Amanda Carrasco

So last weekend sucked. It was bad and it’s over.

Now it’s Wednesday. I made it to Wednesday – yeah me! The other days were ok. I could breathe and think. One thing at a time but progress is progess. Today was descent for most of the day, until 3pm. At 3pm I did not get any tragic news. There was no devastation or life altering messages. Just one that made me sad. And I stayed sad.

I couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t a terrible message and it just meant re-working some plans. So why did I stay sad? I finished work, made diner and then left for my class. I don’t like to call it yoga class because that is NOT an accurate description. It is a full on fitness class in a sauna that they call yoga. I had a great class but at the end it was like my mind was playing a tape and I started to cry. The cool thing about this “yoga” class is that you all sweat so bad no one can tell that you were crying. I’ve done it many times.

I came home and I made a list. I wrote out all the things that have been very difficult or very hurtful since October 2017. I covered an entire page, line by line with my life that I watched from the tape in my mind. It occured to me, this is why your still sad. It has been one thing after another after another. So when I get sad about one thing I am not just sad about that one thing, I am sad about all of it.

It’s like sadness lives in a box and when I open the sad box it’s all there together because I haven’t been able to fully unpack the box yet. I think it’s the same with all my emotions. Life has not only had difficulty, but it has had incredible joy as well. When I open the happy box it has my kids, my accomplishments, my friends, my school, and my upendo. This is how I can be happy in one minute and sad in another. It depends on which box I have open. Sometimes you can close a box easily (happy often closes easier) and others are more difficult (sad is harder to close – especially with so much stuff in it).

Maybe one day, life will give me some time, and I will take time, to start to go through my sad box. There are some things that will live in that box forever. They are permanant fixtures. But not everything is and I need to work on those things, in my time. They are my boxes and I won’t rush through them. They are part of me now and I choose when to let them go and when to hold them close. Not everyone agrees with me on that, but the one who knows my heart, because He made it, He’s got me and He doesn’t rush.  He would like to slowly unpack with me when I am ready. I love that about Him.