wasn’t real. But because it was. Because it shaped me. Because it hurt me. Because it changed me. Because it deserves to stay what it was instead of being dragged through what it can no longer be. 

So this is where I stop reaching for her in the dark. 

This is where I stop turning memory into something I can live inside. 

And if she ever comes across this… 

I don’t need anything from her. I don’t need a response. I don’t want to reopen anything that life has already closed. 

I just hope she knows she mattered. Not briefly. Not conditionally. Not quietly. 

She matters to me in a way that doesn’t end just because we did. 

She will always matter to me. And for that, I’m extremely grateful.

There was no way I was going to be able to go to sleep with that all sitting with me, so I’m leaving all the thoughts, all the heartache, all the memories and all the tears here, at least for tonight. 

On Choices.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

Running. 

Ironically, I hate running when it comes to physicality and I love it when it comes to my circumstances. Unfortunately for me, I do both. 

Typically, if I’m in a good place holistically, I’m doing the one I hate and when I’m in a really bad place holistically, I’m running away – from everything and everyone. To those who know me, I’m known for it.

But regardless, it’s something I always end up doing one way or the other.

It’s extremely rare that God ever forces my hand in anything. I can count on one hand the number of times He’s done it. Usually, if He’s leading me somewhere and I’m running away from it, He just lets me make enough mistakes to pile up to ruin whatever plans I’ve made for myself until I begrudgingly run back to Him, only to do the bare minimum to make myself feel better.

It’s usually only a matter of time before I’m off doing my own thing again. 

It’s been about a month(ish) since God took my entire world and flipped it upside down, very much forcing my hand this time. 

I was running way too fast in the wrong direction, again, and I believe He had had enough. Both because I was gambling with my life and also because He’s given me about 4 years now of doing things my own way. 

I was dabbling in substances, spending time with people that I had no business being around and drinking myself into oblivion in a very short amount of time. All the while, crying out to Him and wondering why I felt like I was quite literally losing my mind and had NO peace. 

My behavior was completely unhinged, compulsive and destructive and I no longer cared. I was willing to do whatever it took to just not feel the emptiness that was consuming me. 

When I finally came out of the bender I was on, my first thought was to run. To run back to rehab. To run back to my hometown. To run to somewhere new. To run literally anywhere that would get me away from the environment that I had built and demolished in as little as a few weeks. (Realistically, this was a long time coming…) 

The thing I’ve learned about running away is that everywhere I’ve ever ran to, I was still there. I couldn’t outrun myself however, I was arrogant enough to think that I could outrun God. Never happened. 

In my trying to figure out what I was going to do and where I was going to go, God made it quite literally impossible to not stay where He had me. Nothing panned out and nothing pulled through, when usually it happens pretty easily. He made my circumstances so impossible in fact, that for a time, I couldn’t even leave my apartment if I wasn’t leaving on foot. 

For lack of a better term, at 33 years old, I was very much grounded by my Father (God, not my Dad to clarify!) . He had taken away my car, my safety nets, my sources of comfort (numbing) and my ability to choose where I went next. Again, He had enough. 

God gave me a choice. 

Either I allow Him to do what He wanted to do with my life or I could continue in the same loop of insanity and take my chances with my life. I know that His grace is sufficient and I know that He is rich in mercy, but I suddenly got the sense, and I felt it to my core, that there would come a point when His grace runs out and where would I be when it did? 

This question changed everything for me. 

It wasn’t just about getting sober anymore. It wasn’t just about whether I can be a lesbian or not. It wasn’t about just redeeming my reputation or trying to salvage relationships that had been strained. It wasn’t about going to church or AA or not sleeping around or getting my life back on track. 

It was about realizing that I had a choice. And that choice was a mark of His grace all in its own right. Not everyone gets that. Not everyone is given the opportunity to try again or to get right with Him. I’ve watched it over and over again in the lives of people that I loved dearly that I’m sure that not one of them ever thought that the choice they made would be their last on this earth. 

God has given me more grace than I could ever put into words. More than I could ever write down or document. I’ve gambled with His grace more times than I can count and in my pride, truly thought that I could just continue to live however I wanted and do whatever I wanted, with whomever I wanted, and still be right with Him. 

In this past month of God disconnecting me from everything I leaned on and filled my life with, I started to question whether that was true or not.

I wanted to believe God was who I wanted Him to be, not who He is. He is gracious yes, but He requires much from those who call themselves followers. I said the words, claimed I loved Jesus, yet nothing in my life would have reflected that. In fact, I had posted a picture of a bible study I was doing, and a good friend of mine messaged me saying “oh the lesbian is now super religious?” He was completely kidding and didn’t mean it with any ill intent, however for someone who has claimed to love Jesus with all of her heart her entire life, it was jarring to hear how others saw me vs. how I saw myself.

Nothing in my life would have told you that I’ve given up everything to deny myself and follow Him. If anything, I was living in complete hypocrisy – praising Him with my mouth and denying Him with the rest of my life. 

I will say, He may have forced my hand to some extent, but he has been so patient and so kind to me over these last few weeks. He reminded me of who I was before I walked away. I had forgotten and have been on a completely unsuccessful mission to figure out who I am now. 

And Thank God. 

I was trying to find myself in the world when I was never called to that. He had called me to ministry. To discipleship. To learn a completely opposite way of living than what’s comfortable. He called me to trust that if I kept my eyes on Him, who I was wouldn’t matter anymore, because it was never about me. And that without Him, I will always be lost and searching.

