Hindsight.

I read in Eat, Pray, Love something that I completely identified with:

"Hypersensitive awareness of time's speed led me to push myself to experience life at a maximum pace. If I were going to have a short visit on earth I had to do everything possible to experience it now. Hence all the traveling, all the romances, all the ambition, all the pasta...If I could have split myself into many Liz Gilbert's I would have willingly done so in order to not miss a moment of life. What am I saying? I did split myself into many Liz Gilbert's, all of whom simultaneously collapsed in exhaustion on a bathroom floor in the suburbs one night somewhere around the age of 30."

It's true that hindsight is 20/20. However, what do you do when you are looking back and you still can't understand what you are looking at?

In the past few years I have with great recollection and fondness desired moments of closeness with Christ established in travel, or sought to recapture something I lost. I have written here several times about what those things looked like. On this September night a few things are clear, absolutely crystal clear and its not just hindsight. It's Jesus. And its so funny to think of all the times I looked back at a period of time, hoping that hindsight would do its trick- and nope just fuzzy. Tonight with ease... CLEAR sight.

I knew in January that I wasn't doing well. I have said this before, but I am still processing through what I did and did not know, and what I did not and did choose to instead see. I fought against it. I knew in February that I wasn't either. But I chose to ignore it, and I allowed a relationship commitment to form. I have finally been able to admit to myself that in the capacity of what was best for me personally, dating Tex during that period was not a wise decision. Yet, I chose the relationship because I hoped it would work out forever, and it wouldn't matter that I wasn't ready or in a place that I should be pursued. Truth is, that is where so much of the struggle continued to grow, I had been hurting for a long time and I knew that I couldn't put my finger on what it was.

Now that my finger has found the place that needed the healing and perspective, its amazing to witness how different my thinking, feeling, and life already is. For the first time in such a long time I know that my beauty is not contingent on what size my jeans are, or what shape my body will change into over the years. I know that I am a daughter, sister, child of God. And I also know that I am beautiful. It's not this cocky "oh I have great hair, and fun pashminas". My brain has begun to work again in ways that make sense. I process thoughts and feelings with greater ease as the enormous amount of anxiety has been lifted. I also have noticed that sometimes just watching a show I love, or reading a book I'm diving into- that I smile. To myself. As if the smile is me, befriending me. Softening the hard hurt edges, and making the cut less deep. I also have found joy in relationships, and more balance. I've been a ridiculously needy friend and person in recent years, I am enjoying asking more questions, being present. Not just hanging out, and laughing: but really sharing life. Experiencing the way burdens are lifted when.you.speak. Such a novel new concept for me. I think one thing I have been able to fall most in love with is that this confidence is palpable, everything about me feels different. It feels like me. I feel like me. I have missed her. I am sad at the cost she came. The people she hurt along the way. But friends. I am so glad that I love her, and that I know her.

I noticed her departure the fall after I lost Bill. And then I felt moments she returned with the laughter, ease, and joy. I can't explain to you what happened the summer of 2007 but leaving camp should have been the biggest red flag to myself about what was happening. I have been a yo-yo of an unwinding mess since then. I am thankful for the bursts of light, and I would never trade the world I got to explore for anything. But the cost was high, and I always felt more at home away then I did in my own bed. It's why I kept going. Never ending. Madness. With the exception of my relationships with the boys and several of you invited beloved amazing women, I was unconnected and unengaged in a community that I had worked very hard to help build. I walked away from it, and I just didn't know it.

Today I was driving home from church and was just enjoying my own thoughts and company. It's something I always noticed about traveling- how at ease I became in the car, in an airplane or on a train. Just the movement. The pace of "going" became second nature, and became part of me. I knew how to manage, and navigate landscapes, I understood pleasantries in other languages, I was adaptable. But, I was also constantly in the midst of strangers. And I could disappear. I wasn't recognizable. When chatted with, I could become any person I wanted, no one knew me. (I will say, I always made friends with strangers in complete honesty).

I had a great moment on Friday afternoon when I walked into my house after having gone to Cincinnati to celebrate Mandy's birthday. I had struggled going to bed Thursday night with some battles, and kept Mandy awake probably longer then needed, but needed to talk. I woke up plagued with exhaustion and just sadness. In the drive I just wanted to get back to Virginia, and I just wanted to hang out for the Sugarland concert with Matty.

However. The moment, yes back to my point. I walked into the house at 1:30pm, sat down, and I was peaceful. I had returned home. Into my own space. There were no roommates to conversate with, and there was nothing for me to be, except my absolute self. I liked that for me, one who always goes and is more content going, that the returning and the staying... felt better. Felt more like Home. Home felt more like Me. In this space I could breathe, look back... and see with clarity and conviction the past which at times returns to fuzzy- as processing ebbs and flows... but mostly I could see and recognize that the girl that smiles to herself quietly in a car on the West Coast, in a plane above other continents, was the same girl who sat in her hammock and let the breeze move her and she began to rest in the comfort of all that she could be, all that is waiting, with the wisdom gained by looking back and moving forward with perfect vision.