I'm on timeout.

Not long ago I put myself on timeout.

I had a few weeks of being a hormonal mess. I worried about everything and I stressed about everything and I cried about everything until I had everyone wondering who I was. I’d like to tell you why I was a hormonal mess, but that’s a story for another day. The point today is, I got fed up with it all and decided to ground myself from stress, which turned out to be the best decision. I decided that even those really hard, really serious things could wait to be stressed about. I put on my party pants and I let go. As if it was that easy. But I’m trying to let things go and not worry and not think as much as possible. And it’s been going pretty well, considering…

But there are some things that inevitably make their way into this mind of mine that never rests. And one thing that has been on that mind of mine is my dreams. You know those dreams, the where do you see yourself in this many years and what would you love to do with your life more than anything else in the world kind of dreams? I think it’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I have lots of those dreams. And although I encourage whole-hearted-dreaming to any and all, the thing about too many dreams is that they can sometimes lead you to believe that you are living a dull life without them.

Do you know what my biggest obstacle is to my dreams in life? The past.

Not the past rather, but dwelling on the past. If I had done this instead of this, if I could have made myself do this, if I had tried harder, if I had been better, if I had known, if I had, if I had, if I had… It’s nothing but miserable, dwelling on the “should have, would have” of the past.

So yesterday I was fed up with it all and I decided to have a talk with God about the whole thing. I said, listen God. I have high hopes and big dreams and I’d like them all to work out someday, you know, if you think that would be okay. But I can’t keep dwelling on what I did wrong in the past. I can think about what I should have done differently in order to be further on the road to the things I want in life until I’m blue in the face, but it does nothing and nothing good comes of it. I can’t do it anymore, I won’t do it anymore.

And do you know what else, God? I have some pretty great things going on for me. I have this amazing guy that loves me more than life and how did I get so lucky to have him? I met him at the perfect time and I married him at the perfect time and where would I even be without him? And then we have this perfect kid who joined our family at the perfect time, and where would WE be without HIM? We live in this dream of a home, we know what really matters in life, we love and we are adventurous and we try hard to do our very best every single day, and what more could I even ask for?

And I think God nodded and smiled and said, you are preaching to the choir honey. But I’m glad you are finally figuring all of this out for yourself. And also he muttered under his breath, good luck because it’s all easier said than done.

Even so, this was all a bit of a breakthrough for me. I know that life is what happens when you're making other plans and blah, blah, blah. I'm working on being patient and sculpting my self-discipline. I have great hope that one day it will all just come together like this-BAM. I will be a published author and I will travel the world and I will find that all of my hoping and struggling and working hard and praying hard and fighting hard will have all paid off. Someday. For now, though, life is pretty grand.