and life goes on

i have been so just discombobulated recently.  more than once, christian has come home to find me wasting away on the couch crying about not having a purpose while the house remains wrecked and there are literally a zillion things that could garner my attention.

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i have such a clear idea of what i want to do, of what i feel i am meant to do.  but i am so unsure of how to get there.  i have literally no trust in moving forward regarding it.  i also have a really hard time thinking i should get paid for it, that i'm valuable enough to be paid for it.  basically i want to be a life coach, someone who can look at the pieces of your life, where you are going wrong or stalling or not letting light in and say, "what can we do to get this under control?  what can we do to move forward?"  so many of us are just waiting for life to hand us what we think we deserve.  (did i just write that on my last post, i might've lol).

i've been over here trying to get pretty menial job after menial job.  and it's not that they aren't important or helpful or even necessary, i'm just not sure that's what i am supposed to be doing.  it is so hard for me to invest in myself.

Duke has a great and quick certification program.  it takes about two months to complete, you have to have a bachelors for it and it certifies you as a "Integrated Health Coach" basically I would be able to help people with areas that are blocking their life whether it be nutritionally or emotionally and help them achieve a better and more quality life.

but it's Duke and so it costs some money, like several thousand.  and it's not that i can't do or wouldn't be able to.  it's just hard to look at myself and say "brianna, you have the same resources and intelligence as a lot of other people and you have the resiliency of about 100 of them combined, you can do this"

i've always been a quitter.  and my life as a stay at home mom enabled that quite a bit.  if i didn't want to do something or it was hard or difficult, i just didn't.  i think that's why i have such a complicated relationship with how i feel about staying at home.  do i think it's valuable, especially in the first couple years of life for the child?  yes absolutely.  do i think it allows a woman to wither, especially if she is inclined that way anyway, yes absolutely.  (PSA PSA this is not all stay at home moms just me personally)

that's super hard to admit, so so so hard.  and i've been working on my website and applying to this program to Duke and i feel paralyzed, frozen.  what if people don't want to talk to me, what if they don't think i'm worthwhile?  what if i screw up my taxes?

and it's just all these logistical options.  you don't realize how easy it is to allow someone else to define you until you try to define yourself.


these are just all my deepest fears put out there.
and this is just me rambling, a lot of you read this but almost no one ever comments.  why would i think people would value my advice?
deep deep deep fears.

if you are reading this,

i am sorry that your life has started over, perhaps more times than you would care to admit.  i mean that, i really do.  i was not the first to grow up under the impressions or fantasy that my life would turn out similar to the disney princesses.  "they all lived happily ever after"  and on a similar note, i am not the first to see what's behind the curtain when that mirage falls apart...

happily

... until they got divorced
... until she got cancer
... until their kid is in trouble at school
... until you declared bankruptcy
... until he died
... until she lost her job



there seems to be this apology dance that we get to do when our life doesn't go the way people expect...


"yeah i know it's soon, but he's a great guy"
"yeah he does have two kids from his first wife, but honestly they're angels!"


and on the flip side of that, we all seem to have this innate chip that makes us confident we could be living everyone elses' life more effectively than they appear to be living it.  we conjure up ideas and rules, expectations and limits.

"i would never do long distance"
"she's crazy, he's a decade younger than him"
"i heard she's letting her kid drop out of college and move back home"

it's an immunity thing right?  we see these tricky or difficult circumstances and in a hope of inoculating ourselves against the difficulty of navigating it we place a boundary around it, a way to stay safe.  but there is no safety net, no inoculation against pain.



and there is no one more equipped to navigate your life than you.


i almost drowned in opinions about my life after jim.  and the crazy thing was, i had everything i needed to make the decisions within myself.  if you haven't seen moana, you should watch it, i can't even discuss how empowering it was and how much better it was than frozen... but these lyrics get me everytime

You are your father's daughter
Stubbornness and pride
Mind what he says but remember
You may hear a voice inside
And if the voice starts to whisper
To follow the farthest star
Moana, that voice inside is
Who you are

but listen, no one gets to define how many happy endings you get.  that is your choice and your choice alone.  
and no one gets to paint how those look but you.

so please for the love of God, stop trying to protect yourself against other people's lives, mistakes, or joys and just live your life, and live it well, without apology.