A lighter reflection.

Twelve months of twenty-thirteen. I feel like I conquered myself this year. I rarely have the energy it takes to really write anymore. Someday this will change, and I’ll find my voice again, but for now, it’s where I’m at and I’m okay with that. I’ve sat down many times to write this out, and I may be trying to force it from me now, instead of pouring it as it needs to, but we’ll see how it goes. And anyway, I wanted to end my year with having written something about a little journey that has changed me so.

And so it goes.

June first became a marked beginning for me of a health journey. Not a dietary one. I didn’t set out to lose weight. Not that I can’t say that I don’t look at my naked self in the mirror and wish I saw a younger version of myself. I’m trying hard to accept my skin and bones as they are: ever-changing. To age gracefully, this art. It takes some time to learn. I’m learning along the way.

I feel the need to turn a few pages back to 2008, when this really began. My first nod to depression came with the arrival and delivery of my firstborn. Enjoying pregnancy as I did with both my boys, I wasn’t expecting the post-partum phase to be so heavy. But it was. And it gave me a few months’ worth of glimpses into the cold world of depression.

I used to be so judgmental about depression, understanding very little about it, nor the guilt that comes with acknowledging the blanket of sadness that drapes itself over you when you know there isn’t a single thing out of place in your life to be making you feel that way. I remember kneeling on my knees by the side of the bed, sobbing into the blanket, stitches still in my stomach, begging God to take away the heaviness that was upon me. I remember feeling so betrayed when I stood up and felt no better than I did when I knelt down. Looking back now, I wish I would’ve reached out and sought other help, too. God helps those who help themselves. It seems cold sometimes, but it’s the truth. Hormones are real. Bodies are real. And while God is also real, prayer, no matter how heartfelt, doesn’t take away all trial. I suffered, learned, balanced out and pulled through.

After Danny came to us, with a wonderful pregnancy and a natural delivery that came from my dreams, I adjusted well with two. He slept terrible, and I swear I still feel like I’m reeling from that first year I spent utterly deprived of sleep, but post-partum depression didn’t bear down as hard as it had before with Morg.

My next phase came in early spring of 2012. Winters are so hard on my body with the other health issues I deal with, (which can feel so connected to depression at times), so it’s not unusual for me to feel anxious waiting for warmth to return to our neck of the woods. I pulled myself back around, though, feeling much better through the summertime.

And then came last winter; the hardest yet. I just didn’t come back around like I had in the past. April came. May came. Warmth came. I was still so cold. It’s such a desperate thing to feel an actual cloud in your mind, feeling so restless and so unlike yourself and knowing something physically needs to change within your body to help your mind return. I reached out to a sweet friend who shared her experiences and advice, which was such an answer to my prayers. I went back and forth deciding what to do, since ultimately I knew something had to be done. I was leaning toward visiting a doctor, but if you know me, that is crazily enough my last resort (why am I such a hippy?!). I felt the bottom. Not in a destructive way at all. I just felt so desperate. I felt so sick all the time, so fatigued, so angry with my children and poor Mr. Keller couldn’t do anything right.    

I remembering sitting down on the floor one night. It was June 1^st, in the evening time. After reading several websites on natural anti-depressants (and after having taken so many herbal supplements that just weren’t working for me), I had read a lot about running and how many people had been able to treat their depression this way. I was so skeptical. So skeptical. When you feel so desperate, simple solutions sound absurd. But somehow, the idea of it stuck with me. I told myself I was going to put my old tennis shoes on and I was going to run until my head was clear and I felt happier, even just a little. This was my last option. 

Now, for real, I’ve never exercised consistently in my life. Ever. I’ve picked up dance videos (which are fun for a while) and I went to the gym for maybe six months my freshman year in college, but that’s it. I never played sports when I was younger. The first and only class I was ever truant for was P.E. in the eighth grade and when I got caught, I lied about it. I lied! Fitness has never been my friend. But there I was, so desperate (kind of funny now!), and so inspired to give it a good try.

