I’m back after a hiatus that lasted longer than I expected.
A couple weeks ago, a combination of work/financial/life stresses and the end of my child’s summer break prompted me to take some time off from writing to be with my family.
For the most part, it was a peaceful two weeks that helped me feel rejuvenated and ready to write again.
When the time came to send my son back to school, my wife and I knew it would be a little stressful as we resumed our normal routine and caught back up with everything.
We didn’t predict it would be as chaotic as it has been, but we’re doing our best to keep our heads above water.
My original plan was to resume writing on Wednesday the 14th, as that was my son’s first day back. As you can see, that plan was delayed.
A notice from the city made me aware of how overgrown I’d let my yard become, which prompted me to take a few extra days to work on it.
My town doesn’t have high expectations for lawn care, but they consider it a violation if your yard looks like a jungle with vines covering most of your fence.
Now that I’ve cut it back, I can spend the rest of my time writing and growing the blog. Although time off is nice and I enjoy yard work, a part of me has been itching to get back to writing.
It feels great to be back in front of the computer typing away.
Sadly, aside from family drama and other troubles, we were hit with another tragedy this week as my wife’s grandmother passed away.
That, along with helping my mother-in-law move far away, our same old financial troubles, and everything else, has made this week a lot harder than we expected it to be.
As recently as a year ago, I would’ve curled into a ball of anxiety when faced with so many problems at once. But I’m not looking for pity or asking anyone to feel bad for us.
As we have before, we’re going to keep our heads up and keep going.
I’m a fan of the cliché that you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you respond.
In the past, my response to mounting stress was to get angry, anxious, or depressed if not have a panic attack. I’ve grown a little since then, and now, I try to face these problems head-on.
I’m learning to take responsibility for my life. I’m done blaming other people or poor circumstances for my problems. I’m going to do the work knowing that things will fall into place if I stay on the right path.
The stress of trying to survive has made me want to take too many breaks from writing, but I haven’t quit. Something always brings me back.
Perhaps it’s my love for creating or the positive comments I’ve received from so many of you who appreciate these writings. Whatever it is, I feel it now more than ever.
Although nobody really knows how to be an adult, I have a far better understanding now than I did a year ago.
My instinct then was to retreat into my comfort zone when hit with too much stress. Now, I’m ready to stray far away from there and embrace all the difficult things I feared before.
When too many bad situations strike you at once, there is no correct way to handle it. All you can do is try your best to navigate this unpredictable life and do healthy, positive things that help to restore your fire after the world has extinguished it.
I’m taking life one moment at a time and embracing all the scary things I used to run from. Adversity will always exist, but I’m not giving in to it just yet.
I have a lot more fight left in me and too many awesome plans for the future.
My plans for the immediate future include posting daily or near-daily articles and opening the blog up to submissions from other writers. Along with my original articles, I would like for Openhearted Rebellion to feature more work from contributing authors.
As it stands, I only republish articles with creative commons licenses or with permission from the author. It would be great to open my space up to other creators with a voice and a positive message, so hopefully, in the future you’ll see more of their work over there.
I continue to write for the Weekly Awareness Guide, and I’m thinking of ways to rework the Karma Yoga Podcast into something new.
For now, along with attending a funeral and figuring out how to make it through the month financially, I’m going to focus on updating the blog regularly with new articles and maybe a few submissions.
Check out Openhearted Rebellion every day to see what’s new and follow us on Facebook.
Much love, and I’ll see ya soon. =)
Featured image by Kevin Phillips from Pixabay