The Journey Continues

I’m not sure what I want to write about today so just follow along as I figure out.

So, first thing this morning I attempted to finish a drawing I had been working on. However, the more I worked on it the uglier it became. So I set it aside. Right now I’m really contemplating whether or not I should hit the delete button and start over or work on it later. I named it “Salvage.” Because is it worth salvaging?

Recently… like last week… (by the way, today I have been 50 for exactly ONE month – woohoo!)…

Anyhoo… Last week it dawned on me that as much as I wanted to close the door on so many things associated with the last 50 years, I couldn’t – and boy did I try. Y’all, I was almost there, then my heart, and definitely the Holy Spirit, kicked in. One of the things I could not do was bring the baggage of “unfinished business,” “shutting down,” and “I don’t give a … care,” into my fifties. Honestly, I truly thought closing those doors would give me a fresh start, but I was wrong. Closing those doors only prevented me from feeling every single emotion I needed to feel – specifically the pain of hurts and disappointments.

Last night I received a call from one of my older cousins (actually my mom’s cousin). During our conversation, he began telling me how he always looked up to me. Said I always had my stuff together so he was shocked when he heard I had gotten a divorce. He said that for as far back as he could remember, I had had my life planned out. And he was right, I did. I had everything planned right down to when I would get married and how that marriage would flow. I had written the perfect story. Then life happened. You see, he knew the teenage Shaun. The Shaun who had been hurt but not really hurt. The Shaun who was determined to achieve every single thing she set out to achieve. However, as I mentioned, life happened. One blow to my plan led to another, then another. Pretty soon I no longer had a plan nor confidence.

Eventually, the way I dealt with it was to shutdown emotionally. I believed that the way to get my life back on track and make the most of it was to write another story and control the narrative. One thing I was dead set on was leaving my heart out of it. The goal was to not feel anything, not even anger or sadness. Any time I could feel those feelings creeping up, I would suppress them. Then my forties happened. Y’all, my forties hit and I felt everything! From anger to love, I felt it all.

Now, here I am at the beginning of Year50. If you have been following my journey you know that I tried to close the doors to my past. I wanted to shutdown and do a hard reset, but couldn’t. At the beginning of my forties I was searching for ME, well, last week I actually saw ME. It was like this book of my life was opened and I could see ALL of me including the disappointments and hurts I tried to bury.

After last night’s conversation with my cousin, I realized there was more things I needed to address. One was my desire to control everything to include timing. In one of last week’s blog I wrote about how whatever didn’t happen before 50 was basically a lost cause. Had written another story. Even though I was saying I trusted God’s timing, I really had given Him a time limit, and since He had not met it, I was about to do me. Ha! The joke was on me. You see, while I was going through all of those feelings and emotions during my forties, I was actually building a stronger relationship with God. So although I wanted to do me, I couldn’t and can’t. I belong to God. Period.

As you can see, a lot has already happened on this side of 50 – all good things, things I need for growth. I am so grateful for the wake up call. Looking forward to continuing this journey with God. My focus is finally where it needs to be, on Him and the calling He has for my life.

Before I end, I am also celebrating 800 consecutive days of blogging – 200 to go!

Thanks for reading my real first random rambling from this side of fifty. Praying you have a wonderful week!♥️

Shaun

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