Be Real: Finding Myself, Yet Again

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2019 wasn’t great for me. I lost my dad, I was anemic, I had terrible migraines requiring an MRI, I had a lump (benign) removed from my breast … It just wasn’t great. I felt like I was falling apart.

I came into 2020 thinking: This is a fresh start. I'm going to get myself together. And, for the first couple months, I totally did. I was going to the gym regularly, reading and listening to more books than ever, planning a family move to a perfect country location…

Then COVID-19 hit.

I think for everyone in the world, this pandemic totally knocked our socks off, pushed us down a hill, rolled us into a briar patch, and then chucked us into a mud bog. What I’m saying is, it threw us for a loop.

Whoa, man.

Suddenly, gyms were closed. Offices, restaurants, parks, playgrounds … you name it, they were closed or were operating under very strict guidelines.

People were (still are) dying. Families were mourning. Our elderly were left isolated and unsure of what really was going on. Many families will mourn forever that they could not be with a loved one during those final hours.

2020 has been a jerk.

With everything going on and the world in turmoil, I lost myself again. This time I lost myself to stress and worry. I was stressed about our jobs and worried about our kids who were now at home trying to figure out how to get some sort of education virtually.

I worried about my mom who was isolated a couple hours away.

I stressed about our house being on the market and our impending move.

When you stress (or at least when I stress), I eat and I bite my nails. So as you can imagine, going back to the office after those months of quarantine/isolation – it is not pretty.

And, here I am at the end of summer (still stressing about school this fall) realizing that Girl, I Need to Get It Together.

No matter what is going on in the world – our health and especially our mental health is SO important. I need to pick myself up by the bootstraps and worry about just one issue at a time. Find that one solution and then move to the next problem.

Just. One. Thing. At. A. Time.

It is all we can do. And, it saves us from trying to solve all the world’s problems in an afternoon. Take a breath. Take a moment for yourself. Put on an audiobook or music.

Life can throw you for a loop, but that doesn’t mean you have to lose yourself over it. Remember who you are. Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself who you are. Tell yourself what is GREAT about YOU!

Don’t lose sight of who you are and the journey you are on. I would say – we are all in this together – but honestly, we aren’t. Only you can navigate your personal journey. Only you can put down that cheeseburger and pick up a salad. Only you can remind yourself of the amazing characteristics you own inside yourself. And, only you can tell that stressed-out, nail-biting weirdo in the back of your subconscious to pipe down.

You’ve got this.