In This Season

In this season there is anxiety and turmoil and chaos and also light and joy and beauty.

Happy Sunday, Friends. Just like last week, I’m coming at ya with a weekly update from our life. This past week seemed like it was a million years long (even though Griffin had Monday off) and Von spent a day with her grandparents.

It’s just one of those seasons right now that I don’t really want to be in, at least, not really.

I’ve had a lot of really dark, hard mental health days and the light at the end of the tunnel often seems very, very far away. But this week I set a goal to write in my journal every night, and I’m really glad that I did. I was able to see and remember the smaller things that are often looked over, but that made the week better.

Von and I played a lot this week. I was feeling a tad bit guilty about our screen time usage the past few weeks (but I’m letting go of the guilt cause half the time I have been in survival mode). But we did play a lot.

Lots of trains and coloring and making a million tiny balls (ornaments as Von calls them) out of play dough.

Tuesday was my hardest anxiety day. The weather was still super cold and I was concerned about Texas and what was happening there. I pulled out a stack of my favorite books (above) and was planning to read from each of them until I felt calmer.

First, though, I wrote in my journal (seriously, it’s so helpful!) and then I opened up the gospel library app. I’d been reading a talk by President Nelson and he’d quoted this scripture:

“The Lord our God did visit us with assurances that He would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause that he should hope for our deliverance in him.” – Alma 58:11

What comfort.

After months of struggling and looking for some sort of break, on Wednesday I got one. Von (and Griffin since our WiFi stopped working) went to his parents house for the day. I got the house to myself for a while and had a major writing breakthrough!

And it was just nice to have a little time to myself. It’s the longest I’ve been a part from Von in over a year (not including when we’re all sleeping). It was needed for all of us.

So yeah, this week was kind of full of anxiety, but the kind that creeps in and lingers just underneath the edge of everything and I don’t know it’s there until it’s almost too late. But, I’m doing all the things to take care of my mental health as much as I can anyway.

And I can’t help but think that someday down the line, I’ll be grateful, grateful that even in this hard moment I wrote about it. I’m not the same person I was a year ago, or two years ago. Von’s not, you’re not. I’m so glad that we can change and grow and even if things aren’t going the way we hope, there’s still some light at the end of the tunnel, even if it’s hard to see.

Happy Sunday.