So, I went outside and I ran down the street. I know I looked so ridiculous. I felt ridiculous. But after that first night, I made a decision that I was not going to stop. I had one goal. And that was to exercise every day. I ran all summer long, once a day. And when I say ‘running’, I say it loosely. I don’t mean running. I mean running for a bit. Then walking. Then running more. That’s all I could do without having a heart attack! I didn’t go far (my goal was one mile each day). And not fast. Like really not fast. I even realized after getting bruises on my chins, that I was running wrong (landing on my heels instead of the balls of my feet). Go ahead. Have a good laugh! Mr. Keller and I did when I showed him in the kitchen how I was running. I literally had to watch a youtube video on how to run. Then, I felt pretty stupid, but I was also feeling so much better that I didn’t care. I was over it! My goal was to simply do it. And do it every single day. I pushed my body like I had read I should do. I pushed it until I could barely walk. I still wasn’t going far, but it was enough. I wasn’t running miles. Not even a single mile straight through. I’d run, then walk, Run, walk. All summer long I did this.  I started feeling so good. I let go of so many things I was mentally dragging behind me for so long. I let them go. I started to soar. I remember one warm evening, I was running and it started to rain. And the words to the song I was listening to were this: I want to live where soul meets body. And let the sun wrap its arms around me and bathe my skin with water cool and cleansing and feel what its like to be new]. And it was all so intentional. It was like God was handing me this gift of vision. It was so clear in my mind. It felt so good. The clouds were so heavenly and the sun was setting and the raining was washing my old self away and every time I’d look up, I felt my mind saying, “Thank you, God.” That particular evening was such a gift. Everything about it. And all the quiet evenings I spent alone all summer long were so life-changing for me. It was like I could feel my mind literally being healed a little more each time I made the effort to care for my body through exercise. I became so aware how my body was such a gift from God. I had been abusing it for so long. It occurred to me that exercise most certainly is a commandment. I feel God means for it to be just as important as not doing certain things to our bodies (alcohol and drug consumption, pornography, etc.).    

I think we have so many things backward in society, and in particular, understanding the true purpose and importance of exercise. I had always, for my entire life, associated exercise with the intent to lose weight; with the intent to be stronger, skinnier, better than I am now. Instead of all of those things, why not simply exercise to exercise? Or: I am going to exercise because I love my body enough to nurture it with exercise. Benefits will assuredly follow, but the root of it has nothing to do with weight. It has nothing to do with appearance at all. Oh, how I have learned that exercise is to your body as prayer is to your spirit. Essential. Both are absolutely essential for you to feel peace in its entirety, as God so earnestly wants for us all.

In June, I began listening to my body. It needed to be used. Stretched. It needed deep breaths of air. It needed to move. And when I moved it, I will never forget how it thanked me. My body thanked me. It cried and cried. I felt my mind tingle and I felt light, literal light, enter it. More slivers of light entered each time I moved my body. And somehow, through the summer, and the sun, and the exercise and the deep breaths of God’s fresh air, I returned.  

And I’ve stayed. I’ve stayed!

It’s taken a lot of prayer, herbs, essential oils, and lots of evenings where I literally peel myself from the couch cushion to find my tennis shoes. But, I've kept with it. It's been more rewarding than I could ever put into words. When the weather turned cool, I abandoned running for a while. And truly, in my heart, I know the rest of my body will never be up for long-distance running or marathons, no matter how badly I want that. I have the hips of an eighty year-old woman and the back of a cripple. My basement elliptical and yoga mat are my best friends these days. But that’s okay. I love them. It’s been over six months now of consistency and I feel so much better. I know depression will always be something that comes and goes for me, but I feel so much more grounded now. I feel this strength within me and my mind has cleared. For so long, I looked back, thinking the best years were behind me. It’s easy to feel that way about the few quickly-passing years you spend suspended between two worlds. Between the untouchable, protected years of childhood and the vulnerability of actual life. Those years were so good.

Oh, childhood. Before first love, first heartbreak. Before pushing yourself on. Before health issues and childbirth and motherhood. Before real pain. Before acknowledging real change. Before seeing change in yourself. Before any of that, when everything was simplistic and sweet and whole.

Really, though, that was actually all before real life really began. This journey is complex, harsh and heartbreaking. No matter how I yearn for things to perfect, it's the opposition that makes sweet sweet. It's the opposition that makes us grow. I can't make things perfect because they aren't supposed to be and I’m learning to let that go. I’m learning to listen to my body. I’m learning to accept my own personal limits and to let go of comparing myself to others. I am my own and I am so much happier accepting this.

In my collection of favorite quotes is this: I love the person I've become because I've fought to become her. 

This has been me this year.

---------------------------------

"It’s your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you."

"For what it's worth, it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”