I remember when I decided to up and follow my own path about 4 years ago, a dear friend and spiritual mentor that’s known me since I was little, pulled me aside and warned me. She sat before me with tears in her eyes and said “ If you decide to walk in this, if you decide to walk away from Him and everything He’s brought you out of, your words won’t matter, the world will love you and you will sacrifice having Him.” 

My heart was so hardened at the time, it just made me mad and honestly, I think I ran away faster. I had made my choice. I chose myself. I chose the life I wanted. And my life has never been the same. Another failed relationship that I banked everything on only to feel like I was never enough and completely unloveable in the end, heartache, addiction, legal issues, broken friendships, broken trust, the inability to move on from things that were hurting me… the list goes on. Just brokenness in every way.

Years later, the Holy Spirit brought those words back to my memory, and I wept over them. 

Not because I was sad entirely, but more so because I was so grateful that He didn’t let me die in that, when I could have several times over. That He gave me yet another opportunity to turn my life back over to Him. That my life didn’t end in rebellion, brokenness and addiction.

Choosing Jesus, and I mean truly choosing Him, isn’t the easy choice. It’s excruciating at times. It will cost you everything. It will mean changing the way you think, changing the way you speak, changing the way you respond to circumstances and people, changing who you surround yourself with, changing what you allow into your space and who has access to you, changing what you listen to, changing what you watch, changing what you talk and joke about… I mean the list is endless. He requires much of those who say yes to Him, and honestly it’s never convenient. 

BUT… 

There is peace. There is joy. There is contentment. There is faith. There is hope. There is freedom. There is knowing that you are not alone. There is HIM and I promise you, that is everything. 

I have often fallen into wanting the things Jesus could give me more than I actually wanted Him. As He’s brought me into this place of what I can only refer to as anonymity, he’s stripped me of everything. My identity. My desires. My plans and my wants for my future. 

But in exchange, as I’ve chosen obedience, He’s given me Himself. His presence. His wisdom. His strength that I certainly don’t have on my own. 

In a world that focuses so much on I and me and making it happen for myself I’ve had to allow Him to reframe everything. I’ve had to let Him teach me His way.

For me it looks like choosing no contact when I desperately want to text them. It looks like staying off of social media (for the most part) instead of scrolling for hours. It looks like surrounding myself with a Godly community even when I’m aggressively uncomfortable. It looks like giving up music I’ve loved for years. It looks like waking up early every day and opening my Word instead of turning on my TV. It looks like saying no to sex, alcohol, binging, isolating, numbing and instead getting on my face before the Lord and feeling everything as He breaks my heart wide open. It looks like deleting photos and phone numbers. It looks like staying exactly where He has me instead of running away even when I’m crawling out of my skin with restlessness and anxiety. It looks like walking/running down to the beach everyday even when I’m too tired and would rather stay on my couch. It looks like worshipping Him through the tears and the temptation instead of choosing the immediate gratification. It looks like discipline and routine. It looks like praying about everything and allowing trusted voices in my life to help me because I can’t be trusted to make healthy decisions on my own yet. It looks like having to accept the decisions I made even just weeks ago and choosing to thank Him for saving me instead of condemning myself and worrying about what other people are going to think. It looks like letting my life speak for itself moving forward instead of trying to prove myself.

My prayer is that in time, I will be unrecognizable to the people who knew me even up until about a month ago. That was a lesser and far crazier version of myself than who God ever intended me to be. That person was selfish, a liar, a manipulator, a controller, an addict and a hypocrite. I was an extremely broken person who lacked boundaries and who thought love was ultimately about myself.

As far as I’m concerned, that person doesn’t exist anymore. Not because I’m some self-righteous person sitting on her high horse or just choosing to ignore everything I’ve done and said, but because an extremely loving God saved my life over and over again, and in the light of what He’s done for me, radical change and everything I have is the only appropriate offering I can give Him. 

I’m so grateful He gave me the choice to do things differently. I’m so grateful that I found a wonderful little church and godly people to walk beside. I’m so grateful for the desire to know Him. I’m so grateful for a beautiful place to live for the time being. I’m so grateful He never turned His face from me and never lifted His grace off of me. I’m so grateful He ruined all of my plans and gave me a new life. Certainly not an easier one, but one that doesn’t have darkness hanging over me to the point where I don’t even want to live it anymore. 

Voddie Baucham, one of my favorite Pastors, said it like this, and it resonates so deeply at this point in my life… 

“I may not be where I want to be, but Hallelujah, I’m not where I was.” 

Still Becoming…

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

I wake up and I already know. 

Not because I remember everything clearly – but because of the weight. It’s sitting on my chest before I even open my eyes. Heavy, familiar, impossible to ignore. 

My mouth is dry, my head is dull, and there’s this quiet dread creeping in like it’s been waiting for me to wake up so it can fully settle. 

I check my phone. 3:07 p.m. 

What day is it? I’ve completely lost track. I’m sure it’s only Friday… It’s Tuesday. 

Of course it is. 

Half the day is gone and I wasn’t even living it. Just hiding from it. Sleeping doesn’t even feel like rest anymore – it feels like avoidance. Like I knocked myself out just to not be conscious inside my own head. 

I lay there longer than I should. Staring at nothing. Thinking about everything I don’t want to think about. 

What I did. 

How easy it was. 

How fast I folded. 

