Brave

 I've tried in vain to find words written by someone else to accurately describe my feelings the past few weeks. 

I have anxiety. It's not a secret. Most of the time, it's a lingering discomfort that makes everything just a little bit harder. Things--like sleeping through the night, or talking to someone new, or going to the store, or driving a car--are harder. But I've learned to work through them because there's really no other option but to work through them. I have to be stronger than the constant fear that lingers in my head, or sometimes in my chest, or sometimes in the pit of my stomach at 3 in the morning.

But life threw a curveball at me, and I wasn't really ready. 

I'm going to have another baby.

I think I went through all five stages of grief. I didn't want to tell anybody. I was not excited. In fact, I was in a full blind panic. 

I had reasons. Things were finally getting into a good rhythm. I felt like I had a lot of stuff under control. But my weight wasn't where I wanted it to be-- the past year I've been working on healing my body image and not focusing as much on counting macros and calories and following any sort of plan, and my weight went up (as it naturally would) because I was eating normally after years of disordered eating patterns. I was so afraid all my careful work would be undone, that I wouldn't be able to exercise the way I like to, that people would look at my body and judge me for my size. All the careful work I'd put in would be undone.

And then there were the bald facts: I have hard pregnancies. I knew I was looking at weeks, if not months, of constant nausea, of hip pain, of maneuvering my short body up and downstairs and in and out of cars. I knew I would get depressed and angry and want to hide from the world and hide from my family and that I would feel alone and isolated. 

It was a mountain, and I panicked at the thought of suddenly having to climb it. 

So, here is what it means to be brave.

It means to feel the panic coming at you like a speeding train, but you can't escape it or run away from it, so you just let the train hit you. It means feeling the fear and feeling it again and again and again, but still somehow you're able to keep breathing.

Bravery means seeing that pain can make you stronger.

Bravery gets you up in the night and stays with you, telling your fear that even though you're afraid of what the day holds, you'll be alive at the end of it.

Bravery is recognizing that everyone might see you, and even though you don't want to be seen, you leave the house anyway. 

Bravery is what lets you give yourself away because loving someone means hurting when they hurt, it means sacrificing comfort, it means going against the current if you have to, it means creating something from nothing when there's no other option. 

Bravery is when you choose to do something hard. Bravery is eating another piece of toast. Bravery is hoping this one will stay down. Bravery is accepting that things will be okay -- eventually-- even if they aren't okay now. 

Bravery is trying to climb a mountain without knowing if you'll ever reach the summit. 

Bravery is trusting God, even when you feel like you can't trust yourself.