Uncomfortable

As a writer and story teller, I can guide the reader through the story the way I want. I can guide you through my story, my life, the way I want. I think this is part of why I dove into writing, it gives me a sense of control and ownership over my story. I get to tell it the way I want. I get to tell it in my truth. 

In telling my story I lean heavily into the narrative of how wounded I’ve been and how much healing I’ve gotten. And that’s true, it’s a valid part of my story, but in sharing my truth there are pieces that I hide. I hide how truly scared I still get and how angry I still feel. I try to write it as, “I used to feel this way but not so much anymore.” 

That’s not true, I’m still terrified, I just lean into courage at the same time. 

I’m lonelier than I’ve ever been, but I also feel more loved than ever because I am open to receiving it, and love is always there. 

I’m still just as angry as I’ve always been, I just do my best to keep it in the places it belongs instead of letting it bleed into every area of my life. 

I’ve moved away and created safety in my life and space, but some nights I still sleep with the lights on because the terror of the night doesn’t leave in the distance. 

I’m highly sensitive, high functioning, and hyper vigilant. To me that means my dreams, happiness, and light coexist with my fear, anger, and trauma. It means not abandoning myself and giving all of me a place to be. 

Over the last year, I’ve put more work into myself than I ever have and the harvest is here, the first harvest I’m actually partaking in and letting myself have. 

But I had this fairytale idea of harvest, I thought it would come and be like a honeymoon experience, all bliss and sunshine. Freedom from the before. 

And it is freedom from before, but low and behold it isn’t the fantasy that I told myself it would be. It is a balance in life of existing in the harvest and at the same time knowing it will end and the trials will come again. It is not remaining ignorant to either one, and not letting either steal from the other. It’s full, but delicate.

We need to experience each one. The harvest nurtures and strengthens us for the trial and the trial works the ground for the next harvest. 

Yesterday I reached some new ground. A trauma memory with devastating soil and no light. The only way to get a harvest is to work the ground and bring in the light, but truth be told I don’t want to, I want to stay in this harvest longer. I want to close my eyes and be ignorant that the harvest will end.

But I know that this harvest will soon not be enough to keep me full and I’ll need to start working new ground in my heart. 

My tendency when I’m afraid of what’s coming is to shift my perspective and tell myself a new story about my life. The way I lead readers through a story, I start to lead myself the same.

I start rationing, anything to keep the harvest longer and spread it out. 

This is what I would always do emotionally when I felt like I was running low. 

But that is not the point of a harvest, a harvest isn’t there to ration, a harvest is there to have as much as you want. Rationing a harvest is pointless, it cannot live beyond its time. But it can and does fill you with what you need for the next moment if you partake and not try to change what it is.

My fear is that I can’t do it again. 

I think if I shift my perspective and change the story I’m telling myself to support that belief then I won’t have to. 

But I would be lying to myself and abandoning myself. 

I would have to change the story to say that I’m small and weak, a victim, alone, purposeless, and nothing I do makes a difference in this world. That new narrative will keep me from continuing to the next ground to work in my heart but it will also steal away the current harvest and the one to come.

I’m tired, but I’ve come too far and I know too much to live in that story, in that lie, because I know it to be a pointless illusion of safety. 

The truth is—I’m not a victim. I’m strong even in my weakness because I don’t hide them. I’m not alone even if I am physically. I’m not purposeless, there is so much meaning to my life that I have and haven’t seen yet. I can choose to create beauty and goodness from my life and give it to the world if I so choose. 

And what this harvest has given me is a deep uncomfortability with the story that keeps me stuck. 

And I am so damn grateful to be so damn uncomfortable.  

-Sarah