I Know Why the Seasons Change

 

Feeling lost as an adult can be one of the scariest feelings. Pack on motherhood, marriage and all other grown-up responsibilities, and it’s all I can do not to crawl back in my mother’s womb or beg to be swaddled and rocked.

Have you ever felt lost? Or maybe without direction?

It’s confusing, because as mothers and parents, we are supposed to know who we are. We are supposed to identify with being a parent first and foremost, right? But what if we don’t? What if we love our role in that aspect, but don’t identify the way society says we should? Then what?

Am I an awful mother? An awful person? Selfish, maybe? Insensitive?

That’s been my life’s journey and quest. To find ME, while in the trenches of motherhood and marriage and career and responsibilities and obligations. I imagine it’s been many of yours’, too.

It’s been a series of successes and torments, one right after the other. Searching for something I think I need, getting it, then realizing, “nope that wasn’t it.” Struggling on the inside while keeping every fucking ball in the air on the outside. An exhausting juggling act that was layered with good intent but lackluster results, at least as far as my happiness goes.

Acknowledging my failed efforts to achieve contentment on the inside was something I was good at doing but terrible at doing anything about. Because I lacked direction on which way I wanted to go. Torn between many different worlds without a clue on how to merge them together.

The struggle was REAL.

That is until I got real. Real with myself and everyone around me. Real about my needs. My REAL needs. Real about my desires and real about my ultimate goal in this life, which I’m not gonna lie, took some serious searching for.

And then it was as if I woke up one day and knew what I needed to do. So I did.

I began to say no when I needed to say no. I stopped engaging and entertaining people and interactions that no longer brought me joy. I only did what I could, without feeling guilty about not doing what I couldn’t or just simply didn’t want to.

I decided to only be authentic. Being authentic to myself and to others, immediately set the tone and foundation of every relationship that began to form, even with people I had known forever. I no longer tried to be something I wasn’t. Yes it was freeing, but also terrifying.

What if I lose friends that I want to keep?

What if people don’t like me?

What if people judge me?

What if I cuss too much?

WHO GIVES A SHIT! Became my motto. And still is by the way.

But I became more humble in a way I never had, and intensely GRATEFUL. Grateful for the people who I chose to have in my life, and especially the ones I chose to dismiss from my life. Because they were my teachers. They were the ones who helped guide me down a path I either wanted to go, or wanted to steer clear of. How would I have known if I hadn’t tried?

I needed the experience to know any better. But now that I do, it’s my responsibility to stick to what’s right and good for me. That’s the only way to stay on my path and get to where I’m going.

I didn’t understand why I was feeling lost, or why I didn’t feel like myself. I thought, “I must be doing something else wrong among the slew of my other shortcomings.”

Once I found my contentment by staying true to me, I finally understood why things happened the way they did, and why they always do.

It was a season in my life that was necessary for my growth. Like all the seasons before it. It doesn’t  last forever, it will never stay the same, and it will always change. Because we are always changing, growing and expanding.

Most lives are made up of so many beautiful and heartbreaking seasons. We’ll always have those favorites to look back on and smile. The ones to look back on and say, “wow I learned so much that season.”

And the one we’re in.

I’m currently in one of the most liberating seasons of my life. Maybe that’s why they say it just keeps getting better.

Maybe this is all a part of the process of growing up and growing older.

Wherever I am, whatever this is, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This season is stunningly beautiful.