A follow up to "The Voice" post (and being a giant mess)

A few months ago I wrote this post about the evil, ugly voice residing in my head. It was born out of a very real place of fear, and came after days and weeks of feeling depleted and frustrated. I was so sick of the self loathing that kept me from being productive that I just dumped all of the raw emotions I was feeling into a post, hit publish, and said "good riddance, dummy!"

It wasn't enough to just write it down. I needed to purge everything and set fire to that stupid voice. I wanted it out and away from me. Clicking "publish" felt like saying a giant, "Screw you!" to all the hateful things I was feeling about myself at that time.

 The post about the voice showed very little restraint. I felt pretty broken and I did almost nothing to sugar coat how I felt versus what I chose to share. I made little effort to talk about some powerful way to crush the voice and only briefly touched on what helped to calm the inner beast. I didn't feel positive before, during or right after writing it, and I stubbornly wanted that to be very apparent.

I wanted it to be clear that I didn't have the solution to my problem. Or better yet, that I logically knew the solution to my problem, but right in that moment I was still struggling to get to it. I was still clawing my way through the mess. There was no shiny bow to wrap up the loose ends; no fist pump freeze frame or soaring music. Nothing to indicate that the story was finished, simply because it wasn't.

I worry that when I use this space to address a personal struggle or vulnerability, that it comes across as if I've already completely worked through it and am now bestowing my "wisdom" on the world.

Ugh.

Even just writing that makes me cringe. It is so easy to fall into the trap of "beginning, middle, end of story." The ability to have that metaphorical shiny bow wrapping everything up is so constant and tempting. And false. The truth is I almost always struggle with the more "serious" (for lack of a better term) posts. Partly because I'm usually still working through whatever topic is on my heart at the time. And partly because I want to be open and honest and convey those things in a way that rings true to who I am.

Nothing in my life is without it's loose ends or messiness. That's easily identifiable if you've spent any time with me in person (or even just passed me in the grocery store as I try to keep my baby from jumping out of the cart while his sisters beg for donuts). But hopefully I'm doing a semi-decent job of expressing that here, in a place where it would be easy for me to paint a different picture instead.

In short, I'm a giant mess without all the answers.

(Thank God)