For quite some time, I thought I had lost myself and needed to "recreate" me. Instead, in trying to recreate myself, I found that perhaps I am more in touch with myself than I thought. The past couple of years have been extremely difficult ones on so many levels (that's a whole other post), culminating in this time in which I feel overwhelmed, over-burdened, and simply lost. Sometimes I think about who and where I am right now and I see little resemblance to the person I once was or intended to be or want to be. My responsibilities and burdens pull me so far away from enjoying life to its fullest and sometimes even from enjoying life period. Some days I don't even know what that means to me exactly. I can't focus on things that I once enjoyed or devoted time to because I'm just too far away from that right now.
I know I'm not the only one who has a million plates spinning at once. It's all ironic in a way because this is something I've always handled with a fair amount of ease. I'm good with crises and emergencies and stress and problems. I'm a problem solver. I take care of people, situations, whatever it may be. But this time is not the same. There is no relief. The pressure is always there, never ceasing, telling me that I have to do this, i have to do that, I can't do this, I can't do that, take care of this, take care of that; be supermom; be superwife; be super at work. I think it's because I don't have the resources with which to maintain or accomplish all those obligations that makes me such a wreck. It makes my head hurt from trying to think of a way to resolve all the problems we face. It makes me want to run away in the night and never return.
With some recent introspection, I conclude that the very fact that I can recognize that I feel so very far removed from who I am means that I am connected enough to my core to know that I'm being pulled further and further down in the quagmire of all the burdens that rest on my shoulders. Thus, I'm not lost. I haven't lost myself completely. I just lost touch with the inner me for a bit. And also, there is the little fact of knowing that I am indeed super :) and I am capable of doing and taking on so much. I've just allowed myself be overrun with an end result being a lack of balance.
So, my question now has changed from how do i recreate myself to how do i reconnect with myself and improve myself when i feel as though my well is empty and depleted? How do I give back to myself when the well has run dry and I still have more that I must give to others? One cannot give for long from a well which has run dry without beginning to feel hopeless and defeated. I WAS NEVER MEANT FOR A DEFEATED MINDSET.
I have to find balance again, both an inner balance and outer balance. Some of that, I can do. I am good at centering myself usually, but the layers under which I am buried are so deep now, it will take much more than what I can do on my own. I must be broken and built back up. It will take Sir reaching deep down into the empty well of my soul and pulling me out and refilling the well. It won't be a pretty process. As much as I need it, I don't look forward to it. I don't break easily. I fight it even when I need it. He's never had to do anything quite as extreme as this to get me back on track. It's been since before I knew Him that I've been in a place so desolate. And as much as I don't look forward to it, I crave it, I hunger for it, I need it as much as I need air to breathe.
In the meantime, I must start giving myself the gift of me. More to add to that later. :)