It replays in flashes, not even full memories – just enough to make my stomach turn. And the worst part? There’s this sick, quiet voice in the back of my head that’s not even surprising. As if to say, yeah…. This is what you do. It was only a matter of time. 

I hate that voice. Because it sounds like me. 

Getting out of bed feels pointless, but staying in it feels worse. So I just sit there, stuck in between, scrolling my phone like I can outrun the feeling. I can’t. It’s in my body now. It’s in the way my chest feels tight, the way my thoughts won’t land anywhere without turning dark. 

I start doing that thing where I bargain with reality. 

Maybe it wasn’t that bad. 

Maybe I can just reset tomorrow. 

Maybe no one has to know. 

Maybe someone DID hack my instagram and phone and messages and phone calls…

But underneath all of it is the truth, loud and steady: 

You knew better. And you did it anyway. Not once at this point, but for days in a row now. 

That’s the part that cuts the deepest. Not the act itself – but the awareness. The fact that I watched myself cross the line a long time ago and said nothing. That the last relapse wasn’t that bad. Like I was split in two – one part screaming, the other part already too far gone to care. 

At this point, as Brad Pitt once described it, this thing had me on my back.  

Basic things feel hard now. 

Showering feels like a chore. Eating feels like something I have to force, if I even can. Texts go unanswered because I don’t even know how to pretend to be normal right now. Everything in my life suddenly feels slightly out of reach, like I’m behind glass watching it instead of actually living it. 

And there’s shame. 

Not the soft kind. Not the “I messed up, I’ll do better” kind. The kind that makes you want to disappear and draw completely into yourself. 

The kind that says if people really saw this version of you – the one who caves, who lies to themselves and everyone around them, who keeps going back to the same thing – they wouldn’t recognize you. Or worse, they would. 

I sit with that for a while. Too long, probably. 

Because the truth is, this isn’t just about one relapse. 

It’s about the pattern. The cycle. The part of me that keeps choosing something that wrecks me and then has to wake up and live in the aftermath like this. 

3 pm. Alone. Heavy. Trying to figure out how to exist in my own skin again. 

And the scariest thought isn’t even “why did I do it?” 

It’s – 

What if I do it again? 

This brings me to today. 

A few days sober, technically. But it doesn’t feel clean or triumphant – it feels like I’m walking through fog and I can’t see where I’m going or what’s on the other side. Like everything is slightly muted, slightly off, like I’m here but not fully in anything.

My brain is slow, my emotions are unpredictable, and there’s this constant low hum underneath it all that I can’t shut off. It’s not loud enough to name, but it’s there. 

This is the part no one celebrates. 

The in-between. The early days where nothing feels fixed, just exposed. 

And I’m writing this because I’m too good at hiding. Too good at smiling just enough, responding just enough for people not to worry, showing up just enough that no one keeps asking me deeper questions. I know how to disappear without actually leaving. I know how to shut people out in a way that’s almost scary. 

And that’s exactly where this thing has always grown – in the quiet, in the isolation, in the spaces where no one can see me clearly. 

I think that’s why I refuse to keep being silent about it. Why I refuse to keep sitting in denial and just waiting for my character to suddenly change. 

Because when people picture someone struggling with this, they often picture something obvious. Something messy and visible and easy to label. (I’ve been there before too). But a lot of the time, it looks like me – functioning just enough, hiding really well, slowly unraveling in private. 

And no one likes to talk about that. 

Or if they do, they soften it. They make it more palatable and easier to swallow. Less uncomfortable. 

I don’t want to do that. Not this time. 

Someone recently asked me if putting such vulnerable things about my life out there is even a good idea. What if it makes people uncomfortable? What if it upsets or embarrasses someone? 

And honestly – yeah. It might. 

But hiding hasn’t done me any favors. Silence hasn’t protected me. If anything, it’s protected the addiction – even when I wasn’t drinking. It’s giving it space to grow without resistance, without exposure, without consequence. 

I’m over that. 

I might be someone who has relapsed more times than I can count. Someone who has fallen on her face, made the same mistakes, sat in the same shame over and over again. 

But there has never been a time I didn’t get back up. 

Not once. 

Bruised, embarrassed, exhausted – yes. But I get up. 

And I’m not sharing this because I’m proud of the mess or because I need anyone to tell me I’m strong. I’m sharing it because I know exactly what happens when I don’t. 

My addiction thrives in secrecy. 

It survives in isolation. 

But it does not survive in vulnerability. 

And I’m done giving it somewhere to hide. 

So I will keep writing. 

Not just when things are messy. Not just when I’ve fallen apart. Not only when everything feels like it’s burning and I need somewhere to put out the smoke. 

But also when it’s quiet. 

When it’s uncertain. 

When nothing dramatic is happening and that’s exactly what makes it hard – the in-between days where I don’t know if I’m healing or just pausing, where I can’t tell if I’m moving forward or just standing still in the thick of the fog, unsure of where I am, and hoping it counts as progress. 

Those are the moments that usually get lost. The ones no one really documents because they don’t feel important enough. They’re either too painful, or not painful enough to be compelling, not joyful enough to celebrate. Just… existing. Floating. Unclear. 

But I think that’s where most of life actually happens… Especially for me right now. 

So I want to write it all. 

I want to write about the mornings where I still feel heavy but I get up anyway. The days where I don’t feel fixed, but  I don’t fall apart either. The quiet decisions no one sees – choosing not to isolate, choosing not to spiral, choosing to stay present even when everything in me wants to disappear and hide. 

