Learning to take care of yourself is a must. Today this blog is very personal and not so much advisory. Writing is healing and I need to start my healing process. For the first time in my 30-year professional career, this week, I reached my breaking point. It wasn’t just the work that was overwhelming me, that I can almost do in my sleep. It was the fact that I haven’t truly dealt with my anxieties and grief as well as I thought, and it came knocking on the door ready to collect.
I must wonder when I stopped processing the losses. I’ve sat up these past few nights and have really dug into my past all the way back to when the first major blow hit me, the loss of my Grandfather, at the age of 16. That was devasting to me for so many reasons and such a pivotal moment in my life for others. It changed me. His death and the timing of it really shaped the personality of who I am today and how I interact with others and that is not a cliché.
Prior to his death we were awfully close, and I spent a good amount of time with him. As a teenager, I used slang language which he did not understand and in doing so I said something about a picture of my mother which he thought I was insulting her, I wasn’t. Our disagreement got heated and I left and didn’t speak with him for several months. I couldn’t take the separation, so I swallowed my pride, went back, apologized, spent the next week in his face and then he died.
Since then, I made it my business to not hold grudges or keep my distance from those that I love. I’ve lost so many loved ones, family, and friends, and I don’t have any regrets. I do feel however in this last year, with COVID-19, like many others, no sense of closure and that has me on edge and reflecting, re-living feelings that I thought I processed.
I’m going to be fully transparent with my woes today so that I can hopefully help somebody else out. Twisting the top on pandora’s box is dangerous but I’m hopeful in my life it will be extremely healing and allow me to recharge and regroup.
Another combination of losses, a cluster if you will, that I have never truly processed happened in 2015. It was a loss of many things, including life. For starters, my Mom died. As if that was not a big enough blow to knock you down, my Husband came home from Afghanistan after several years on contract work, ON THE SAME DAY MY MOM DIED. How does one process excitement at reuniting with their spouse and sorrow of losing their best friend/parent?
He came back with his own issues that I could not be fully present to help him with in the immediate and shortly thereafter, less than 3 months, we got a double whammy that I had Lupus and his best friend/brother was diagnosed with colon cancer. His brother was close to me as well. A great support system to me and my Mom while my Husband was overseas. His passing rocked us.
And the losses keep coming…. Since the week of Thanksgiving, I have been informed of 5 deaths. 3 are personal to me. I don’t even want to say how many people have been lost since the start of 2020. At some point, the dam was going to break. Mine just did.
I made the wise decision to take a leave of absence from work to gather myself. I must go back to at least 2015 and process. Then I need to forward to 2017 when my sister and I made back-to-back trips down the turnpike for funerals. I had a birthday party, my 45th and my dear friend was there. A week and a half later, she had transitioned. It is a lot. There were so many people.
The anxieties that I worried about with COVID-19 and the election/transition; they are still there. That makes this next step of my journey more intense but not difficult. The hardest thing to do is to step forward and say, I’m not ok. I did that. Now I’m doing the work.
Pray for me and keep yourselves safe! The world is still turning, and the pandemic is real!
I love you all and until next time….
7 replies on “Self-Care is Necessary”
I love you sooo very much and I may just be a kid to you but PLEASE! If you want to just cry, call me!!! I wish I could hug you!!! Sending you immense bear hugs all the way from Ohio!!!!!
Thank you, I accept all the love and support and know that I love you just as much!
I pray your transparency helps others immensely. I second that comment, “I am not okay!” And I know I will be alright. To you and everyone reading this post, let us all be a tower of support and strength for one another. When we stand together, we can hold each other up.
I know that if anyone understands the turmoil these past few years have been, you do. There is so much overlap of course and then there is everything you carry separately in your world. I encourage you to do the best you can to find self-care. You need it too! We will always have each other’s backs.
Thank u for this post. For so long WE as women, especially women of God have a hard time admitting that we are not ok. We smile, grin and press forward with our daily routine and making sure everyone else are ok. But rarely take the time needed to self- reflect and allow ourselves to feel, deal and heal. Your transparency is apart of your beauty and I thank u for this blog. I may not comment often but I pay attention and support the move. Thank u for this thread at such a time as this. As I comment I am currently awaiting covid tests results for myself and my family because I tested positive on Thursday. Needless to say I am scared because this thing is really killing people. My baby is only 14 months. I would lay down my life for him and will be sooo hurt if he has this virus from me. All I can do is pray. At the same time I am not ok because I cannot afford to be out of work right now. Granted it is a pandemic but bills don’t stop. And we must eat. So no, I am NOT ok. But all I can do is pray and trust the process. Thank u for allowing me to share. Love you❤
Please know that I am praying for you and the family. You are a warrior and that will not change. I appreciate your words of support and am grateful that it is allowing others to say out loud that they are not ok. We will not break! What we will do as you stated so well is feel, deal and heal. When we hear that there are others out that who are going through similar situations and emotions like ours, and we speak up about it, it lessons the stronghold that the enemy has placed on us. Stay strong and know that there is a support system praying for you always!
Being a witness to the hits you had over the last couple years and how you haven’t fully grasped them because at some point, you were worried about others, has always bothered me. I didn’t know what to do about it as your daughter but i know exactly how you feel. I feel like i couldn’t catch a break since i graduated college in 2018. My process WAS to keep quiet and if i cry about it, I’ll just cry about it for a little then be okay.. in reality i was never okay. Many people claim me as a strong individual because the obstacles I’ve faced since i was at a very young age, I’ve overcame like nothing. Truth to the matter is, i just became numb to it all. My most recent loss .. broke me. I still feel empty sometimes. However, i made an oath to myself to stop holding in my anger and grievances. So, i applaud you for taking a step back from your job to really deal with everything you’ve temporarily slid under the rug. It takes a strong woman to have to do that.