13 going on 31

When I check age boxes on forms now I have to check the box that says 31-40.
But even so I'm not particularly startled by age. Because I've felt 13 for as long as I can remember.

I've felt awkward and gangly.
I've felt desperate for love and affection while being to coolly aloof and indifferent to act like I cared.
I've felt overdeveloped and under prepared.
I've felt like all the drama and ebbs and flows of life were way beyond my level of maturity.

But last year I decided I was going to make conscious efforts to get healthy. I was going to do the hard stuff, the sweaty stuff. I was going to lose weight melodramatically and just be a better me.
I immediately began to realize that getting physically healthy was the least of my problems.

The release of endorphins and the slow re-balance of hormones that began to happen jump started my brain and unlocked that hidden away room that I kept all my fears, insecurities and all the lies.

I stopped being able to shove them down with food, although I kept trying.

I stopped being able to push them away with a snarky remark and well timed eye roll.

You stopped believing me when I said I was ok and you brought the words I typed in the dark of night back to show me how you knew.

It was all so much harder than I ever expected it to be.

But I'm getting healthier. I'm talking about it more and even seeing someone specifically to talk about it. I'm asking for help and even occasionally accepting help when it's offered.

I'm pruning away the 13 year old in me.

I'm swimming hard against a decades and even generations old current of hate, lies and grudges and I'm learning to live in the set aside.

It's interesting to look back and see the 30th year all at once. Because so often I would feel mired in the muck and I felt like I was sinking most of the year. But I can see the movement more clearly now.

I can see that the times I found Heaven to be terrifyingly silent it was I that had my fingers in my ears screaming la la la I can't hear you.

I can see that the cold distance I often felt from God this year was from my closed bible and the boulder I set on top so it wouldn't accidentally fall open.

I can see that the relationships that seemed at low tide and I struggled with feeling stranded on a dusty shore alone again were really times that I was being shown how to trust my own two feet to hold me up.

I can see how feeling disconnected from everyone and everything was to show me that I was far more connected than was healthy for my faltering and floundering heart. I see how I need to be connected to others in a more healthy way, in a way that I allow myself to be vulnerable and transparent in a way I just had never allowed myself to be before.

I can see the dryness I felt in my soul and I can see that it was from the dam I built not the indifference of the people I was shoving away.

So I'm in a new box now. But in many ways I'm still trying to drag my old box along with me. I'm trying to let it go.
I thought, one year? No problem.
But it might take me two years. It might take me three, and that's ok.