Because healing isn’t just the big turning points. It’s not just the relapse or the breakthrough or the dramatic before and after. 

It’s the slow stitching in-between. 

And I don’t want to only remember my life as a series of extremes – broken, then better, then broken again. I want the full thread. The continuity. The small, almost invisible moments where something in me shifted and I didn’t even have language for it yet. 

Maybe that’s what this becomes. 

Not just a record of what I survived – but a testimony built in real time. Not polished. Not edited for comfort. Just honest enough to hold the truth of who I was in each version of it. 

So that one day, when I’m further on the other side of this,  I can look back and see it clearly. 

Not just the falling apart. 

Not just the getting back up. 

But everything in between that quietly made me someone who stayed. 

Isolate.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

“I just feel so isolated.” 

I’ve said it a million times since moving to Washington State. Living on an actual island can have that effect. Living on an actual island and then moving into a place of your own in the middle of the woods can be almost haunting. The silence can either be peaceful or deafening. The solitude, at times wonderful, can also become overwhelming. 

I live in a little apartment about 20 minutes outside of one part of the island and 30 outside of the next island over. It’s right smack in the middle. I should tell you when I chose this apartment, it was completely blind and mildly out of desperation. I was in the midst of a relationship ending and one bedroom apartments, where I live, are extremely scarce. I called place after place with no luck. Voicemail after voicemail, never to be returned and call after call, only to be told nothing was available. Granted, my turn around time was quick. 

After days of calling, I finally found somewhere that said they had a unit available. They told me it was a little dated and a little out of the way and asked if I wanted to come look at it. By the grace of God I did not, because had I seen it before I moved in, I never would have said yes (It ended up fine, I saw the potential and after some work, it’s adorable). I signed the lease blind. It was down to the wire to get everything signed and in place before my move in day, but it worked out and I moved in. 

I remember driving out to my new home and thinking how I had never been out that way. In fact, I had no idea where I was. I pulled up to my little apartment… surrounded by big, tall trees, this little tiny quadplex sat in the middle of nowhere. It took me a while to get all moved in and I had some help. But I remember my first few nights alone here. At first, I appreciated the silence. No dogs barking, no fighting or bickering, no one else in my space. I was completely alone and I loved it. But as the days went on that appreciation grew to become loneliness and the silence became louder. Louder to the point where I was doing just about anything to lessen it. To feel less alone. To feel less isolated. 

I’ve been in this little apartment for almost exactly 3 months now. It’s cozy. It’s decorated completely to my liking. On paper, it’s perfect for me. But every day I’ve been here, I’ve been reminded of just how isolated I am. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not only am I isolated from where I had just moved from and the people that live there, but I was starting to feel isolated in a grander sense.

My family lives miles away and half way across the country. My closest friend (geographically) lives an hour away, the rest of my friends and support system about 2 to 3 hours away. My relationship was over and that was the reason I was even here in the first place. The heaviness of it all set in and I began to panic. It was a few weeks in and I remember sitting on my living room floor and turning on some worship music, something that I years ago did  often, but now felt foreign. For the first time in years, it was just me and Jesus again. 

Every other time in my life that would have led me to a moment like that, it would have felt natural. Comfortable. But this time, it felt like I was sitting with a stranger. 

Over the past few years, I’ve cried out to him. I’ve asked him for things when I needed him. I’ve occasionally prayed. But overall, my relationship with the Lord was replaced with another and I was planning to build my life on the one I chose. I was willing to sacrifice Him for her. As I sat there, as the heaviness and panic took over, I didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t know what to say. How could I approach Him after everything I walked away from 3 years prior? After everything He gave me? How could I just come back and sit there with Him? How could I sit in His presence knowing full well I had a heart full of sin and expect Him to be there for me when I so easily walked away from Him? 

It didn’t take long for the walls of my heart to come down and for the tears to follow. My heart broke open in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced. In the past, I’ve at least had my family in the general vicinity so I knew that even if things got hard, I could call them and they’d be there. Or I could call a friend, and they’d be there. This time, it was me and the Lord. As my heart broke and I poured out cries of repentance and grief and wrung my heart out before the Lord, I felt Him tell me just to rest.

 It was okay. I was okay to just be. I laid down and embraced the complete silence. No TV. No music. No anything. I heard him beginning to speak to me… This place, as isolating as it may feel, is a place of safety. He hasn’t isolated me, He’s hidden me away for Himself. He gave me a place to heal and cry out to Him, and to break apart and rest. A place to build a new routine and a new life and a place to sit and be with only Him. A place to seek Him. A secret place to be still, to study, to worship, to pray, to find healing. To get to know Him again.

It’s been a couple months since then, and I’m learning the sweetness of being hidden away with Him. Isolate, by actual definition, means to cause to be or remain apart from others. However, it also means to examine something, to deal with it separately. I don’t believe God intends for any of us to be alone. I believe He gives us community for a reason, especially as someone who’s trying to get sober and stay sober. But spiritually speaking, I think there is such beauty in being separated, set apart and hidden away and I realized that I have been so terrified to be alone with Him. 

I asked Him over and over and over again to take my addiction. To take my mental health struggles. To take my suffering and the other demons I wrestle with. I never understood why they remained. But in being alone with Him, through giving him my entire “yes”, by listening to Him and spending time in His presence, I realize it was all of those awful “unhealed” things that led me to repentance. They led me to a place of desperation that I don’t know if I would otherwise have. That maybe He wasn’t punishing me with those things, but maybe He was going to use them to bring me closer to Him. Maybe… He’s safe. 

