Pt 4: Down But Not Out
A tale in 4 parts
I went off the grid in Jan 2020 because my life went upside down on purpose & then upside down again… not on purpose. Here’s a little of what was going on while I was going through.
One of the (few) things I know to be true – our most challenging times are our most growth filled times and this time around is no different.
If you are in an ouch season, remember… this too shall pass and when it does, you will be wiser, stronger, and more resilient than you have ever been before.
PT 4 of 4: ⛈ DYNAMITE & THUNDER STORMS
So I don’t know if I can even go to France. I put a dynamite stick in the middle of my very beautiful life and now I truly don’t know if I get to do what I did it all for.
It’s so funny because I almost slammed on the breaks several times. I think of my time at the beach as very separate chapters. It was always the same job and apartment and even roomie, but there were certainly chapters.
I had just wrapped up something at work that I was SO proud of (hi #Inspire) that seemed to have created a sort of professional momentum flood, a new community of friends showed up for me when I needed friends the absolute most as I navigated this tumultuous time, and even the more-than-friends category unexpectedly presented me with ✨THE✨ swooniest guy and his beyond sweet family to keep me smiling as I self-destructed my little life (@ close friends story, you know what’s up)
I felt like I got to read one sentence of what could have been my favorite chapter yet and someone slammed the book shut (well... I slammed it shut...). But I squeezed my eyes closed — kinda like when Hallie cuts Annie’s hair in Parent Trap — and continued to run toward Paris anyways.
And now? Now, I seem to have accidentally + suddenly moved home to El Paso, TX at 28. Jobless and apartment-less with blood test results that are still making doctors frown.
If you see me in person, I’ll smile and crack a joke, but I’m just putting on a brave face. I’m more than a little heartbroken at how this cookie crumbled.
THAT SAID I have three major things that are keeping my chin up —
1.) My prayer was for clear signs. Doors swinging WIDE open or doors slamming shut HARD. If France is more than just massively delayed and is actually canceled, I have to be as receptive to the current slammed door as I was to the original open one. It is an answered prayer regardless. Maybe I’m being protected from something. Maybe time at home (for a little before France or for a lot longer before getting another job/apartment) is what was supposed to be in the plan.
2.) My most uncomfortable, heartbreaking times are always my favorite in hindsight. I grow at 10x the speed. I get a dang good look at who is on my team and who doesn’t actually give a 💩. And most importantly I get insight that turns me into a more empathetic person.
3.) I know there will come a time when I’ll wish my life would come to a screeching halt so I can go back to my childhood home and just spend time with my healthy parents and still kicking 18.5 years old dog. This time is a precious, precious gift.
Why am I even sharing this? The perfectionist in me was grateful I hadn’t said a peep about France so I wouldn’t have to deal with the “AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE IN FRANCE?!” DMs from strangers the way I received the “WHERE’S YOUR BOYFRIEND???!!!!!???” messages on the weekly FOR MONTHS after I closed up shop on my last relationship (I kid you not. I have a whole file of the once hurtful but now hysterical screenshots of them. You cannot make that level of BS up 😂).
But my sister sent me an IG caption by someone named @kathhhgrifff that made me want to write down the full story.
She was writing about hunkering down into her sheets during a thunderstorm that was making her heart hammer louder than the sky. She says, “If the sky can shatter open publicly, then maybe I can too. It’s okay to break. The falling apart, the release — makes for new, sprouting life when the morning comes. I think that’s why I love the rain. It sounds like it’s washing away the entire world. I think the world could use a clean slate, a fresh start. I think I could too.”
For anyone else out there who feels like their life was washed away too — our morning is almost here. And if I don’t get my France and you don’t get your equivalent, at the very least, we get our clean slate. And that was always the point, right?