Embracing The Ever-Evolving You
2/9/20
Hi everyone! HAPPY MOTHERS DAY ❤️
I am happy to be back after last Sunday flopping on its head. I am excited to report that my Dad is now home and recovering from his back surgery! All of your prayers for his recovery are so greatly appreciated. :)
My last blog, The Time My Cross Necklace Bruised Me, has me afraid to post again! 😂 The responses I received were so amazing and kind that I worry I won’t be able to live up to it in the future. But I realize that is silly and I don’t do this for the popularity of my posts, but rather to be vulnerable with all of you. So onward we go!
This week I struggled again to pinpoint a topic, but landed on this one- learning how to embrace yourself as you continue to change. I find that it is easy to get trapped in nostalgia; missing who you were before this thing or that thing happened to you. It is easy to romanticize the past and wish you could return to the simplicity of it.
For me, this is something I do more than I’d like to admit. I watch home videos of myself from when I was 2 up through elementary school and wonder where that little girl ran off to and how I can rediscover pieces of her innocence. I see pictures from high school four years ago with my friends and wonder where the time has gone since I moved states away. I remember when I used to be able to run and play sports and workout without my body rejecting me and how I took my health for granted. My heels used to be soft, my skin used to not be riddled with random scars from random things. My hair used to be thick and full, my body used to be more muscular. I miss the me I knew before my heart was broken multiple times by multiple different people. I miss the me I knew before I knew the loss of all of my grandparents.
If I am not careful, I become bitter and even angry about the way my life keeps developing. I have hated growing up from the moment I realized what it was. I have been painfully aware of the ups and downs that awaited me in the future for as long as I can remember. But the thing is, I still wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than where I am now. Why? Because the past looks black and white once it is behind us, but it never actually is.
As a little girl, my mental health was overwhelming, debilitating, and utterly miserable. I was crippled from experiencing a normal life and having normal relationships because of it. And while I will never outgrow those things entirely, I would never have learned to manage them without the life experience that comes with time. I am fortunate to have been able to survive a lot of things that many other individuals have not and come out on the other side knowing what works for me, what doesn't, and developing grace for myself in the process. I would never want to be 5 year old Lexi ever again, I have come much too far for that.
High school Lexi? Yes, she had great friends. No, she didn’t know life outside of Brandon, FL. I knew my faith but I was in an environment that didn’t really challenge me to keep growing; there is a reason God placed Lipscomb in my heart. From 7th grade on, I knew I wanted to attend a small faith-based institution for college. And I knew that no matter how much I loved home, Nashville was where I would be one day. Moving away is still one of the hardest experiences I have ever gone through, but it shaped me into a much stronger person that I never thought I could become.
College? Absolutely insane. My health started to reveal some struggles in the last half of high school, but I never had the time to resolve it before leaping into college. Every exam week came with being so sick I couldn’t eat for two weeks and losing 15 pounds. I started getting bronchitis on the regular and even landed myself in the hospital for it. My hair started falling out in heaps and is still recovering to this day. I found that no matter how many times I tried to get back into the gym, my body rejected me and I’d have to stop going again. I also had some of the deepest heartaches of my entire existence between lost love and lost family members. Yet, I am sure that in a few years, I will look back on my time as a college student and miss it. I will forget all of the struggles I faced and miss the simplicity even if there was nothing simple about it whatsoever. But I learned in the process to value my health, to steward it in a way that many people my age don’t consider for years to come, and how to heal my heart as well as protect it better. I also grew in my faith in ways I cannot put into words. I learned what love is and I discovered what community could look like.
I guess my main point is this- life packs trauma and beauty into our backpack. No matter how heavy it gets, it is still ours to carry. And with each passing day, month, and year, we have to adapt to what we have experienced. We have to learn to love ourselves, to have grace with ourselves, and to continue growing through everything we face. We also have to remind ourselves that while the past can begin to seem appealing to us, it really wasn’t that simple and sweet; we just know it better, it is more predictable than our current moment. It feels safer to think about yesterday than tomorrow.
No matter how hard things get, we must appreciate that where we are today is not where we were yesterday. We must accept that this is who we are, right here and right now. I am a person who has been cheated, broken, loved, saved, alone, and full inside. I have been through trenches I have yet to unpack and I will continue to go through more as I move forward. However, I am unpacking as much as I can. I am accepting the past and making space for the future to be added in.
If we don’t learn to cultivate a sense of gratitude, we will never learn to embrace the ever-changing, ever-growing person that we are. If we can look back and see the lessons, see the right and wrong moves we made, and learn, we can succeed in days to come. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t scary to embrace change and scary to say goodbye. Sometimes, you will find yourself in moments and know that you’ll miss them even before they are gone. Just remember that they aren’t the last beautiful moments you will ever experience. And the same goes for those low moments- you will get out of them, face them again, and get out of them again. We will fluctuate with time. But if we can learn to be thankful that we have life, breath in our lungs, and more time to grow, we will be beacons of light rather than downtrodden.
My hope is that we all accept ourselves; the good and bad, the messy and beautiful sides of who we are. I hope that we stop tryin to get back to the person we were before the trauma or the beauty we have experienced and that instead, we learn to love the person we can become from it.
I love all of you so much, I hope that you are all doing okay and know the value you bring to the table. You are so special and loved. I look forward to seeing you next week!
Till next Sunday,
-Lexi Cummings
SOME WRITING PROMPTS THAT MAY HELP
Make a list of who you love
Make a list of who you harbor hate for
Make a list of what drives you
Make a list of what discourages you
Make a list of traits that you admire in yourself
Make a list of traits that you need to work on
Write a letter to your past self
Write a letter to your future self
