Outside Of the Winners Circle

So often, we tell about painful periods of our life from the winners circle. It’s not very often that anyone tells a tale from the vulnerable, raw parts of their soul, sharing the hurt, the pain, the real parts that happen in life to get the part where we are supposed to grow and learn.

Well this is one of those days for me - not in the winners circle. Guess what, friends? Not all my days are spent in the winners circle. Shocker, hey? I bet not all of yours are either - and it’s from that place, whatever the opposite of the winners circle is, that I find myself sitting smack dab in the middle of.

I’ve been staring in the mirror lately at someone I don’t recognize, someone I don’t like very much, and frankly someone I despise. I am angry - All. The. Time. I am spent. I am exhausted. I am irritable, and listless and voiceless. I feel needy and unsure. I am sad and anxious and frankly lost in my days. My motivation is zero. My ambition took a hike and left me behind. I feel like a shitty partner, a questionable parent, a terrible friend, and a weak individual. Weak. I am in pain. I feel so much less of myself than I have in so, so long. I don’t know how to fix where I am, and I am scared.

For a long time now, I’ve been asking myself just how long the rope is, because I’ve been at the end of it for so long, just tying knots trying to hang on to whatever is left. Everywhere I look there is so much brokenness, and I am fighting to see the beauty in the days. Where did my optimism go? How did the monsters get back in - those ones that tell such convincing lies? And how was I so easily convinced of what they said?

The truth is, it happens. It’s a bad week. It started six days ago and the let up is taking a bit longer this time. But all I can know for sure is, that I hope it will - let up, I mean. And it’s in that hope that I tie another knot.

I want you to know something. I feel like shit right now. Maybe you do too. A few days ago I asked some people if they'd remembered anything I'd written, anything that was particularly memorable, or something relatable. Turns out the answer was yes, and one of the things people said is that I wasn't afraid to be raw and talk about it. So here we are, talking about it, and I hope, maybe it helps someone other than me just to put some heavy words down.

But there’s something that I have learned through the struggle of the moving forward - it doesn’t last. The Universe will unfold its plan, you just have to have a little faith in it. In my struggle this morning, I was reading - ultimately surprising, I know - and these words LITERALLY appeared on my screen and I thought - holy shit, that’s for me… (I’m not joking… on my screen, and then the little “read more” button, and I did).

One more time, for my people in the back, you are nothing less.

Your heart loves so deeply that most can’t even find the bottom.

I know because mine does, too.

It takes one to know one.

It was gifted the ability to see what could be instead of what is.

It’s a gift.

To see beauty in a world that is surrounded with brokenness.

To love even the unworthy.

To hope amidst the pain.

You are not weak.

~Jenna Irvin~

I still can’t read it without crying today. I’ll probably read it every single day until I can. I might put it on my wall for a bit so I can read it a thousand times. The Universe unfolds itself. I have faith in it. Jenna Irvin shouted it from the Winners Circle.

I heard it loud and clear. I hope you can too. It’ll be better. Just not today. Maybe tomorrow.

You are not weak, and I love you.


J