This summer the cycle changed. This summer my Mom died.

"It's me. Hi. I'm the problem it's me."

Put a finger down if the above Taylor Swift lyrics resonates with you.

I've been in this place before. Where I know I need to slow down in my life but I continue tolerating x, y, and z. I tell myself the calendar will remain open only to fill up by mid week. Then the next week, into the next month and before you know it, it's a 2 month wait until I've got an avail. Why do I do this to myself? How did this happen again?

The messages keep popping up to remind me I'm not giving myself time. Time to heal, time to explore, time to play, and time to process. Yet I keep trudging along like the good solider I am. I trudge on until exhaustion, I trudge on until it physically hurts, I trudge on until my body can't trudge on further. And then I collapse. I'll succumb to sickness, forced to take a much needed break. Forced to be in the reality of not having to do ALL the things, ALL the time. I sleep. I relax. I chill. I recover. Only to repeat the cycle. Rinse, wash, repeat.x 8 years. 

This summer the cycle changed.  This summer my Mom died. 

To say those six weeks leading to her death was excruciating is an understatement. I didn't know how I'd survive it, to be honest. I knew I was going to be there for her. I'd simply live for every moment I could have with her until she took her last breath. I never felt like I had a choice on the matter. It was just what I did. What I knew how to do. It wasn't until it was over I realized I was just in survival mode. Body was shutting down. I felt like a shell of myself. My nervous system was shot and my heart was broken in way I'd never experienced before. Did you know heartbreak is real? You can physically feel the pain in your chest. An ache that feels as if someone took out a chunk of you. A part is missing and you feel the gap. The void. The hole left behind. I knew a part of me went with my Mom that evening. 

The break came in the form of a week off from my regular programming. I cried. I slept. I cried. I got into busy mode with all the technical things that happen when someone dies. All the business aspects of death. The dutiful chores one must do. Cancel bills. Notify banks. Deal with the funeral home. Ensure planet Earth knows this person no longer exists. I had help with family and friends. They helped me duck-tape my heart so I could keep surviving the days. The weeks. Then 1 month, 2 months, 3 months. 

Burn out mode is rough. Cortisol is at an all time high. Sleep is at an all time low. Imagine trying to walk in clay as it accumulates on your boots. Each step feels heavier than the last. It took every ounce of me to lift myself out of bed. To go to work during the day. Teach my Zumba classes at night. See my friends. I experienced only what I feel was depression for the first time. I'd smile on the outside and scream on the inside. Rinse, wash, repeat. Only this time I couldn't keep trudging on. 

The signs kept showing up. Reminders that the calendar I'd live and die by would be my demise. It'd be the one thing to create enough havoc in me that maybe this time the sickness would win out. Chronic business. Chronic illness. Escape the feelings. Numb the pain. Distract from the daily voids. It's really no way to live.

 I want my sparkle back.

 I want my calm. My inner peace.

 I want my nervous system regulation back in alignment. I want to feel like myself again. 

I sought out the healers, and then came change. And ooOoooo let me tell you-- change feels so uncomfortable. It's the itchy sweater feeling. The ugh-now-I- need-to-look-at-myself feeling. The- ugh- I-need- to-sit-with-myself feeling. And this is why I decided tonight I'd blog. I'd create a post to express my thoughts and feelings with this free time and new schedule. To sit here, uncomfortable-- itchy even. And write. 

I'm in the process of freeing up time. I'm in the process of shedding an old skin of the woman I was before my Mom died, to now figuring out the woman I am after. How do I want to live the rest of my life? Where does the free real estate in my brain go now that it's not consumed by my Mom?

I'm in the process of digging up old belief systems and reevaluating new ones. Anytime grief rears it's ugly head you're forced to evaluate what matters. Forced to take a hard look at the way you live. Here are some big truths that hit harder when you watch someone go:

Time is precious. It is the one resource you do not get back. 

Love is everything. Love freely and love big. You only get so much time to love in this life. 

The big things you thought mattered actually don't. It's all the small stuff. The seemingly insignificant that truly becomes big when you look back at it all. 

But oh how there is beauty in the circle of life. The good mixed with the ugly. The feeling of your heart cracking and yet bursting open at the same time. Watching the last breath leave the chest and hear the silence fill the room. There are events in life you never forget. Events that shape you. Change you. Grow you. Heal you. 

And here I am experiencing them all. And it's uncomfortable. It's itchy. It's necessary.