“Somehow, right now, tonight, the losses of 2014 seem so much closer and more real than the dreams God has placed in my heart for 2015. I feel so heavy with anxiety and regret, and I am overwhelmed to the point of tears – but it would do no good to share that with anyone, so I’ll write it here.”
I wish I could go back to that girl sitting on her bed journaling on New Year’s Eve this past December, the girl wide awake long after her family had gone to bed, preoccupied with the loneliness of her hands and the dull ache in her stomach for a guy who was probably spending that night with his arm around some other girl.
I would shut off her phone, put her in clean socks, wrap her up in a fluffy blanket, season her with lavender oil until she smelled like a dryer sheet, and tell her that this, too, shall pass.
If only I could’ve shown her what freedom she would be living in, in just a few short months.
Something most of you don’t know and that I’ve kept fairly private is that even though I was accepted onto a World Race squad last October, at the time of my interview I was given the instruction to complete six months of counseling prior to my departure date. So, at the start of this year, I started going to counseling on a weekly basis.
And I haven’t shared that with too many people up until this point; but I am finally in a place where I can talk about it with a sense of progress, and in a way that brings all the glory back to God.
I’ve grown, healed, and had more joy restored to me in the last few months than I ever have before, in such a short time.
And I could write essays on the things I’ve learned, but 1. there are enough essays in this world, 2. I’m officially done with college and therefore done with essays for all of eternity and 3. lists get crap done. There are reasons why Buzzfeed articles speak when no one else can. So without further ado, from my learning heart to yours, here are the greatest hits so far.
1. Sometimes, it really is as bad as it seems.
The way your dad left your family? Watching your sister get diagnosed with cancer? Dealing with depression and puberty at the same time? Yeah. Those were really, really awful things. They sucked big time. You weren’t making things up, and when you said you were hurt, scared, and didn’t know what to do – you were being normal. Which brings us to the second point.
2. Acknowledgement is the first step to healing.
You cannot attempt to repair a problem if you act like the problem isn’t there in the first place.
If you were to break something valuable, would you take the broken thing and put it up on a shelf somewhere, giving it side-eye for weeks on end, maybe saying a prayer or two for it, all the while hoping that one day you’d just walk by and find it fixed again? Unless your name is Andy from Toy Story, I kinda hope not. So why do we treat our own wounds like that?
When you acknowledge the weight of something, you shine a light on shame, and it loses a huge amount of power over you.
3. There is no such thing as, “It just wasn’t like me to do that.”
Did you do the thing? The thing you’re embarrassed/ashamed/in disbelief of?
Were you present in your skin at that moment in time, and not running amok in someone else’s? (Creepy…) Yeah? Congratulations, because that thing was, in fact, a you-thing-to-do.
Something huge I’m learning is that we don’t get to choose what actions to take responsibility for and which ones to disregard. If you did it, own it. Something in you made that choice, and in that moment, it was “you”.
The good news is, you can choose not to do it again.
4. Be gentle with yourself.
This was, and is, the hardest one for me. My best friend always says, “Be nice to our Kayla girl, we love her.” But if I’m being totally honest, being nice to myself is one of the things I suck at most in my life. Right up there next to remembering to change my socks semi-weekly and put baking soda in cookie dough.
I was driving to work on the highway two weeks ago and a woman got into a horrific car accident right in front of me. By the time I got over to this woman’s car, I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. I sat in my counselor’s office that week and told her how much I hated myself for the fact that I had been too afraid to get out of my car and go over to the lady’s car until I saw someone else running up to us. Hated myself for being a coward, for not being the first one there to help.
After I finished and sat back, my counselor leaned forward in her chair and was like, “And now is the time when we have compassion for you. When we remember that you are not a superhero, that you are human, and that it’s okay for you to be afraid sometimes.”
I just started crying.
I never paid any attention to the number of times I cap conversations with “And I hate that about myself” until I started paying someone to listen to me. It sounds delusional to want to be good at everything, to be fearless and strong and have no chinks in the armor – but that’s because it is. Even superheros have hang-ups.
Bruce Wayne is afraid of bats. Peter Parker is afraid of rejection. Kayla Zilch is afraid of being afraid, swimming pools, and making people’s lives hard.
But she’s working on it. Little by little.
In closing – I left the page in my journal opposite of the one I wrote on during New Year’s Eve blank, and promised myself that I would go back in a year, when I’m sitting in my tent on the coast of South Africa bringing in another year on the Race, and record proof of God’s fulfilled promises. Promises that I have no way of predicting, just like I had no way of predicting this incredible healing.
For now, though, I’m trading in my fake superhero cape for a pair of clean socks and a whole lot of personal grace.
To be continued.
