{day 32}

I have been so very stressed about how much I've missed on my Project 365. My husband keeps reassuring me I had a good reason, between what happened to the little last week and the party last weekend. I know I couldn't have kept up with it under the circumstances, or surely I would have. And yet. Maybe I didn't because when I am wounded or stress (and we were certainly an even balance of both) I tend to retreat. To hide myself even from those things that make me the happiest. I don't ever feel that I'm allowed to feel any joy in the midst of pain. And so I hid. And hid. And hid some more.

I seriously contemplated just ditching the project all together since I have missed so much these past few weeks. I'm not going to quit though. The circumstances of the past few weeks have been out of my hands, but the here and now, the place I'm at right this second, well that's all up to me.

I've been completely uninspired. I look around my house and feel that I've already taken a picture of it all. Of course that can't be true. It was like my heart wanted to be behind the camera so badly but my brain wouldn't cooperate. So I strapped the camera to myself and to the backyard I went.

Immediately I was drawn to this small clump of "trees." I put this in big, fat quotes because the trees in question are actually nothing more than stumps. It was a huge cluster of oaks at one point that we were forced to chop down to put our fence up, and yet the stubborn things keep growing their tiny little, glorious maple leaves. (At least I'm pretty sure they were maples of some kind.) At this weird point of my life, I was drawn to the strength of these silly little stumps.

The force of nature's desire to regrow and rebuild is something to take inspiration from. Sure, come the Spring it may be a pain in the bum. I imagine we'll have to keep chopping them down so that they don't destroy our fence. But today I sympathize and admire them.

Upon looking up I was reminded that soon, very soon, I will feel light and joyful again. It is my nature to rise above.

"She decided to free herself, dance into the wind, create a new language. And birds fluttered around her, writing "YES" in the sky. {Monique Duval}

I do believe it's time to break free and dance. Break free from doubts, heartache, sadness, fear. Push through this mess, and fly. Because at the end of the day, no matter how far we're chopped down, it is in our nature to grow again into something even more beautiful.