Absent

         
         I have been absent for a rather large amount of time again here on my blog. I have on numerous occasions over the last few weeks started drafts, finished drafts, deleted drafts and open to blank screens to start writing but I just wasn't feeling the energy that I so often do when I post something. Many times before I post I feel something in me urging me to post whatever I have written but over the last few weeks that urge has been missing and the desire I once had to share so much of myself in hopes of helping just one person better understand or feel less alone in the journey of depression, anxiety or any mental illness. But here I am writing again tonight, and there is a fire again to share my story, my journey, and the many bumps in the road that some days still come up.
         Once again it fall back to my friends. Once again they have ignited the flame for me to be a better person and experience life more boldly. Last night I went to dinner with two of my close friends, the two people that were on the front lines when my life "blew up" in high school. They were the two that received the first texts and all of the important ones following, received phone calls, and pushed me to get the help I needed through careful conversation and finding the right people to get me help at the time. As I was talking to one of them in the parking lot last night following dinner I realized how amazing the people around me are, how I have been gift with great people to help me through all this and you might say, yeah we know, you've said it a thousand times already. But what is so different about this revelation about the amazing people I have in my life is that this time I realized I have these people to help me to share my story, to help me to improve myself even further, and to continue to experience life together in a way that I could not do alone.
           Often times in life people hit points in life that they think their self work is done or their work is at a stand still. Over the last month or so I have continued to do self work but I have felt like I was getting nowhere. I was caught up in the beginning of my first year of teaching and the stresses that come with being a new teacher, surrounded by students with many needs and the unrealistic goals that I had set for myself back in August. I was focused on the struggle and the stress that I was feeling and to some degree the bubble that had popped for me when I realized there are so many hours in the day that I can be a teacher, the other hours I need to spend just as me the person, not me the teacher. After last night I realize that I still can be the teacher that I imagined and wanted to be in August. I just have to find a different way to approach it. I can only be the best teacher, or the best me for that matter if I find time for myself. If I find time to leave the lesson plans, grading, IEP's, emails, laminating, and center making at school I can spend time enjoying my family, friends, books, music, and the many things that for the last 4 weeks to some degree I have abandon. So this weekend, it sits. It sits waiting until Monday so that I can recharge and love what I do. So I can be the best me for me and for my students. And with that I feel like I can share more of myself once again here on my blog because I have allowed myself to be free of just one thing but embrace so many things in my life that make me who I am.
   Now that I have freed myself of the all consuming need to be 'super' teacher and actually get everything done on my list for that I can spend time once again focusing on my story and how God has given me the chance to share it and embrace it. I  can focus on finally writing it all down and closing one chapter to move on to the next. I can spend time with myself and those close to me reflecting on the gifts that have come from my struggles and how I can use those gifts to not only empower myself but others. Thank you to my 'village' of supportive, beautiful people who will forever amaze me and be the strongest people I know. As I have hinted at before exciting things are coming and last night I realized these people once again are on a crazy adventure with me to make these exciting things happen. I look forward to sharing more with all of you about what exciting things are to come and the next step in this never ending, crazy adventure called life.