In being hidden away with Him, He has been able to deal with me separately. He had to get me alone. He had to get me to Himself. To finally stop running, to finally stop all the destructive behaviors that I’ve lived in for years, to finally start to see my worth as a child of God. In studying the Word, I see time after time, where God does this. He draws someone away, even Jesus, and He draws them away from their surroundings, away from what’s comfortable, away from what they know, and He draws them unto Himself. 

He’s shown me that perfection is not what He’s after. A desperate heart that loves only Him and wants to be made more like him every day is what He’s after. It’s not not relapsing. It’s not, not having any mental health episodes. It’s not, not making the same stupid mistakes that I used to make in my twenties. (There is repentance when I have fallen into those things…) He’s teaching me to really walk this life with Him. Not just day by day. Moment by moment. With a breath by breath dependency. 

This time in my life, this place… It feels holy. Sacred. 

It’s been a long, exhausting road to get me right here. (One which I don’t believe He ever intended for me to walk, but in His kindness, He corrected my course.) To a place where my feet are planted and I rest in His presence trusting Him with my life. These nights are often soaked with tears and the cries continue for now. But there is a steadiness in the brokenness that I didn’t have before. Faith. Faith that even if these battles never cease, I know He’s in them with me. Faith that these moments are but a breath compared to what eternity will be with Him. 

I guess I say all this to say that I am so grateful that God has saved my life over and over again. That He’s brought me to a place of safety, redeemed me and is actively restoring my life in the quietness of my home. I’m so grateful to be hidden away with Him and that He’s healing me and mending what’s broken. My prayer is that in all of this, that I would know Him. That I would be desperate for Him in greater measure every day. That these past 10 years of struggle, addiction and brokenness would shout how kind and merciful He is. That the things that have held me captive would be silenced as I get back up and take up the authority that I have in Jesus. 

I didn’t think I would ever say this, but I am starting to love this season of my life. I thought the whole point of all of this was learning to be alone and to be okay with that, and I couldn’t be more grateful to be so wrong. It’s learning to find Him and realize that I’m never alone. Sometimes He just has to slow us down and draw us away, unto Himself, to get ahold of us. Amidst all of the struggle and the heartache, I have Him and nothing compares to that. 

“In winter, are the trees bare? Yes. In winter, are the trees barren? No. Life still is.”

Alicia Britt Chloe, Anonymous

This is my story…

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

“I can trust God with my life. God has a plan for me. I was born with a purpose. I was born with talents. I was born with a mission to set the captive free. I can trust God with my life.

 I try to say these truths to myself, over and over; hoping somehow they sink in. Praying somehow they shout louder than the voices that haunt me. Cuz from day to day they are battling with all the words inside of me; the many wars inside of me. Like what if God fails me? What if I make a mistake and I ruin the lives of the people around me? What if I’m the one person who doesn’t have a purpose? What if my talents are not good enough? What if my decisions are not good enough? What if my life is not up to par of what everyone expects of me and I’m drowning in the sea of what-ifs…” 

These Waters by Hosanna Wong 

I spoke these words 3 years ago at an event. Tears came to my eyes and a lump grew in my throat as I said them because they resonated so deeply with me. I felt them in bones. 

3 years later, I still find myself weeping over these words. 

The doubt that I thought would subside is still here. The voices and the words inside of me that I thought would be silenced are still very much battling. 

As I get ready to go back to the place I ran from, I find myself terrified but finally hopeful. I find myself encouraged. I find myself at peace. All things I’ve desperately longed to feel again but thought were out of reach. 

I will say this. 

God. Is. Good. 

ALL. The. Time. 

In the darkness, He is light. In the chaos, He is peace. In the confusion, He is clarity. In the doubt, He is sure. In faithlessness, He is faithful. In weakness, He is strong. 

I was raised on these words. They were instilled into me as a little girl. Yet somehow, thirty-some years later, I still wrestle with them. I still question Him. 

I’ll say this…. 

Addiction is a monster. A bigger monster than I ever realized. Yet God is greater still. Relapse happens and it’s easy to feel like all hope is lost. Loss happens and it’s easy to feel like all hope is lost. LIFE happens and it’s easy to feel like all hope is lost. 

But God can author a redemption arc like no one else. Hope is not lost. Not with Him, ever. He can fix and resolve what nothing and no one else ever could. 

In the moments I felt like my life was over, like things were too far gone, He always responds. He always steps in. It just takes my willingness. 

This past year I was sober, and yet somehow further away from Him than ever. I relapsed and I found Him again in my brokenness. 

Why? How? 

He is a God that LOVES the broken. He is near to the brokenhearted. He finds us in our weakness and it truly is where He is strong.

I have tried to shoulder everything myself. I failed. 

But Jesus… 

The moment my world fell apart, I found Him again. He was waiting with open arms. And somehow, in all of my doubt, in all of my faithlessness, in all of my brokenness, there He was.  

And the crazy thing about Jesus is that He used the thing I hated more than anything (my addiction) to pull me out. Had my addiction not flared back up and my relationship not fallen apart, I don’t think I ever would have seen that I was spiritually dying. 

He took something horrible and used it for His glory and my good. 

Addiction is overwhelming. But God is bigger. Doubt is overwhelming. But God is bigger. He is there, always. 

He never leaves us and He never forsakes us. 

All this to say, my life that I built for myself on pride and ego, fell apart. Crumbled. I relapsed. My relationship ended. I am moving back to the place I ran away from. 

