Penned Musing: Rude Awakening 

Sitting across from my new friend at her kitchen table she says,

My friend follows you on Instagram. She said she sometimes feels guilty that she got kids and you didn’t.

I smile with loving appreciation and reply,

I wasn’t always this person. God gave me those three babies, I have no doubt, to make me fight for the person I am today. No guilt needed.

Do we really have to suffer and lose to gain?

Only with the hindsight of time and the work of recovery do we actually walk into the gain.

Would I trade it all for my babies?

No doubt.

Do I consider this all a gift and trust it is exactly as it is supposed to be?

Absolutely.

I was different before. My demons much more powerful, keeping me shackled in the darkness of mild depression, anxiety, and most of all, perfectionism and scarcity.

I struggled daily. What I did not know then is that a huge part of my struggle was not fully embracing all the parts of my story and of myself. Accepting that happiness is a perspective, a choice and work.

And most of all finding my voice, my light and living it out loud without apology.

It is a rude awakening.

Because when you awaken, you awaken to the dark parts of you and your weaknesses.

But in the fully awakened in color life you also realize that within this darkness is also your light.

That in this complicated gray of the dark and the light of ourselves lies our truest self.