Hello Friends,

First, I want to thank you for your kindness, kindredness and understanding …. for all of your words of encouragement and nods of YES I UNDERSTAND when I wrote a few days ago IN THIS BLOG POST about the deep funk I’ve been in ….. someday I will tell you the details of what’s been happening and how it has shaken up my insides……but for now, it’s so good to know that you just “get it” … which proves once again….that when it all comes down to it…we are all so much the same.

Ok……

So we are working on a new ecourse that will start this Fall called Brave Girl Soul Comfort … and you are going to LOVE IT. But over the summer, that means that we at BGC must practice very good soul care and self care so that we can be good teachers and good examples.

So…we have instituted SOUL CARE SUMMER…..and part of that will be a daily journaling check in. But…here’s the rules….it can only be one paragraph, one question, and you can only write for one minute. THIS WAY, it takes the pressure off to do more than that. So……you will see….each day (hopefully) I will be choosing a question out of the bowl of prompts and writing one paragraph.

THIS is my way to get back into writing after a long and painful hiatus…..and it is also a form of self care, to check in with yourself daily like this….you are invited to join me!!! Just write your answer in the comments to the same question I am posting. It will be so fun to do this together….and this is just a tiny piece of what’s to come in our next ecourse this Fall…..ok….let’s begin!!!!

Here’s the question I drew today…..(and now to keep it to one paragraph)

Today I can face the things I have been ignoring with silent glares….the ten pounds I’ve gained….my unplucked eyebrows…..the laundry that has been piling up. I can face it and decide what to do about it, instead of letting it pile up on my shoulders like bricks that make them ache until I can’t look to the left, or look to the right. Today I can make choices instead of standing in a state of paralysis. Today I can make things better by putting my towels in the washer, and pulling out my tweezers and stepping outside….and then taking another step…and then another….telling the weight that I don’t need it to protect me anymore….I am strong enough. 

People ask me all the time if I ever have a bad day. Here’s my answer…..

HECK YES I DO.

I’m in the middle of many months of very hard days…………..and I know this time will pass…..but, it has NOT been any kind of fun. But I am not gonna hide out anymore. I am going to step out into the light, even with tear streaked cheeks……..because I still believe that life is beautiful, most of the time. (I’m holding out for it right now)

Just so you are not disappointed….this is not about a scandal, or any kind of drama……it is just about a really big bump in the road that has been kicking my bootie BIG TIME….and how I’m tired of hiding out until it goes away.

I have not *really* blogged in a very long time. I keep waiting for things to turn around so that I can talk about all of the stuff I learned during this bump in the road….but it still isn’t resolved, and I have no idea how long it will take. I’m not going to go into details…..but it’s been one thing on top of another…But I am going to start writing again. I am going to write honestly and simply. I am sick of hiding out, waiting for a resolution that I can write about. I am not good at faking it…I am not good at glossing things over….I don’t even try to do that…..so when things are tough, it seems that I hide out until things are fixed…and while hiding, I work tirelessly to fix things myself….and what I do is just wear myself out.  I don’t know why I am so afraid to write through the uncertainty……I have hated all of the things happening right now that feel unfair, yucky, exhausting, scary, confusing and hurtful….and I have really waited daily for all of it to go away before I can write about it…….but guess what?…I am a brave girl….

So…here goes….

I know a lot of stuff. There is even more stuff that I don’t know.

One thing I know for sure is that crappy stuff happens to everyone. I know that. Sometimes I forget that I know that though, and when crappy stuff happens….I feel like I failed big time…and I often I feel like there must be something I could have done differently to make it so that it didn’t happen. Something I am learning this time around is that this is not always the case. Sometimes crappy stuff just happens….even when you are doing everything “right”

Well…..a few weeks ago…..I did what I always try to do, and I literally took the crap….which I shall now refer to as doo-doo……..that we had in a pile in our backyard….ready to be tilled in with the soil….and I mixed it in carefully with the soil so that my garden would blossom and bloom and prosper with big red tomatoes and perfect cucumbers and peppers……and then, I very carefully planted 12 tomato plants, and 12 cucumber plants, and 12 pepper plants….and flowers all the way around the garden…..I put up the tomato cages….and I very carefully watered the garden. I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT. I DID EVERYTHING THAT I KNOW HOW TO DO. I DID EVERYTHING THAT I COULD.

That night….

it frosted.

It killed my entire garden.

and THAT my friends…….is how much of the last 3 months have gone.

I did everything right that I know how to do…..and it still didn’t work out………and it sure felt like a punch in the gut, a kick in the face and a spit on the shoe……..all sorts of things have happened like that the last few months, it seems……….stuff that I have feared for a long time happened, stuff that I worked hard to avoid happened….stuff I worked hard to plant and grow died…..

…and guess what? It stings, it hurts, it stinks. It is NOT FUN. I DO NOT LIKE IT.

No….I do not like it…not one little bit.

But the thing is…there is still so much THAT IS ALIVE. and there is still SO MUCH THAT I CAN PLANT……(even if right now I want to give up and never plant anything again…..I love flowers too much, I love growing and nurturing and watering things to much….I love watching things grow too much…) I know that I just have to keep planting things….I just do…..

and sometimes things happen that are not fair….that are not right…that hurt, that sting…that scare the heck out of us. But why then, would we just stop planting more things? What good would that do?

It stinks when you work and work and work and work and work and try to do everything right….when you get to the end of the day knowing that you did all that you could…and things still didn’t work out. It does. So….cry for a while and then get back to work. But make sure you cry first. Make sure you have a good long cry…..and don’t blame yourself….and don’t blame others…..just know that there are just seasons for everything. There are drought years and there are all sorts of things out of your control. When things like that happen…plant more stuff.

Sometimes stuff grows, and sometimes it dies. Sometimes things work out the way you think they will…and sometimes they don’t. Grieve it….honor it….scream and cry about it….then go plant more flowers…. Sometimes stuff happens that is SO NOT FAIR and knocks the wind out of us…….keeping planting good stuff anyway.

my Dahlias died…

my roses made it…

many of my flowers just couldn’t survive it…

but some did…

some just shriveled up and died…

and some of them are still going strong….

SERIOUSLY??? THE ENTIRE GARDEN DROPPED DEAD?????

So….

there’s the truth, my friends. I think it is hard when you think that there are some people who have it all figured out……who have everything going perfectly for them….who have gotten through their tough times and they are on the other side of them. Friends…….hard times circle back around…and IT IS OK. It is a very important part of life. They pass, too……and the sun comes out….and life is so beautiful and wonderful and everything feels so good. I have lived enough years to know that this happens every single time…..(and I forgot that I knew that until today when I decided to just come out of hiding and tell it like it is)

And so…….we plant more seeds….we water them, we weed around them…..and we wait.

And most of the time……really really really good stuff happens when you do that.

You are loved, and so am I. Everything is going to be ok.

xoxo

melody

P.S. I’m laughing about this now…but this morning I was crying big huge alligator tears because I left the house to go wash my car because I thought for sure it would make me feel better….I left to get a spray tan and to wash my car….after I got the spray tan……I got to the car wash and this seriously happened….and I was SO FRUSTRATED……..

Here’s my Facebook post explaining this photo…”Want a good laugh? Can u see how drenched I am? Can u see how drenched the inside of my car is? While at the car wash I was washing down the whole interior of my car and didn’t notice that I rolled the window down….so I was sprayed with a fierce blow of sudsy hot water in my own car. So….there’s your happy smile for the day….you’re welcome”

So…I came home and watered my flowers.