Progress?

It has been a while my friends. Honestly I don’t remember when I posted last, only that it was before I moved. I could blame it on the fact that I didn’t have internet the first month and half that I moved, or a friend coming to town. But the truth is, I just haven’t known what to write about. I haven’t had a lot of inspiring moments that make me want to write.

So much has happened and I feel like I haven’t processed any of it. Don’t get me wrong, I am someone who loves growth and always am looking for things to learn and experience. Ways to grow as a human. But recently it the growth has hit a new level and it’s painful. It is painful to become aware of your flaws and shortcomings and actively choose to work on those. It is also exhausting. I have learned that my brain is constantly going and over the years I have just gotten good at drowning it out. I have learned my ability to know how much energy I have at any given time and know which activities will deplete it is holding me back. I have found myself engaging in shame talk with myself without even recognizing it. That I am someone who deeply craves acceptance. That it is incredibly hard for me to take criticism and not throw away every good thing that person said to focus solely on that comment. In all of this, I am an all-or-nothing person and learning how to manage my behavior and learn how to better cope with the world around me.

But in saying all of this it is easy to stop digging and become stuck in this person that I am. But I often come back to the person I was when I stepped off the flight in Spokane a little over a year ago. Someone who was hungry for the challenge and ready to grow. Now I feel like a child in the middle of the night with growing pains. Crying that it hurts, tired, hoping for some relief. But at some point the pain fades and it was worth it.

Over the past week or so I have been talking with people about how much I have grown this past year. If I am being honest I don’t feel like I have really grown that much. It is so hard to see the forest through the trees. But today talking to my mom it was a moment of seeing how far I have come. I am more vulnerable, aware of my own emotions, identifying those emotions, and working through them. That I am learning that criticism doesn’t mean I didn’t do a good job that there is just room for improvement.

Something else that I have come to realize working in the ER has challenged who I am at my core. As my mom would say I am fiercely independent, but that makes it hard sometimes when you are always working with a team. It is hard for me to read a room, and manage expectations of not only myself but those in a room. It is exhausting for me. Yet here I am working in the ER. I know this is where I am supposed to be and every day I am starting to realize that it’s okay to not be okay. It is okay to not understand where God has put you. Why he is making you wait, or why he is calling you to the deep. I just pray that the Lord walks with me and that this would all be for his glory.