I know I have said this a number of times in blogs lately but the last 2+years have been hard on a level that one day I am sure I will share in hopes to help other people through their hard. Yesterday was a day of intentional healing for me; I have never been great at showing people, even especially Ian, where I am at emotionally. I think I have begun to uncover why but the point is I often felt as though if I was truly honest I would hurt him or worse he would choose to leave to escape the pain of me. This belief lead me to stuff my feelings through just about every intense life event both painful and joyous. I wouldn’t allow my emotions to spill over on him until I was losing my ever-loving mind and then I would as quickly as possible gather myself and push on like nothing was wrong. This weekend I shared with Ian areas where I had hidden and not expressed my need of his strength. He was gracious to me as he wrapped his arms around me and told me all of the things my heart had been so desperately longing for. I cried. He took the boys so I could have time.
As I sat there on the floor in my bedroom I began to write out a linear timeline of the last two years. Things I had not wanted to officially put on paper because if I did there was a record of it, the memories I have so hoped would one day leave that I knew wouldn’t would be forever in my leather-bound journal for generations to come to read. You know what, there was a release in that action. There was a connection in my heart in a new way that those things happened; I am still here, living, breathing and learning to thrive.
Shortly after I had finished writing clouds that had been building and billowing all day finally released all they had been holding on to. There was no lightning or thunder just an abrupt, sustaining downpour. As it continued I knew what I had to do. I was home alone to have time to relax and the next thing I knew I was running outside to play. It was as if the rain came to wash away the emotions I had been carrying, cleansing my soul of the pain.
I sent this to Ian and asked him to come home and play:
So he did!
When the rain comes, choose to play. Life will always be messy, pain is inevitable but when you are in the thick of it don’t let it take your spark, always, always play.
