You don’t have to show up

I always looked forward to Mondays! Weekends were the hardest.

It was so much easier to dress up the physical and emotional pain during the week when I was focused on work but weekends were the hardest.

 Baby showers, birthday parties, get-togethers with friends, and church on Sundays, they were all just hard. We live in a world where it’s not okay to just show up and be yourself. It’s hard to tell someone you’re surviving on Jesus and coffee because you haven’t slept because you’re just in so much pain.

 It’s hard when you are often expected to “dress up” for the occasion, which for me meant I was bloated and uncomfortable in my Sunday best and would hide my feet under the table after I kicked off the shoes that were hurting my feet in church or at the party. And this would be after I cried in the parking lot for an hour because I didn’t want another person to ask me if my bloated stomach (the sign that I was in the middle of a painful flare) meant I was pregnant (the one thing I wanted so badly but wasn’t sure was ever possible).

Weekends were the hardest.

I want to tell my younger self that it’s okay to show up in leggings and comfy sandals.

I want to tell her that there’s no shame in surviving on Jesus and coffee.  

I wish I knew then that it was okay to show up the way I did this past weekend.

I wish I knew then that it was okay to sit with my coffee under a blanket, and to not show up at all.