the struggle is real

Some days, we're just looking for a soft place to land. ~Dr. SunWolf

that's me.  barely getting my chin over that bar.  and when i saw the picture, all i could think of was "EXACTLY".  that is exactly how i feel right now.  i'm getting my damn chin over the bar, but by the skin of my teeth. and sometimes, by the skin of my teeth is all i've got to offer.

life is hard sometimes.  and not in a tragic, horrific kind of way.  just the everyday kind.  circumstances put you in a place where everything just seems to be harder for some reason.  you are fighting the quicksand, emotionally and physically.  and you just have to keep fighting it, hoping that one day soon, you will clear the mess.  and life will seem easier again.  maybe.

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem. ~Theodore Rubin

expectations certainly play a part in this cycle.  this is supposed to be when it gets easier.  my kids are all independent, and require SO MUCH LESS of me.  it's normal, i think, to expect things to just suddenly get less hard.  and when that doesn't happen, you can start sinking into a bad mental headspace.  add to that some physical aches and pains, and a life challenge or two, and you have this VALLEY that you seem to have fallen in to.  weird how that happens.

Every flower must grow through dirt. ~Proverb

i feel like there are always 2 lives we live.  the one everyone outside of us sees - that is full of happy facebook posts and family pics, kids games and workouts.  the one that shows everyone that you are doing JUST FINE.  and then there is the "inside" life.  where your stress lives.  the one with insomnia, and donuts, and occasionally tears.  the one we try not to share.  who wants to see all that MESS, right?

but what i have come to discover is that THOSE parts are the parts that we NEED to share.  it's easy to share happy.  and believe me, i love to see it.  it's much, much harder to share the "i'm NOT ok" moments.  but these are the moments we need our people. burying it just makes that valley deeper.

The healthy and strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he's got an abscess on his knee or in his soul. ~Rona Barrett

when i wrote about my kids, i would always say "it takes a village".  and it does.  no question.  but i think it also takes a village to make it thru your own life. isolation doesn't help anyone.  small doses, maybe.  but at the end of the day, we need our PEOPLE.  and this is where we struggle.  it is okay to ask for help?  can we admit we need it?  especially when nothing is really "wrong".   we all know it's ok to ask when there is a tragedy.  or something REALLY bad happens.  but for some reason, most of us think it's selfish to ask for help when we don't necessary NEED it - we could just use it.

In union there is strength. ~Aesop

does that make sense?  i don't  need anything specific right now.  maybe a shoulder. or a lunch date. or just a distraction.  but i have finally gotten to the place where i am okay reaching out for it.  because the longer i keep to myself, the deeper this valley gets.  and the harder it is to climb out of it.

as always, life is like the gym for me.  i do better when i work as part of a team.  when i carry the heaviest load on the parts that i'm really good at.  and i ask for help, and rely on someone else to help, with the parts i'm not as good at.  in the gym, i am totally fine not being able to handle everything.  why can't i feel that way in the rest of my life?  life IS a team sport.  we can't do it all alone.   and even if we could, do we want to?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent. ~John Donne

i've come to realize over the last year, that every phase of life has its own awesomeness - and its own challenges.  as i've come to share recently, my kids no longer need me on the daily.  they are all independent.  i don't have a calendar of events to attend, or a weekly schedule to follow.  we are not juggling rides.  and there is SO MUCH freedom in that.  when your kids are 12, 10 & 7 and you want to pull your hair out because you are are just SO FREAKING BUSY, you can't wait to get here.  and guess what?  it IS pretty nice here.  but it's also kind of boring. and a huge adjustment.

Life is rough. If it were smooth, we'd slide right through it without noticing. A bumpy ride teaches us gratitude and perspective. ~Terri Guillemets

so keeping perspective is vital.  no place in your life is perfect.  and no one else's is perfect either.  we are all adjusting on the fly.  for me the biggest lesson has been that i don't have to be STRONG all the time.  it's just not possible.  it's okay to hand the load over when you need to.  it's okay to NOT be okay, even if nothing is actually horrible.  there is a huge distance between awesome and horrible.  and most of us exist on the teeter totter in the middle.

The only thing that's the end of the world is the end of the world. ~President Barack Obama