Learning how to live.

                 Just before the first of the year, I started thinking, as I think pretty much everyone does at that time of the year, about what I was content with and what things I wanted to change. While there's a few specific things I am working on changing in myself, those aren't relevant here. But, there is one very major thing I am working on accomplishing. But first, I should probably go over what exactly brought me to the realization of what I wanted.


               I've said it before here, but I have some serious anxiety. About a lot-and I mean a LOT-of things. Flying, letting other people drive(I'm barely comfortable with my husband driving. Weird, yes I know), driving in the snow, public speaking, and some other really stupid things. It's gotten really out of control the last couple of years, to the point of me becoming pretty restricted on what I chose to either participate or not participate in. Another thing I've pretty much always worried about is what other people might think of whatever I am doing. Or saying. Or wearing. Or whatever. I've had a lot of stupid worries these last few years. Without realizing what I was doing to myself, I have literally been in this strange "funk" the last few years, and had absolutely no clue and never realized I had slipped into it until well into it, after I had wasted a crap load of time doing things other than how I wanted to. 


           After my husband was hurt and our home burnt down last year, my anxiety increased 150%. Again, I really never realized it. It wasn't until I sat down with a counselor who told me that when I got to the level of stress that those things all caused, that I realized(and was told) that I got to that point and just never remembered to take a deep breath and calm down. 


          I've had a lot of time these last couple of months to do some serious thinking and reflecting, and one day it dawned on me: anxiety is just fear. And in having all of this anxiety, I had managed to become scared. Scared of whatever it was that was coming next. Scared that what happened before could possibly happen again. Scared of anything unknown. Basically, I had pretty much become afraid of just living life. The day that I realized that is what I was doing to myself.....that is what all of a sudden snapped me out of this "funk" I had been caught in the last few years. That is what snapped me into the reality that, unless I started taking whatever steps I needed to in order to move forward in my life, I was going to be caught up in that place and forever unhappy. 


           Here's how I look at it: The fire, Jeff being hurt, all of the bad things that have happened......I'm grateful for all of it. Every single little thing, even if it has hurt me to my core or scared me half to death-I'm grateful for it. It brought me to the realization that there is no point in being afraid to live, and not only live, but live the way that I want to. Jeff getting hurt and the fire were just the two things that forced me to wake up and decide to take control of myself back. All of the bad things before that....Well, those were just things(I like to think of them as "growing pains") that I needed to experience and be put through so that all of the things now...all of the GOOD things.....wouldn't be things I would take for granted. For that, I am extremely blessed. It's because of those things that I look at everything in an entirely new light now, and try my best to put a positive spin on things. I've always been a hard headed person, and this was no different. I think of all of the tramatic, bad experiences that hit us last year as the slap in the face that I needed to wake up. 


            I don't ever want to get back to the place I was in before. I have been so afraid of so much-change, circumstance, the "what ifs," and the "should've, could've, would'ves," that I let that fear take over and I allowed it to control my life. There are still some things that scare me a lot, but it's nothing that is going to have such control over me that it will influence decisions I make. If bad things happen, they happen. We'll deal with them as they come and get through them, just the same as we always have. But I refuse to be controlled by fear and fear alone. I absolutely refuse to be afraid of life and anything it might throw at me. I've already worked toward making some major changes prior to this one, but this one will be a continuous process, and I don't care how long it will take. I am going to (and have already begun) force myself to try new things, to take risks I wouldn't have before, and to say whatever I need to. And if bad things happen...well, like I said before-they happen. Oh well, we'll get past it. But for now, I'm working on getting over all of this fear, and basically learning how to live completely again.