I went to church today after arguing with myself about whether I wanted to go or not. Then God reminded me that I made a vow—cut my hair back off and everything to start the process again to remind myself that my mourning won’t always be—so I got up.

Glad I went.

Pastor K preached about a bunch of stuff, but the main idea this: just because you feel it, doesn’t mean you’re failing! It made me take a deep breath because I am winning at life! I started righting rigorously in June and went from 12 followers to 117. Not huge but it’s just September, and just my old stuff alone will carry me into January. I have a new job that I love. My children are flourishing. My mom and I are really bonding outchea. My friends are friending. My husband and I are…coming to some NONE VIOLENT agreements about our relationship and what happens next. And also:

I’m still in pain, still mourning the things I left behind that I didn’t want to, but had to didn’t mean to but realized too late that I had, and didn’t need to but now I’ve gone too far to go back and pick them up again. I am consistently eating sorrow even as I smile and build new bridges and bank new memories and balance the beauty of a well lived life with a limp that I’m painfully aware of.

It’s a lot, right? Right.

Okay. Next topic.

I came home to a house that is musty and dusty and in disarray and I have to tell you, I flipped my lid. it was like this before I left, but coming home from church to cook only to find myself hours later putting up things I never even used? I had to check my ENTIRE family. Cuz what we not finna do in the year of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ 2022 is act like boundaries don’t include holding folks accountable to their part of the deal—unspoken or not.

Family is really a bunch of unspoken contracts and expectations. A crap-ton of our misunderstandings would diminish greatly if we would just do 2 things:

• Clearly communicate our expectations regularly, and
• Act responsibly when it comes to what is required for harmonious living.

Life would be soooo much less stressful if we’d articulate what we needed—and the the people we are bound to met the need or were honest about their lack of account to do so.

So much less stressful.

I counted to 10, then I hit 3 clicks and BOOM!

Boundaries.

Anyway, that’s been my Sunday after laboring to put my ankles up all day yesterday. I believe I’m going to relax for another 30 minutes then grading papers it is.