In the midst of the pain, you’ve got to find your tiny glimmers of hope, your reasons to keep going.
Everything feels overwhelming right now. It has felt that way for over a month. I’ve had some real realizations about my life and the trauma I’ve experienced and although I am giving myself grace and kindness, this process is hard to unpack all of the things I have sort of pushed off as not a big deal.
There’s so much uncertainty in my life, so I have felt myself working 10x harder than I typically would. Burning the midnight oil at both ends, as my mom would say. This is just a season, but it’s been exhausting having to do all of this extra work to make sure we stay afloat.
Charlotte has been sleeping terribly, and I am lucky to get 4 hours of sleep a night. This is leading me to feel so disconnected from her and motherhood in general.
And then the election has been a very heartbreaking reminder that as a black woman, I am merely tolerated, and I am truly fearful and sad for what’s to come.
In many ways, I feel unbalanced right now. It’s all the perfect storm – I am working harder, sleeping less, and everything around me seems to be spiraling. I keep asking myself, “When does it stop?”
But the thing is, this is life. Things tend to be thrown at us over and over as we navigate other really hard challenges. You might be feeling the same way, that you are in desperate need of a break from reality. Or that you can’t take this anymore. Or that you are overwhelmed, fearful, and sad. I get it. I do. But the one thing I can assure you is that this time will pass. I can’t tell you how long you will sit in this overwhelm or fear. I can’t tell you how many times you will ask yourself, “When does it stop?” But eventually, it will. Eventually, you will get a pause.
And while you are in the midst of your pain, I hope you can find some moments of hope around you. I hope you can find some light in the darkness. I hope you can pause and look around you and be grateful for what you do have. I hope you can find peace in the unknown. The unknown has always been so incredibly scary and unsettling for me. I have realized how much anxiety I have about the things I cannot control. But I’ve been re-framing this transitional and challenging period and the unknown future that’s out of my control, to be a beautiful in-between period.
We are in this beautiful in-between period. We aren’t in the past. We carry our past with us in many ways. But we are no longer there. We aren’t in the future. We don’t know where exactly we will end up. We are here. In the beautiful in-between. We have the lessons of our pasts that have grown us to this point and we have the possibility and hope of the future.
And most importantly, we have ourselves right now. You are here. You are alive and breathing. You can reach out and touch something, you can feel your chest rising and falling as you breathe, you can feel your heart beating. You are here. In this beautiful transition period. It’s beautiful because you showed up today. It’s beautiful because you aren’t where you were before, you are a more renowned version of yourself. It’s beautiful because you can become whoever you want to be. It’s beautiful because you aren’t stuck.
I’m learning more and more to embrace this beautiful in-between—this space where I am growing, struggling, and learning. I do not have any of the answers to the unknown, but I know for sure that I will keep going and figure it out on the way.
This is the beautiful in-between. I’m embracing being here right now. I’m embracing the hard, the sad, and the anger. I’m embracing it all because tomorrow it won’t hurt as much. Tomorrow, I will have grown even more. But for now, I am here.
And so are you. Keep going.
Xo,
Be Beautifully Simply You