But God is so good. He is so patient. He is so gentle. 

When I look at the fruit of my life as of recent, I can’t say that any of it is viable. It’s dead and decaying. 

So I’ve decided to make a change and go where He sends me. I cried out to Him and let me tell you, when I say He made things move in 24 hours, He flipped my world upside down and opened every door that needed to be opened. 

He is a good and gracious Savior. 

I just want to love Jesus. 

With all my heart and mind and soul. 

I just want to honor Him with my life. 

I am beginning this journey today. I’m leaving literally everything behind to pursue Jesus. 

And I have decided… 

To follow Jesus. 

A candid letter from someone coming straight out of rehab. Part 1.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

Treatment. Recovery Program. IOP. Addiction Center. 

All of these names are just different ways of saying what it really is. 

REHAB. 

In short, rehab is the place you find yourself in (if you’re fortunate enough to survive a raging addiction) when a “life-controlling issue” (usually drugs, alcohol and sex and oftentimes all of the above) becomes unmanageable and you need help to learn how to live a healthy and successful sober life. 

In other words, when your life completely falls apart due to said raging addiction, chances are you’ll wind up in rehab. 

Rehab is weird. 

Everything about it is weird. 

For someone who’s never been, it’s hard to understand what it’s really like being in a treatment center. Typically, the only point of reference is what’s seen in movies and TV shows, and honestly, most don’t give an accurate depiction of what it’s actually like. 

So for anyone who’s never had the privilege of going themselves, I’ll do my best to give you a semi-snarky yet still incredibly accurate depiction of what it’s like…. In rehab.   

 I liken rehab to stay-away summer camp when you were a kid. 

You leave your friends and family for a few months and “camp” now becomes your home, your life and all you talk about for the duration of your time there. (And probably for months after you leave because it’s all you’ve come to know, but more on that later.) You eat, sleep and breathe “camp.” 

You can always tell a first timer from someone who’s been a few times already. There’s a certain fear-ridden look accompanied by awkward body language that screams of discomfort. But much like camp, you eventually find your “tribe” and you might shed some tears, but you’ll definitely share some laughs.

Instead of cool camp counselors with even cooler nicknames, it’s counselors of the therapist variety that just want you to call them by their first names. Everyone is just hoping to get that one chill counselor with a killer personality that all the other “campers” rave about… looking at you “Kyle”.

There aren’t cabins and sleeping bags, however there are still bunk beds and uniform comforters for every “camper.” 

Depending on where you go, you may or may not get to experience a campfire. But instead of eating smores and telling scary stories under the stars, you’re sipping caffeine free hot tea at a twilight trauma process group… (Honestly, there are still scary stories, but it makes you miss the ones about a shape-shifting creature that lives deep in the forest.) 

Instead of fun and games, there’s awkward encounters and “icebreakers.” 

For those of you who never played a game called Medic at summer camp, it’s where a small group of people line up at one end of a field and literally everyone else stands sprawled across the field with pool noodles in both hands. The smaller group then makes a mad dash in hopes of making it to the other side while the larger group with the pool noodles try to smack the runners trying to cross. If you get smacked before you reach the other side, you’re down. This continues back and forth until all the runners are out. Without fail, there’s always one kid who smacks way too aggressively and someone ends up getting hurt. In rehab, this is the equivalent of what happens emotionally during group therapy when the counselor says, “Does anybody have any feedback?” 

Instead of learning skills like how to ride a horse or how to do archery or how to survive in the wilderness, you learn skills like how to cope and how to deal with grief and loss and how to survive social anxiety in the real world. 

Instead of learning to navigate a high ropes course, you learn to navigate your negative emotions. 

Most camps have certain cheers and chants that you’ll know by heart for the rest of your life, but instead of “Peel banana, Peel peel banana”, in rehab it usually goes something like “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference…”

Sometimes there’s arts and crafts, but it’s usually either a way to pass the time or some sort of art therapy. (I can’t knock on this one too much because as a creative, I happen to really enjoy art therapy.) 

You have a completely scheduled day 7 days a week,complete with 3 meals in the “dining hall” with all your fellow campers and a certain allotted amount of freetime. You have a time to wake up and a time for lights out. 

At both camp and rehab, there are many different personalities and you’re in close quarters with the same people all day, everyday, so meltdowns are to be expected. However, few compare to when someone takes the last of the “good cereal.”  (Me not at all speaking as the one who had a meltdown over cereal… this is where the coping skills would have come in clutch.)

At the end of the summer, you find yourself filled with memories and experiences that you’ll never forget. Rehab is very much the same way. Although not always “fun”, it’s definitely an experience you’ll never forget, and HOPEFULLY, you’ll be the better for it. But unlike summer camp, the hope is to never have to come back, although many often do…

You might be the kid who only goes for one summer or you might be the kid who’s far too old to be there, but her parents sign her up anyway. Either way, if you just go and keep your mind and your heart open, chances are you’ll be glad you went. (Or maybe you’ll just goof off all summer and end up there again… but hey, there’s always next year.) 

Obviously, this is a very light-hearted take on a very heavy topic. The process of getting sober and living in recovery can be daunting and often, that process starts with rehab. I will forever be so grateful for all of the amazing therapists, friends, groups and time I spent learning and changing because I made the choice to go to rehab. Some people can absolutely quit cold turkey and that works for them, however I just wasn’t one of them. 

