The New Year is here! It snuck up on me.
2012 was just a blur. Of trips, moving, babies, blessings.
I thought about what "resolutions" I was going to try for 2013. Mine are mostly simple.
Drink more water. Sleep more. Cuss less. Pray more. Read my Bible.
Be gentler with my children. Eat healthier. Stress less. Exercise.
All of these things are definitely do-able, change-able.
But one thing I really would like to focus on this year is giving myself time to heal.
[I signed myself up for the Honolulu Marathon today! Let the resolutions begin!]
I'm not the best at letting myself heal. Physically or emotionally.
I always want to rush the process, to have it be over and done with. For my body or mind to bounce back to what I expect it to be without the waiting process. I had surgery a week ago today and today is the first day I've let myself kind of be. I slowly baked muffins with the kids, I snuggled in bed with the babies. I went to bed early last night. Kind of ass backwards, but it's what I do. I wanted out of the hospital the day I had surgery. I want all the bandages off. I want to take showers and climb staircases and lift heavy things. And so I do. But at what cost? Essentially, a slower recovery, my body is not quite as young as it used to be or maybe even as I hope it is. I'm rounding the bend of 29, it's getting close and with 30 right behind it and it's kind of freaking me out.
[Bellows Beach. <3]
I had the same problem post-partum. My midwife told me to rest a solid two weeks and I didn't. I tried to do too much and my body came back to tell me, no. This was not a challenge of mind over matter. My body simply needed to heal and willing it to be healed was not going to work. In my mind I justify it with the fact that really, no mother of 4 young children can really REST. Can they?
I mean, husbands have to work, diapers need to be changed and little mouths fed. Laying in bed watching TV and eating Ben & Jerry's sounds delightful but improbable.
Healing is more than a body process tho. I do the same in my mind. I want hurts to go away the second they happen. I want the crap I replay in my mind to be gone. I understand healing is a process I just want it to be the shortest one possible. I've never been good at dealing with emotions. I'd much rather feel physical pain than the emotional kind and telling myself things don't matter has been kind of my go-to healing process. Whatever happened to me isn't the worst, someone else at some point in time has been in a shittier situation and who am I to complain?
Healing from hurts is agony to me. Such a slow and painful process that involves forgiving and letting go of the past. Forgiving I think I can do. Well mostly, I don't know if I've quite gotten there with certain people yet and probably because I haven't finished the healing process. Letting go, maybe.
I hate for the past to infect my future. I have so many beautiful things in my life. My family, my friends, my profession. Why do I choose to let people that could care less about me burrow their way into my happiness? I understand the process of a cut healing, you bleed, it hurts, it scabs over and then it scars. I think I'm at a point in my life right now that my emotional hurts are scabbed over. A huge part of me wants to just pick at them, see if they're still raw underneath but I know the best thing I can do is let it be. Wait for time to do what only it can do and for me, what only God can do as well.
Heal me completely, leave a scar for what was lost. A faint reminder.
Nothing that has to be part of my day to day living, but just what it is. I was hurt, there's no denying it. There's no hiding it. But I can let it go, let myself heal and move on. <3
So more of that eating better business, that includes baking better too. At least sometimes.
Made these muffins with the kiddos today and none of them would eat them, seriously.
Sigh. It's worth trying tho right?
Blueberry Quinoa Muffins
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 cup cooked Quinoa
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tsps. Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2/3 cup milk [I used whole]
1/4 cup Coconut Oil
1 heaping cup blueberries [I used fresh, but frozen would work!]
[1] Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place liners in 12 muffin cups.
[2] In a large bowl whisk together the flour, brown sugar, salt & baking soda. Mix quinoa into this mixture.
[3] In a separate bowl combine the oil, milk and egg and then fold into the dry ingredients.
[4] Gently fold in blueberries and bake for 19-21 minutes.
Quinoa Power!
