The Day I Knew Everything Was About to Change

This was the day.

I thought it happened later…after my oldest son’s ASD diagnosis. But when I went back through my photos to find something, I found this and I remembered.

I knew so much sooner. I knew something was about to shift for me. Something big.

I spent hours that day sitting on the riverside unraveling. Someone on the outside may have blamed my emotions on circumstances…or hunger. Exhaustion even.

But it was so much deeper than that. Just as I stood on the edge of the river, so was I standing on the edge of myself.

I was on the edge of all I had known about myself, and while I couldn’t see what was on the other side yet…I knew I was going to have to jump soon.

The irony of this spot I found myself at was that it was located on the edge of the city. As I gazed at the bridge with all the cars whizzing by…places to be. Schedules to keep. People to impress/appease. I was painfully aware that I have always lived on the edge of it all. A foot on the side with the cars and the people, but my heart nestled deep in the sound of the river hitting the rocks and the birds singing a song. My head understood the necessity of living in the “real world” but my heart ached for a simpler life where things move slower and the only loud noise is the sound of my heart beating in excitement when I discover another treasure trove nook by the river.

I have never fit in. And even when I did, it was all a facade. Not who I am really. I played the part of a responsible, goal-driven, keep-your-opinions-to-yourself kind of person. But inwardly I was dying. Dying to escape. Dying to speak the truth without always having to make it taste a little sweeter for the person hearing it…knowing they would reject it anyways. Dying for someone to just accept me for me and not make me their personal project to fix. Someone to be brave and love me well to unlock all the treasure inside of me. The treasure I was beginning to think was actually lumps of coal. I was dying for someone to tell me differently. To prove me wrong.

Dying to be quiet. To sit with a book along a creek with not a single soul speaking to me. Dying to give my babies a life of peace and harmony in nature. Watching them whither away in agony living the life I was forcing us all to live. Because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.

A whole life lived feeling as if someone wrote a rule book but always played monkey-in-the-middle with me and I was never allowed to know what was in it…what was right. Always asking the wrong people. Starving for truth but never feeling like I was being given it.

Aching for others that lived truthfully. That didn’t sugar coat things. That didn’t lie when it was convenient for them. Aching for an Anne of Green Gables bosom buddy who wouldn’t scoff at my dreams and musings as we sat perched upon a rock…daydreaming about the day God created it all. Where were all the people that felt like me? Was I doomed to be alone in my design forever?

After this day the unraveling continued. I began questioning everything I was living. I made a thousand messes…similar to a young girl trying everything on in her closet and it all ending up in a heap on the floor. Nothing fit. Nothing was right. The colors were all wrong. I bought new pieces thinking it was “me”…but it ended up on the floor too. People assumed I had gone mad. But in reality…I had come alive.

I am still learning more about myself as time passes, but some things are beginning to fit. And the more I opened up and shared about who I really am, the faster the people like me began to come out of hiding too. My “bosom buddies” were blossoming and I marveled at the fact that my own undoing was the key to my happiness all along!

Now I pray daily for the wisdom and strength and courage to structure a life that makes my boys feel like they fit. To help them know as they grow that their wiring is not broken. Their design isn’t a flaw. They are on purpose…for a purpose. They are worthy of love. They don’t have to settle. I want to show them the world’s “rule book”…and then show them God’s. His love letter overshadows any societal rule we may ever be given. I want them to know that. Like, really know that.

And my daughter…ohhh my daughter. As she happily kicks in my belly while I write this. May she be fully fierce as I can already tell she will be. May she break all the rules and live by her internal compass instead. (Yielded, of course, to the One Who designed her that way.) May she be fearless. May she heartily pursue what makes her soul come alive and her body tingle. May she have unbridled passion and a heart that yearns for justice and Truth. May she learn how to speak that Truth with love, but without an ounce of shame.

May we all learn who we really are and give ourselves full permission to live it out.

Amen.

-Nikki