Wowza. I just realized my last blog post is dated August 16th, 2017. “I’m Not That Girl” is a post about our decision not to have children in our 20s and not being able to conceive in our 30s. That feels like a lifetime ago. (You can read it here.) 3 months later, I found out I was pregnant with our sweet girl. She is now 5 months old. I can’t believe I didn’t post anything throughout my pregnancy or the last many months as a new mama. I’ve started lots of posts- infertility treatments, pregnancy without my mom, pregnancy in general, a part 2 to my “Me and God” post, and a few other things. I was just never inspired to finish any of them. I’m sure I’ll complete them eventually. I guess I just haven’t felt super open over the last year. I feel like my body and my soul have gone though so many changes and the transformation has just sort of turned me into an introvert. Ha! But I’m back and I’m ready to share.
I’ll keep this one short. (Yeah, right.) I just want to share a quote I read the other day that I cannot get out of my mind. It is from Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis:
“…maybe you’re so deeply inside the forest you can’t see the trees.”
I mean, let that sink it. Really let it sink in.
“…maybe you’re so deeply inside the forest you can’t see the trees.”
I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to GO, GO, GO and ignore all of the ugly stuff in my life. It’s sometimes easier to push past the tough stuff. And to be frank, life is too short to be anything but positive. Truly. If I learned anything from the loss of each of my parents it is that we can only control the controllable and many times the only controllable factor is how we react to a situation. So, I choose joy. Optimism. Humor. Love. But just because I choose to see the good in every situation doesn’t mean tough stuff doesn’t come up.
Life is hard, man. I have many friends currently battling various personal issues- loss, grief, poor health, divorce, depression, infertility to name a few. And as their friend, it is incredibly easy for me to see the situation and solutions SO CLEARLY. Sometimes I want to shake them and tell them to wake up and see what I see. But of course they can’t. They are too deep in the forest and they lack perspective. I’ve been there many, many times. Hell, I’m probably there right now in a few parts of my life.
So I guess all we can do is make sure we are always assessing where we are at with ourselves and our relationships. (Assess, not obsess.) I urge you to take a moment and think about where you are in your most important relationships. Are you happy? Do you feel like your partner (friend, family member, spouse, child, etc.) is happy? What things are going well in your relationships and why are they so good? What struggles do you face and how LONG have you had them? Don’t try to see if the good outweighs the bad. Because life is too darn short to be in any relationship where that is your measurement of success. Just think about if the hard stuff is damaging any part of you. If it is and if you can’t see your way out of it, you are in the forest, my friend.
Now, I realize that every one who reads this has a different relationship issue or personal struggle in their mind at this very moment. I can go on and on about how my marriage has felt the weight of new parenthood more than I’d ever thought it would. (Ha! Lydia is our tree!)
I could tell you how there are still times when the weight of my grief consumes me so much that I don’t even realize it is affecting me until I snap out of a funk I didn’t even know I was in. Trees. So please know that it is human to go through ups and downs in life and although we tend to just see the glamorized versions of each other’s lives on social media, we all have our own forests we’re dealing with. It’s okay. It will always be okay.
My challenge to you is to allow yourself to gain perspective. At the end of the day, we have to do what is best for ourselves. But it is always helpful to hear from others and to take in what they have to say. Because we aren’t supposed to do life alone. We need our people. Sure, do lots of self-reflection and prayer and whatever it is you do to self-assess. But then open up to someone and let them in.
(And if you’re one of my very best people, thank you for being one of my very best people and pushing me always to be open and honest with you and with myself. Love you.)
Diannah Killian 
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