Health

This was my word for the first half of 2014, and while the second half would be a hell storm, these six months were filled with deep joy, excitement, and hope for the future. I loved these few months of my life. With the help of my Junior year roommates, I had healed from a dramatic break-up the summer before, and I had settled into a rhythm of home, ministry, and study that felt full and good. While there were underlying things I was working through in therapy that would require deep healing in the coming years, these first few months of winter and spring were about setting a foundation of healthy habits that I would take with me throughout the rest of my life. It was a slow process, both refreshing and gentle, and I found that it allowed me to sink into my own life in a way I never had before.

The first memories that surface are of laughter and love. The women I lived with that year were joy embodied; I still feel a warmth when I think of them and the space we lived in. Our furniture was hodge-podged together from our parent’s giveaway piles, and we strung Christmas lights throughout the living room that stayed up all year. We had a coffee corner in the kitchen, and pink glitter curtains that clashed awfully with our Moroccan-inspired table cloth. I remember walking into that apartment after class many days to find Ashley, Kristin, and Amanda all splayed out on couches laughing and working on homework. I still hadn’t learned at this point not to self-isolate, and my roommates called me out on it. I found myself leaving my room more than usual, just to spend time with them and laugh. We did yoga in the mornings, and made warm milk with honey and cinnamon at night as we wrapped up our studying for the day. I felt love wrap around me in that space, and I wept for months after moving out. 

There was also a focus on my physical health during this time. I had quit gymnastics when I was 15 and never really found exercise I loved to do after that, so in 2014 I decided to sign up for a hiking trip around the Dingle Peninsula. I had always wanted to go to Ireland, and I had always wanted to start hiking, so this seemed like a good match. I broke in my hiking boots by walking consistently, and then flew to Ireland that May with friends to see beautiful cliffs and hike small mountains and eat a lot of fish and chips. It was here that I fell in love with exercise in nature. I love being in beautiful places, so pairing that with movement feels natural and easy. I also started cooking more this year, saving recipes to Pinterest and trying to figure out how to make things with whole foods and good ingredients. Both movement and eating well have been an ongoing process for me, but I can trace them back to the spring of 2014, and each habit has grown gently over time. 

I was studying theology this semester, as well as social psychology and education, and doing children’s ministry for 1st-4th graders as my work on the side. Something about my education merging with my ministry lit me up. I loved studying theology, and this was the period of my life that sparked a desire in me to get my M.Div, which I would begin to pursue three years later. The groundwork of ministry and education has been a foundation for me ever since – in some way, education, theology, and psychology have been a part of everything I have done. Alongside these, I was also taking therapy seriously for the first time. While I had started seeing a therapist when I was 19, it wasn’t until I was 21 that I began to see the massive gaps of formation in my own life due to some of the things I had experienced. I began to feel the repercussions, and not dealing with things became harder than dealing with them. It was here that I began a journey I am still on today, a winding staircase that consistently heals me, but also consistently brings me back to the same areas of pain and weakness that I grow through again and again. 

Looking back, I think what I learned in this time is that health is a gradual thing. It ebbs and flows, and it builds on itself over time, over decades. Small habits can create lifetime change, but it doesn’t feel like that in the moment, and it’s mundane. It’s somehow both boring and lovely. Laughing with friends, eating well, going on walks, working and studying– all of these piece together to form a life, and there is grace in setting the tone for those things over the course of time. I have found that health isn’t something to attain; it’s something to sink into, to allow yourself the liberty to change, to try something new and to rename yourself as someone who does that kind of thing. I think we often fear new habits because we think we already know who we are. But we don’t, always. We get to decide new things every day, and we get to tell ourselves that we’re the kind of people who go on walks, or who cook with our friends, or who find the little joys in our work. Health is small things that, over time, allows us more room in our lives to experience love – which is, in the end, the entire point.