Transition

Recently we made the decision to take my kiddos out of daycare and bring them home.

I was ready. After almost 3 years of being completely detached from my life, I had done the healing work and I felt ready for my babies to finally be home with me.

We are only a few days into this and I’ve already lost my cool more times than I care to admit.

I know that I’m not the same girl I was, because even in my “losing my cool” I am not losing full control or just completely checking out. I apologize and clean up my mess and try to evaluate what just happened and what can I do to stop it from happening again. So even though this is a tough transition, it’s nothing like it used to be. For that I am so grateful.

But if I’m honest, I can feel everything piling up inside. I haven’t had any proper recharging time, and this introvert is feeling it.

From super clingy kiddos to daily chores/overwhelming amount of housework to catch up on, to craving friendship, to financial pressure…it begins to weigh on me. And that’s where I’m at tonight.

I said something mean in my anger to my husband and I knew I had reached my breaking point. I locked myself in the bathroom for awhile even though I didn’t have to go. It was the only space in the house I felt like I could close a door and really truly be alone.

Oddly enough, it worked. I started to return to myself a bit, but I knew I wasn’t ready to go back in with my family yet. So I grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Non-Dairy Cherry Garcia and plopped myself on the back porch to get some fresh air and try to get some perspective. (No, I didn’t eat the whole pint. Haha. I ate maybe a 1/4 cup and was satisfied.)

I put on the Sleeping at Last Enneagram 4 podcast because I wanted to hear the reasoning behind the song Four (written for those of us that are a 4 on the Enneagram).

I was not prepared for the commentary from the Enneagram expert. I wasn’t prepared to hear them say the things I have always felt about myself but could never find the right words to explain…or never felt quite right saying about myself.

FOUR

i’m turning out the lights
to remember how to see
until a renaissance takes place
and resuscitates the color of paint and divinity

as if God hid the building blocks
of every beautiful thing
in this game of hide and seek
i can’t help but think that ordinary has swallowed the key

bodies fashioned out of dirt and dust
for a moment we get to be glorious
ice sculptures adorned in light
sand castles built tall in between the tides

maybe i’m hiding behind metaphor
maybe my heart needs to break to be sure
one day i’ll wear it all on my sleeve
the insignificant with the sacred unique

but i’ve fallen in love with a ghost
and i lost my balance when i needed it most
this blurry photograph is proof
of what i’m not sure but it feels like truth

i’m stuck swimming in shadows down here
it’s been forever since i came up for air
flashlight in hand determined to find
authenticity only poetry could even begin to try to describe

bodies fashioned out of dirt and dust
for a moment we get to be glorious

what if we already are
who we’ve been dying to become
in certain light i can plainly see
a reflection of magnificence
hidden in you
maybe even in me

I was being eaten by mosquitos so I retreated before I could finish the podcast, but I knew I needed to sit for a minute right here with this “pen and paper” and process.

I am a verbal processor, and while I will not always process here on this space unfiltered, I will be honest about where I’m at. For awhile I stopped writing what I actually felt…stopped even saying it out loud as if even saying it would utterly destroy me.

But I learned something about myself. The less I express, the sicker I get. It gets stuffed inside and manifests in my digestive system, or in achy bones, or headaches. And then there are explosions of epic proportions and I don’t want that to be my life anymore.

So I’ve evicted the voices in my head of other folks that have told me how to live and instead I am choosing to take deep breaths and process this life the way that I need to.

I am not who I was, and for that I am so thankful. There is so much hope and light now, whereas before it was such deep darkness and sadness. I never ever want to go back there, so I’ll continue to show up here in this space, and on my social media, and maybe even in a song or two in the near future. Because expressing my truth makes me happier than stuffing it all in just because it’s too much for other people to see/hear.

I don’t have to apologize for who I am anymore. That alone makes me take the deepest, most satisfying sigh. And while it’s not a license to be ugly or act a certain way, it is helping me come to this deep-inner core acceptance of myself. It is aligning me to a design that I can weigh everything I see and hear against to always settle back on my Truth.

I can hear Him say, “This is who you are, My child. Please don’t let the world change you…the deep, core of you is all beautifully on purpose. I purposely drew you to feel and think and see things the rest of the world cannot. Do not question why you see and others do not…but embrace it My love. You know that you are a ‘Translator’ between Heaven and Earth. But when you get distracted by getting permission to be one, you miss what I have for you. You miss the sunset because you’re so busy asking if it’s okay that you feel all the colors of it. You are My special song…the one I cannot stop singing. You hear My heartbeat and you can feel how deeply I love all of My children. So start telling them! Don’t be afraid anymore. Don’t ask permission to be yourself. Don’t apologize. Embrace. JUMP! Those that cannot accept you will walk away, and you can still shed tears while you bless them as they go. But remember that it has nothing to do with you.”

I truly do beat to my very own drum. For 35 years I have rejected myself, but not anymore. Today I accept all of me. The good, the bad, the ugly, the glorious.

And while I will still continue to push to see others and meet their needs and show up honorably and respectfully, I will do so through the lens of love and not from needing approval. Or to belong. Or to get someone else to tell me who I am.

Because I know who I am now. Now I just get to learn to live that out!

Have you taken the Enneagram test yet? (If not, I linked it up above!) What’s your number?! Mine is 4w3. 🙂

Blessings,
~Nikki