Progress

It has been over 2 years. I have not posted for over 2 years. I am not going to lie. I have beat myself up about that endlessly. In a lot of ways, I spent the pandemic retreating into myself. I put my writing and most other creative endeavors on hold. I wrestled with the thought of selling my domain and quitting the blog altogether. Previously, I would go for a walk and an idea for the blog would present itself effortlessly. I would sit down and write it out very quickly and I was always very pleased with that simple and ridiculous process. That came to a halt when the pandemic happened. I felt lost with projects. I loved the idea of using that time to learn and build and create. I planned to continue to work on myself and explore the outdoors. A lot of those things just lost priority. I let my previous dreams move to the periphery. I believe that I did so in order to feel control over my life in a time when I felt powerless. I stopped going on hikes. I lost all motivation to maintain my dietary changes and found solace in any junk food I could get my hands on. In a lot of areas, my anxiety has regained a foothold in my psyche. I have admonished myself for losing what progress I had made. All that work down the cliched drain. And all of my arrogant “I’m never going back to ___ weight” or “I’m never going to stop these new, healthy habits” were proof that my whole Never Say Never philosophy was bullshit. I felt like a coward and a hypocrite. So I just stopped.

Now I am trying to forgive that person. I am trying to forgive myself for surviving. I am trying to forgive myself for setting priorities and boundaries in a situation where routine and predictability could no longer be trusted or relied upon. I am realizing that sometimes progress is not a linear model. Maybe progress is like a tree (you know how I love a tree analogy). Maybe progress branches out in different directions because life cannot sustain in a vacuum. I had to shift my entire career into a completely different modality in the course of weeks. I had to cope with and process the decline of my father’s health and learn how to say goodbye to one of the most important people in my life. I had to revisit my education on the grieving process and reluctantly experience the fact that grief has no rules, no timeline, and no structure. My analytical brain got extremely frustrated with that concept.

I say these things, not as an excuse. But I say them to allow myself to empathize…with myself. I say them to follow the advice of my counselor and speak to myself the way I would speak to my child or to a friend that was trying to learn something. I say them to give myself a tiny break and give myself some perspective on the coping mechanisms that I have developed. I also have to take a step back and realize that in the midst of all of that turmoil, I sought and am fostering a beautiful and healthy relationship. I am learning communication skills. It seems like someone with advanced degrees in Communication Sciences and Disorders shouldn’t have had so much trouble with that, but I digress. I am learning to admit that I am not ok. And I am learning how to tell people what I need (and that it is ok to have needs). I am learning that extreme independence is a trauma response and that I can trust other people to love me. I am learning that progress is a process.

What have you learned about yourself in the past 2 years?