What is Coming is Better Than What is Gone

I’ve been contemplating this post for awhile now. Over the past couple of months, I’ve thought a lot about my blog and this moment. When will I feel like I can write again? When I feel like I can write again, what will I say? Will things have changed? Will I have changed? Just some of the many questions I’ve pondered this summer. Being away from this blog makes me realize just how much I love it and how powerful it is to share my story and to hear all of yours. Being away from it has also allowed me to step back and take a really hard look at my life, including what is working and what hasn’t been working. I’ve come to find out that although I tried really hard to pretend like I had it all together, there were a whole lot of things that weren’t working.

Here’s the thing. Every time I feel like I have things figured out, life knocks me down and makes me realize that I don’t. These moments are frustrating and embarrassing and humbling, but I’ve come to find that these moments are usually followed by something beautiful and purposeful. This summer is no exception.

This summer has been a season of transformation for me. If you would have told me 6 months ago when I discharged from the Meadows Ranch that I would be back on a plane to Phoenix Sky Harbor en route to little Wickenburg, Arizona for the second time in a year, I would have told you that you were nuts. But that's exactly where I found myself on June 14th, on a plane heading back to the desert, despairingly wondering just how I let this happen...again.

When you leave treatment, you don't picture yourself going back. For a perfectionist like me, going back felt like admitting failure. I was beating myself up for not having my life as together as I was portraying to the outside world, for disappointing the ones I love the most, and for well, failing. In the black and white world I live in, going back meant that I had failed at recovery and that all the growth I thought I had made was erased. Setting foot back on the Ranch's gravel road, staring down the next 45-60 days of my life, I muttered aloud to myself, “What did I get myself into?” Speaking from someone who has made her fair share of mistakes in life, I have thought those words in my head many times. But there’s something surreal about returning to a place you thought you would never see again, a place that you equal parts love and love to hate, handing over your freedom and control that just kinda smacks you right in the face.

For my first couple weeks, those words became a mantra in my head. “What did I get myself into?” played round and round my brain as I stared out into the familiar desert. Those words litter my journals throughout the whole month of June, make many appearances in the letters I wrote to friends, and were said aloud to some of the unlucky techs that were on the receiving end of my angry, frustrated rants about finding myself back there. I walked around the place that I had started to despise, yet secretly loved, feeling all sorts of conflicted. I was angry, I felt trapped, and I was feeling very bad for myself. More than anything else, I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I had failed at recovery and was trying to figure out where to go from there. In those moments, I had forgotten that recovery isn't linear, that it isn't black and white, that even when you fall on your face, it doesn't mean that all the distance you covered before you fell down again is erased. I felt as though I was a failure because I couldn’t yet see all the growth I had made.

As the days and weeks went by, I began to remember just how much I loved the Ranch and its people. I felt at home there, perhaps more than any other place has felt like home. Slowly but surely, the desert won me back over. As my heart softened again to that place, it also started to soften to my own journey. I started to give myself some grace, and little by little, I opened up to the idea that maybe coming back wasn't failure after all. Maybe I hadn't failed, maybe I hadn't gone backwards, maybe throughout this journey back to the desert, I had been growing all along.

You see, the decision to go back was entirely mine. Unlike my previous experience where I was too sick to make the decision for myself, this time around I was in control of my fate. From the outside looking in, I looked like I was doing ok but I wasn't doing nearly as well as it appeared. Deep down, I knew where I would be at the end of the summer if I allowed my life to hurtle in the destructive direction in which it was heading. So I was proactive, I admitted I needed help, and headed back to the desert despite judgment and doubt from some of the people around me. As I look back, deciding to go back to treatment before things got dire showed incredible growth, growth that took me a long time to accept and see as such.

Now, at the end of the summer looking back over the 45 days I spent in the desert, I can wholeheartedly say that I've never made a more mature, introspective, and brave decision in my life. As much as I feel like my 52 days in Wickenburg influenced me this fall, my 45 days there this summer totally transformed me. I worked harder than I ever have and because of that work, I'm able to say that I am a different person than I was when I boarded that plane back in June. Yes, I did the basic things I needed to do like finish my meals and go to groups. But unlike last time when I did the bare minimum, I threw myself into the experience this time around. I did things that I thought I couldn’t do, I put myself out there and tried new things even when I didn’t know for sure if I would be good at them. I was authentic, I was vulnerable. I let people in, I let people see the real me. I was honest with myself and the people around me, I admitted when I was struggling, I asked for help, and I allowed people to help me.

I left the Ranch with a lot of regrets last fall. There were so many things I didn’t try, things I didn’t give my all to, and so much stubbornness around whether I was sick enough to even need help. In the moment, I thought I was truly “in.” But as I mentioned above, whenever I feel like I have a good handle on things and have things figured out, I’m not so gently reminded that I don’t. Reflecting this summer on my two experiences, I realized just how resistant I was when I was at the Ranch for the first time. I fought it every step of the way, the whole time, and because of that, I ended up back there. You live, you learn I guess, right?

Even though it took me a few weeks, I finally figured it out this time around. I fully surrendered to the process, to the people, and to the program. Instead of getting angry at the things I didn’t understand, I trusted that they were in place for a reason. Instead of wondering if I could trust the staff and my team, I let them in and let them help me. Instead of looking for everything I was doing wrong, I started to look for the things I was doing right. I began to give myself grace and let things happen at their own pace. Were there times I got frustrated? Yep. Were there times I struggled? Oh yes. Did I have a good attitude every single day I was there? No, not even close. But I was so blessed to have staff that knew me from last fall and could remind me (over and over again) that I had made the right decision, that I was different, that I was making growth, and that I could do this. I’m so grateful to those people who were there for me day in and day out, checking in on me, making me laugh, seeing and liking me for me, and for calming me down and reassuring me that I was ok. Leaving the Ranch this time, knowing that this time it was for good, was so bittersweet. It will forever be in my heart as a second home and its people truly became my family. 💜

So here I am, gifted yet again with a new lease on life. A new beginning. This summer, I have realized many things about myself and this beautiful life that I have. One of those realizations is that I'm in control of myself, my circumstances, my environment, and who I choose to surround myself with. I can be and do and go anywhere that I want. That may sound obvious to some of you, but admittedly, I haven't seen life through that lens for quite awhile. I was waiting for life to happen to me and just going with the flow, until I finally realized that I'm in charge of the trajectory in which my life is heading and how I respond to the world around me. This realization has been a big one for me, and is still sinking in. Some days, I look at all the possibilities with excitement and anticipation. Other days, all the possibilities seem scary and overwhelming. But in the end, I now feel empowered to take this life that was given to me and do my very best to live it as healthy and as fully as possible.

I stepped away from my blog this summer for the ultimate act of self care. I had hit a wall and felt as though I had nothing left to say. Thankfully, with my well-nourished brain and abundance of experiences, reflections, and realizations from the past few months, I don't feel as though I have nothing to say anymore. Instead, I have so many things that I can't wait to share with you all over the coming months. I'm excited to get back on my blogging schedule, but I ask for grace and patience from all of you as I attempt to sift through all the ideas in my brain and somehow try to transfer them as eloquently as possible into words that adequately portray the powerful realizations I've made.

There are a lot of things that I still don't know, but one thing's for certain:

What is coming is better than what is gone, and for that, I’m so very grateful. 💜