don't sweat the little stuff

 This post has been a long time coming. I quit writing awhile back because I couldn't find the time, honestly. I still wrote things in my head everyday and would sometimes write on social media platforms, but would never allow myself time to write on here. This blog has been with me since 2013, maybe. If you looked back you would find all of my secrets. I mean not really, but you would be able to tell what I was going through in each season. I tried looking back awhile ago and laughed and cried, then laughed some more. Just because the blogs I wrote then were really meaningful then, but they are still punching me in the gut now. 

A couple months ago while listening to a podcast, I heard someone say - 

 you are never as passionate as you are at the age of 22.

And nothing has ever made more sense. I have spent most of my late 20s chasing after that feeling, chasing after the girl who was on fire for things. So passionate that she was a force to be reckoned with. I have spent so much time trying to win her back. I mean she truly was fearless. She went to Africa every summer without hesitation, got baptized in the Nile river without thinking about the parasites. She traveled around the States staying in strangers homes. She truly was fearless. 

Now she is 28, a wife and a mother. She is me if you haven't picked up on that yet. & I find myself more scared now than ever before. I wonder where the fear came from, but the only thing I can trace it back to was moving to Uganda. I cannot wrap my mind around why it happened or why I am the way I am now. Its really not a fun place to be, to be scared of the craziest things. 

I can create a wild scenario in 2 mins flat. I can fall asleep on demand, its a defense mechanism I created to handle the fear.I cannot get in an elevator without my palms sweating. 

This list could go on and on. If you met me you wouldn't know I was scared of so many things - until I started making jokes about how I fall asleep on demand when I am scared or make dumb jokes to laugh off the fear while stepping into an elevator. When I am nervous I talk louder, according or my husband. Or I am scanning the area like Maggie from FBI, waiting to catch someone. 

However, I do not want to be this anymore. I do not want to live in fear. I want to feel like I did at 22, granted I know that won't really come back fully because -who are we kidding - I was single, with no bills and lived by the saying. 'why not.' But I promised myself that this year I would do something every week that scares me a little bit because that is how I get rid of this beast on my back. I do not mean skydiving. I simply mean riding in an elevator alone. Driving down the interstate in a thunderstorm. Normal everyday things that make me a tiny bit nervous. 

I think the wildest thing about all of this and that I know hard things are worth it. I know that I do things and then look back and I am shocked that I did it. I seem to be able to do the big things for some reason. I can adopt a child, I can move states, I can walk through a disrupted match. I can go months into national pandemic without a single anxious thought (I did this and I am still not sure how. Maybe it was Tiger King or TikTok, but y'all. I never panicked about Covid - I mean duh I have since, but the first panic about it was last month.) I can do all of this because I knew that Jesus was with me. Like I knew I was not walking alone. 

But man, the tiny things. I always sweat the tiny things. 

and as my dad always says, 'don't sweat the little stuff.'

So here is to my year of not sweating the little stuff.