“When I let go of what I am I become what I might be.”

― Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

I’ve been absent a lot in the last couple of months dealing with mental health challenges made worse by stress and financial challenges. Took a bit off to get myself right again and focus on what was important. 

I took my own advice on being able to reach out for help and sought counseling with the lovely people at betterhelp.com. I am not getting paid to advertise for them just so you all know. Completely unpaid promotion of their services. It has been really nice for me, however, to be able to text my therapist on the app and know that they will see it and comment in between appointments. My therapist has even texted me in the app to check in intermittently between appointments which has been wonderful and needed. For someone who does very much have a hard time reaching out for help even though I know it’s the right thing to do, having someone checking on me opens up an invitation for me to ask for help without needing to seek it out on my own. A little nudge more or less lets me know it’s okay to talk. 

I have had a lot to talk about with my therapist. Especially as the end of this year is quickly approaching and the anniversary of my first trip to the hospital quickly approaches. A lot of anxiety is coming up about this time last year. A lot of reminders too of everything I have lost.

That is actually what prompted me to reach out to the therapist. The focus I have had on everything that’s been lost and the feelings of hopelessness, despair, grief that was much more profound than anything I have ever experienced before. I was confused by that. I didn’t understand what I had to be grieving. But the reality is, I’ve had a lot to grieve this last year. 

A life I’d lost. 

And yes, I acknowledge the loss superficially in early posts. Addressed the loss and reframed it in the light of looking forward to a new adventure but I didn’t fully allow myself to register that this was going to be a cycle and there was going to be more to it than just moving forward and letting the adventures come as they would. 

So much more. 

I forgot that grief was a process. A non-linear process in which steps can (and do) repeat themselves. I didn’t realize how angry I was going to be, how much I was going to deny the realities that are now happening, and how much I was going to plead with my body to just work with me. 

It’s been a process. And it continues to be so. 

But one thing that has endured in all of this is my amazing personality! The personality that looks at a situation and says “okay, this sucks. I am miserable. I need help. I need to move forward. How do I do that?” The personality that has formed in a lifetime of hardship and challenges with a mother and father behind me showing me that I can rest, but I cannot give up. 

So here I am striving to move forward. Struggling. But trying. 

One thing I have found comfort in is an almost annual delving into religion and world philosophies. This time of year with Yule and the New Year coming around seems to almost always draw me towards wanting to know more about the belief systems of people in my life. It has been like that for me since my teenage years. 

This year, influenced by the successes of one of my dear friends in reaching one of their lifetime goals related to this particular religion, I find myself drawn once more to researching Daoism and re-reading the Tao Te Ching (The Jane English and Gia-Fu Feng translation). 

Now before I go much further in this let me just say that I am not going to try to convert anyone and that Daoism isn’t my practiced religion. Honestly, my own religious beliefs are between me and the powers that be and I am not going to get into the debates on religious beliefs that turn into shouting matches more often then not that people like to have. 

But, as a philosophy if not a religion, Daoism and the Tao te Ching has a lot to offer. A lot to offer that I needed to see again and remember.

I’ve spent all this year grieving my life that I have lost. All this year fighting against my new reality, struggling to get back to what I wanted to be, pushing against my bodies new limitations so I could have some semblance of the life I had before. 

But the life I had before is gone. 

Its not coming back. 

My brain isn’t going to suddenly heal and regenerate the part that died off. My body isn’t going to suddenly be skinny. My tremors aren’t going to suddenly go away. The vision issues I have been having arn’t going to suddenly stop. I am not going to suddenly not be fatigued. 

The life I had before is done. 

Period. 

End of story. 

But that doesn’t mean I am done. 

I’ve spent so much of this year trying to force myself back to what I was, that I have been getting in my own way. And it wasn’t until I reached out to my therapist, and picked up the Toa Te Ching again that I realized that maybe just maybe if I stop trying to force myself back to what I was, I can find what I can be. Find my new purpose. 

That, I think, is my new goal for this coming year. 

Get out of my own way and try to find the new purpose for my life. Whether it’s writing, getting a job I didn’t expect I’d get, traveling somewhere I didn’t think I’d ever go with people I didn’t know I’d meet, or even just finishing writing my novel. This coming year, meeting the new me is my new goal. 

Figuring out how to let go of who I think I am, so I can become who I can be.