It took me a few times at summer camp to really get it, but now the time has come where I take everything I learned and apply it to life back home. With that has come a lot of different challenges in adjusting to life again.

More on that later…

A Morning In Recovery.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ 1 Comment

It’s a chilly, sunny morning in November. It’s that perfect cold right before the temperature really drops to freezing. I have the morning to myself. I decide to go to my favorite little coffee shop in my very favorite part of town. I order my usual black and white mocha, extra hot, with oat milk and a banana chocolate chip muffin. I find the perfect table right in the back where there’s the perfect balance of sunlight shining in and cozy lamp lighting above my tiny table perfect for just me. The place is buzzing with people but not overwhelmingly so. The sound of milk steaming, laughs and conversation between friends and jazz surround me. I put my phone away and only have a book, my coffee and my laptop to write. 

It’s the perfect morning. 

I sit and think to myself that in this moment, I am truly happy. I am truly content. It’s the most present I’ve felt in about the last month or so. 

As I sit and just soak in the moment, there it is. A voice that although silent to everyone around me, might as well be yelling in my ear. A loud and intrusive guest who sat down at my table without being invited and whose only intention is to ruin my morning. Maybe even my whole day. Maybe even my life.

“A cocktail sounds really good right about now. I really want to drink.” I think to myself. 

It’s 10 a.m. 

Where did that even come from?! Here I am, minding my own business, enjoying a beautiful morning and having a completely blissful moment to myself and I want to drink?! Why?! 

I’m not upset. I’m not grieving. I’m not in a triggering location. I’m not around alcohol. I’m not feeling sad, angry or depressed. I’m not nervous or socially anxious (which is usually, without fail, my greatest trigger to drink). 

I sit and so begins the overanalyzing and I find myself drifting to the past and to the future. I find the present moment slipping away. My head starts spinning and the thoughts start flooding my mind. Suddenly, I’m not alone at this table. Soon enough, anxiety, frustration, shame and discouragement sit down and join me, just as unwelcome as the urge to drink. 

Now in the past, honestly, I probably would have just agreed with the voice tempting me to drink and walked myself to the bar next door and called it “bruch”. I mean it is Sunday after all, therefore it’s totally acceptable to be wasted by 1 pm. And I’ll have the rest of the day to just sleep it off and still make it to work at 7 am tomorrow morning. 

Or, I would have just packed up my stuff, morning ruined, spiraling in shame and discouragement and finding myself fighting the urge to drink the rest of the day. Chances are, eventually I would have given up and given in. 

But today is different. 

Addiction is a bully. One who’s bark, unfortunately, can be just as brutal as its bite. At times, unceasing and relentless. 

I really shouldn’t be surprised by moments like this. When thoughts come unannounced and seem unwarranted. But still, I am. 

That’s the thing about addiction. It’s not logical. Its nature is confusion, chaos and destruction. It doesn’t wait for life to fall apart or disappointment or anxiety to hit you AND THEN presents itself. It comes whenever and however it pleases. It will make itself known on the bad days and the best days. 

As I sit here this morning, I decided I could either let the shame of struggling with thoughts of drinking consume me like a sickness, OR, I could simply put pen to paper, so to speak, and take the road of vulnerability and shed a little light on what it’s like for someone who’s just trying to better their life and choose recovery. 

So today, that’s exactly what I’m doing. 

It’s amazing the power that’s lost when we’re just honest. Shame has kept me silent so many times before, because even admitting that I was struggling with wanting to drink seemed like a failure. I felt like I had failed even before I picked up a drink. 

Sitting in this little coffee shop, I made the decision to just say NO and with it, anxiety, shame, frustration and discouragement all got up and left my table. I can’t help but feel like those rude and intrusive thoughts are just lurking, waiting for a moment to sit down with me again. But for the moment, at least they’re quiet. 

I wish I could say it was that easy all the time and that I won’t be tempted again 5 seconds after typing these words, but the truth is that’s just not always the case. But for this moment, I’m saying NO. 

I turn my attention back to my book, and continue to slowly sip on my latte, thankful that I’m still sitting in this coffee shop and not at the bar next door. 

Today was a win and as much as addiction tried to steal my joy this morning, it didn’t succeed. 

It’s still a beautiful morning and I am still sober. 

For that, I’m grateful. 

Potential.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

By definition, potential means existing in possibility; capable of development into actuality. 

I’ve really grown to hate that word. I’ve lived my life under the weight of my potential. It seems to me like it’s been a lifelong competition between what I am and what I could. As much as I can appreciate every time someone would say that I “have so much potential”, or if I could “just see my potential” all I could hear was, “you’re not enough as you are right now and you could be better.” And to be honest, to this day, that’s still what I hear. 

The concept of someone’s potential is such an interesting thing to me. I know we’re all striving to be better… to grow, to learn and to change. However, I feel like sometimes I lose myself in the potential of who I could be. It’s hard to find your identity when everyone keeps reminding you that you could be so much more… 

The idea of potential can be particularly difficult for someone trying to navigate life in recovery. In one sense, you have to know that there is so much more to who you are and so much more to life than just your addiction, otherwise, why even bother spending the energy trying to better yourself? On the flipside, it’s easy to get crushed underneath the idea of who you could be, and in turn, you’re left feeling like the person you are today, falls short of that idea of who you could potentially be in the future. 

Potential is tricky. I find myself dwelling on this today. Over the last few years of recovery, I’ve heard mentions of my potential over and over and OVER again. Who I am and who I could be are two very different ideas in my mind. As someone who lives with a chronic fear of inadequacy, nothing is scarier than the idea of my own potential. 

