HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN THIS PLACE?

You have enemies? Good that means you have stood up for something! Wnnston Churchill

Yes I have, and now I am tired! Have you ever been in a place where you can't stand one more negative comment, one more loud voice, one more statement of intolerance of someone or something?  Have your best intentions ever been been so misconstrued that people choose to take it the wrong way.  They get angry, frustrated, irritated, defensive.  You feel like you have been stomped into the ground.  Then there are those who are gentle and loving and kind and understanding.  They don't push you or pull you.  They are there with a quiet reverance that exudes love.

I have made a decision to phase back considerably from my decades of volunteer work.  Most have understood my intentions and are helping me to dust off my britches and move on to a life with less stress, less noise, less phone interruptions, less constant complaining and aggravation accompanying it.  Then others don't get it.  I have screamed to be heard.  My body is a mess and is also screaming to be acknowledged after much neglect.  Stress remains and doesn't seem to be lessening. In fact it many ways it is worsening. My panic attacks are almost daily now and nothing seems to stop them. 

Joyce Meyer has said that "God never leads us to busy ourselves so much that we're stressed out all the time and have no joy."  Or in my case poor health.  I am exhausted and depleted.  I want to find this thing called joy again, but after sacrificing thousands of hours for others, exactly where do I find it.  I have built this persona of 'workaholic' to huge proportions.  It is expected that I continue in that vein.  I have lost friends, or what I thought were friends.  I am misunderstood.  My self imposed boundaries are being pushed on and kicked at and tortured.  But I am remaining steadfast.  I cannot, will not, continue as I have in the past. I am crying out and starving for peace. 

There comes that time when your body says, "ENOUGH"!  Mine has said ENOUGH multiple times.  It is convincing those that have relied upon you to do something when no body else would that are the hardest ones to convince you really mean it this time.  I will not be lured back into the 24 hour day schedules and tendencies to competely forget joy and friends and toys that squeak and dogs and fun and laughter and what it is like to actually smile and mean it.

Those words don't come easily.  In fact quite the opposite.  Because I think I have forgotten how to do those things.  But I will try and find them again, if indeed I truly ever had them. I will search for the handlebars and hang on and enjoy the ride.  I want the vitality of life, this one life we get to not disappear.  But I am not exactly sure where to start.

I want to embrace life and all of her mysteries.  I want to awaken one day, just one day, not exhausted.  I want to awaken to dreams of joy, love and peace and quiet and to the freedom our warriors have fought and sacrified so dearly for.

I want to laugh a lot, cry a lot and smile a lot. I want the roar in my head to stop.  I don't want to sit crouched in fear and dread of another panic attack. I don't want to always believe that the worst could possibly happen. 

I want to look at tomorrow with peace, faith and hope.  I want to know that I cannot control some of what life does.  I want the struggle to disappear.  I want to feel at peace. I want to awaken to a heart that is content.