Growth & progress (Bex-green)

"Are you still in the same place you were last year? Are the issues you wrestle with today the same ones that you were wrestling with last year? If you can identify at least one area of your life, no matter how small, that was a problem at this time last year but is not today, congratulations – that is growth!.... If your answer is no, that does not mean that no healing is taking place. Our deepest wounds often heal from the bottom, so it can be difficult to see the progress until a lot of healing has taken place." - Blooming Lotus

This is a quote from Blooming Lotus in one of her recent posts; one of my favorite bloggers. She modified it from a quote she got from somewhere else. If you want to see her post (very insightful) click here: http://faithallen.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/are-you-still-in-the-same-place-you-were-last-year/

It got me thinking. I've really been struggling the past few months. I've been really struggling the past few years. A year ago I was:

- in my first apartment (a studio) without internet and bare bone necessities

- working a dead end job

- dating my boss

- fighting a lot with said boyfriend

- trying to keep my office from being shut down

- starting to work on the health care debate (before everyone even knew it was on the agenda)

- about to get health insurance for the first time in several years

- about to get my wisdom teeth out

- still struggling to learn how to cook for myself

- learning yoga and doing physical therapy

- started getting acupuncture

- still undiagnosed with anything

- in an extremely deep depression

When I look back, I realized, I have moved on with those issues. Some are still there in a different form. But I've changed so much. I wouldn't go back for anything. The biggest difference is that before, I was fighting a ghost. Now, that ghost is real and i know what to call it. Mysteries are unraveling. I don't like what they are, but at least I know what there are and I can choose to do something about it or not.

Some of my biggest joys today are what I have done to master those challenges. We won the healthcare battle and I learned how to be a better lobbyist, community organizer, leader, and political activist & reader. I'm so proud that I can consider myself a leader in my career field. I also now am an amazing cook and my cookbook is starting to take shape. I have enrolled myself in a holistic health school so that I can help others in a way that I didn't get help when I needed it. I have internet now too! AND... TV (via the internet). I finally left my dead-end job after saving it a dozen times (an accomplishment in itself!) and built myself a killer resume. I also am doing many of the things that my boyfriend was holding me back on then. I think I needed to be in that place when I was. I wouldn't change it. But I AM very sad with the end. I still am reminded of him every night as I go to bed and at every restaurant and street corner. I will be for a while cuz he was the person that I learned San Diego with. There never was a time when there wasn't Adam when I went out to explore what San Diego had to offer. And that is just one challenge that next year I will look back on and see how much I have grown.

Every morning I think back I say to myself, hey! look where you were April 2007. I was in Mexico and in the middle of my worse nightmere when I got back home to school. April 2008 I was climbing out of the lowest point of my life still trying to adjust to moving to the west coast. April 2009 was pretty shitty too, as you saw above, but a little bit better than the previous year. April 2010 is still really shitty, but in context, its a whole bunch better. Can't wait for next year!

I firmly believe it only gets better from here cuz I've already been at the bottom of the bucket. Here's for progress!