healing gracie

Ugh...it was one of those days. It started as a good day, then at work I get totally flustered and mess up. I hate it when I mess up. So what did I do...the whole drive home I kept dwelling on it...putting myself down and such. I did try to talk myself out of the negative self-talk, but I didn't have as much success as I would have liked.

The damage was done. What started as one thought ricocheted off into several more destructive thoughts. Thoughts came up from my past, such as how I reacted in certain situations. How I tried to get help from people. I felt like a freak again. I am doing my best to get it out of my system before it does more harm.

I could use some help with this one.

Thanksgiving was wonderful!

The yams turned out great! (If I do say so myself).

And the world did not end!

A very successful holiday :D

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Yes, I am posting on Thanksgiving. Why? Because I wanted to share something extraordinary that I accomplished today. I made yams for the first time in my adult life...actually my entire life. Isn't that great?! Maybe...

Ok,that's not my real accomplishment. What I really achieved today was a sense of "okayness" (is that even a word?). I guess I should tell the story, and it does have to do with the yams afterall.

So, it is Thanksgiving and I decided to try this new recipe for yams. This is a shocker in more than one sense. For one, I do not like yams...in fact I rather dislike them. Second, I don't like to cook (or at least I thought I didn't like to cook). But that's beside the point.

There I was, chopping away at the yams, dicing them into bite-sized pieces and such. Then I made the sweet sauce stuff that goes on top of it (it consisted of butter...lots of butter, brown sugar, and Dr. Pepper of all things). I was actually feeling pretty confident about going through and preparing this traditional Thanksgiving dish. I wasn't freaking out, worrying if it was going to turn out ok. And that's the accomplishment right there.

I know, it might seem lame to some of you. But it's a real big thing for me. I mean, I used to freak out frying an egg...worrying if it was perfect or that it turned out the right shape, or the yolk was cooked enough. I was always afraid of judgment in that sense.

Well, not today! Yep, I baked some yams today without worrying about how they would turn out...even though it was brought to my attention that it's not a good idea to try out new recipes on Thanksgiving. Oops...wait...oh well. As I was pouring the sauce over the yams I had the thought: "It doesn't matter if they turn out. If they turn out good, then that great! It they don't, then it's not the end of the world."

So there you have it...I baked yams and it's not the end of the world, at least not for me. If it is the end of the world, my apologies in advance that I brought it on sooner than people were expecting (like 2012).

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know I have posted this song before as a song of the week, but I just had to post it again. For some reason the message in it has been really resonating with me lately. I heard it on the radio the other night and just felt that I had to post it again.

The message is so powerful. You are more...than your past mistakes...than the choices that you make...You are more...than the problems you face, that you create... You are more...than what you have done, and what's been done to you. You are have not fallen too low to love. Even if you feel broken, you are more than that. You are more...you deserve to be loved.

This is a message I have been trying to get myself to believe in since I left the hospital 5 months ago. That I am more than what happened to me then...that I am more than those choices that I made. That I am more now...that I am still growing, changing, and being remade.



"Your are More" by Tenth Avenue North