It was said once… 

“The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream.”

I think this scares me more than almost anything else. I don’t know that it’s that I truly believe I’m inadequate or that I’m not enough, I think it’s that I know that I am, in some way, however I constantly feel like I’m falling short of everything I could be. That I will never live up to the person that I’m capable of developing into or possibly becoming. 

Keyword… Possibly. 

I’ve had so many questions that were tied directly to my identity. Who am I and who am I becoming? What do I believe about myself and what others have said to and about me? What hopes and dreams do I have? What are my books that need to be written and my songs that need to be sung? (I’m going to leave the cures to be discovered to those brilliant, researcher types…) And what are my fears that get in the way of that first step of actually carrying out those dreams? 

I sit here writing this in the place I grew up. Although it’s familiar, it’s no longer home. It’s the strangest feeling being back here. The person I was when I left is in so many ways, is not the person who sits here writing today. When I left, I was so broken that life didn’t matter anymore. I had let go of the hopes and dreams of my life years before I left here and I was simply existing rather than living. That girl was so terrified of any sort of potential that she rejected it all together and chose the path of destruction because it was so much easier that way. 

After a few years of some serious healing and searching, I’ve found that I care far less about my potential and far more about my purpose. I’ve heard it said that “your potential is everything you could be and your purpose is everything you’re called to be.”

I like that. 

So I guess my question now is what is my purpose in this life? What is my purpose even just today? I blame it on being a HARD enneagram # 4, but this question alone motivates so much of what I do and don’t do in my life. 

I’ve lived my ENTIRE life feeling like a failure because I felt like I wasn’t living up to my potential. The potential of who I wanted to be and who everyone said I could be. And I fell short every single time. 

What I’ve learned in all of this… 

God calls us according to HIS purpose, not OUR potential.

He doesn’t call us to our purpose. He doesn’t call us to anyone else’s idea of our potential. He calls us unto himself, for himself. I’ve learned you can’t run from that. As much as you try. He always runs faster. His purposes ALWAYS prevail. His words never return void. His word is ALWAYS final. In a lot of ways, I used to see this as control and I didn’t understand it. However, over the years, I’ve started to see that his purposes are for his glory and our good. And he is ALWAYS good.

I’ve recently started to understand this more, and I’ve realized that in the searching, that there really is nothing that can separate us from his love. His promises are true… ALWAYS. Under the authority of his purpose, my potential crumbles. And I’m grateful for that. And the more I understand that it’s his purpose and not mine, the more I realize that  I don’t really have to worry about trying to figure it all out anyway. That’s HIS business, not mine. It’s only for me to trust him in this very imperfect process. 

Those dreams I have? He placed in me. Those books I want to write? Those are his words. Those songs still to be sung? Those melodies belong to him. Without him, I would have NOTHING.

What I know is this. No matter where you live, what you do, what you’re struggles are, how you feel or think or where you try to run to, he never changes. He is always the same. Clinging to Him has been the saving grace of my life and I wouldn’t be here to even write this if it weren’t for him and I never want to lose sight of that. I didn’t save myself, he saved me, despite the fact that I was hellbent on destroying my life… because his purposes always prevail. His ways are always higher. 

And for today, I’m grateful.

Thoughts for Wednesday.

~ The Fragrance of my Mother ~ Leave a comment

“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories… water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

Stories. One of my very favorite things in this life. I love true stories. Listening to the experiences of others. I firmly believe stories train our empathy. I’ve always tried to listen from the inside, if that makes sense. To hear from within the story. To hear, smell, taste, see and feel everything as if I were there. 

Some of my favorite stories are that of my Grammy, Mary Louise. She is a beautiful, independent, authentic, creative and deeply insightful woman. A poet, artist and brilliant writer. And her gracious but blatant honesty precedes her. I love that about her. Her experiences are rich and full and she has the wisdom of a life well lived to prove it. Her stories are hers to tell, however I was recalling a conversation I had with her about a year ago and I was reminded of just how valuable experience is. Her past experience speaks to my present; a conversation that went something like this… 

“Sometimes I feel like ‘did I ever do anything right?’  Because the bad stuff is always ready to stand up and take credit. But once you realize the bad stuff is just standing in front of the stuff that you did well, you just have to tell your naysayer where to go sometimes … even when that voice is strong. It’s persuasive and loud. Sometimes it’s hard to know. Is it friend or foe? When it’s trying to silence you, it’s not on your side.” 

These are my naysayers… fear, shame, regret, doubt, insecurity. It’s crazy the way we allow our regrets to speak to us. How loud we allow fear to be in our ears. How much we believe our own insecurities and allow them to tell us who we are. And shame… wants nothing more than to keep us quiet. 

I sit here this morning, so grateful for the wisdom of my Grammy. Whose courage to live in vulnerability has helped me to find my own. To ask every intrusive thought that tells me I did nothing right… “is it friend or foe?” To live with a wild heart wide open and vulnerable. To value the times of struggle and chaos, because there has been unspeakable beauty that came from those ashes. To step on the head of shame with a vulnerable heart and cherish every experience because it all shaped me into who I am today. 

So my thoughts for today…. Tell your story. Say no to fear. Reject regret. Cry it out. Be present. Fall in love. Live authentically. Let your stories, which is life, happen to you. Water them with your blood, tears and laughter until they bloom.

 And tell the naysayers in your life where to go...