minimizing the damage

this post may sound a little sad.  melancholy?  depressing?  i hope not depressing.

maybe, just less....spunky....than other things i've written.  it doesn't mean that i'm not happy, because generally and over all, i truly am.  but there have been circumstances lately that have caused deep thoughts, and i know that expressing them will help me let them go.  sometimes i worry about writing these things, because i know people who know me read my blog, and i don't want them to think that i portray myself as someone i'm not.  

i am the laughing until i cry, upbeat, outgoing person who loves getting together with friends, and absolutely loves my husband and children.  believes in God, and goodness, and blessings.  is so extremely grateful for my life.

but i am also someone who feels.  things get deep sometimes in lynsey world.  {i'm assuming by now most readers here know that}  and i don't know if i hide that side?  or just compartmentalize it?  or it's just not necessary to always show it?  i definitely don't hide it, if i'm asked about it.  anyway, this isn't really about me explaining myself.  just wanted to give that perspective so that those who love me don't think i'm about to go and jump off a cliff or anything.  {though drowning in a bowl of ice cream is more my style.}

there are things in life that happen that are sad.  devastating.  things that are hard for me to understand, and when i try to, i just end up getting a stomachache.  then i find myself turning inward, not knowing how to release this sadness because i don't know where it can go.

i am not someone who has escaped things that are devastating.  they are a part of me.  they have brought me to places that are hard for me to understand sometimes, places where i have found myself waking up in the middle of a moment thinking "who in the world am i?" 

there are more difficult stories than mine, however, i get that.  i try not to exaggerate the sadness i have seen as much as i try to not minimize it. 

i know that life is about choices.....free will.....deciding our own adventure.  what is difficult for me to sometimes wrap my mind around, is that many times in the life i have seen, myself and those i love have been the product of someone else's choices. 

"minimize your damage," words spoken by my kind and wise brother, who has seen his own sadness.  "everyone is screwed up.  just figure it out.  get help, fix it.  and minimize your damage."

i'll be honest, there have been times when i've felt hopeless or jaded, extremely sad at the fact that most people i know have had some very devastating things happen to them.  i've become angry that it seems so unfair to suffer at the hands of another who is also screwed up, but has decided that instead of fixing it, they want to project it, sharing and continuing their pain.  they cause the domino effect to continue, knocking down those in their destructive path.  allowing the cycle to continue.

however, i recognize that on those hard days when i'm lost in my own thoughts and find myself getting really down about what people are put through at the hands of others, my perspective actually is jaded.

because there is hope.  

we all are given the ability to overcome these things, and by going through them, we are actually able to achieve such a deeper level of understanding forgiveness, and self-worth, and what it takes to break the mold.  the blessings that come from really facing the ugly are there, just waiting.

i also know that not everyone i've come across has gone through ugly things.  hard things, yes.  but hard and ugly are different.  the hard things still allow us to look at life through rose-colored glasses, while the ugly causes us to looked through a cracked lens.

i love these people, who lift me up when my cracked lens becomes consuming.  i love that they are optimistic, have not had to fight for happiness, and genuinely believe that most humans are still good. 

but there have also been days when my lens has been cracked, and i've felt like i'm losing hope in my abilities to fix myself.  and on those days?  i will be honest.  i've found myself often jealous of those who still have obtained their rose-colored glasses.  i look at them and wish, and wonder, can i ever get back there?  can i work hard enough to really become one of them?

i know i can.  i am already changing, i've been feeling it for the past 2 years now, and it is such a feeling of freedom.  it's why i keep pushing myself, keep working, keep fixing.  it started for me with really getting honest.  with myself, with others. 

i go through this fight not only for me, though i know i'm important enough to do this even if i stand alone.  but when i made the decision to be a mother, i had not known the weight and responsibility i would feel to fix my broken parts for them.  i am doing my best to raise children {fingers crossed} to have this perspective.  to go through the hard, but escape the ugly....at least any residual ugly from me.  

i refuse to pass this on.

it takes hard work, turning to powers greater than me.  there is something magical about the combination of therapy + God.  if you are open to it, it brings miracles, and change.  

courage.  humility.  patience.  understanding.  forgiveness, whether it's asked for or not.  unconditional love, for myself and others.  acceptance, even when it is not what i hope for with a relationship.  letting go.  saying good-bye to the hurt.  breaking out of the mold i was cast in, knowing i can be whoever i want to be, no matter who has tried to tell me differently.

i am minimizing the damage that has been done, repairing the cracks in my lens, refusing to let the dominoes behind me fall down too.  

and changing my course.