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Welcome to the Sunny Side of Me

I am afraid of ambition. 

People with drive always feel so unattainable. Like “I have no drive, how would I ever compare?”

Why do I never take my own advice? I can’t get myself to stop from seeing how I fall short. I fall short a lot. But that’s only because I keep holding myself to the wrong metric. I need to compare myself to myself. Not at my peak, but at how I did yesterday.

Feel tired? Get more sleep than the night before. Didn’t pack a dinner for work? Make something ahead of time today. The mistakes don’t grow like piles of laundry. Mistakes are like tallies on a white board. Do better and wipe it clean. Christ wipes it clean every weak when we take the sacrament.

I told myself yesterday not to take it. I knew it was part of the process. But something in me said I needed it. That I needed to take the first step, and then another and another. The first was deciding to go. Then it was getting dressed. Putting on makeup, putting on my shoes, walking out the door. And going inside.

Our lesson was on trust in the lord and faith in our actions. I have never doubted Him. I have only ever doubted myself and my commitment. I felt unclean and broken. I felt like I needed to find my own way. And I tried. To little success. I did not find happiness.

I needed to do this. I needed to know. My faith had weakened. I knew, in my heart, that the Lord was still there. I had strayed, not the other way around. I’m not going to treat sin like an inevitability. I will make mistakes but I don’t need to make the same mistakes.

I’m afraid of not being enough. That I will settle for the first man to smile at me. It’s not founded anymore. I know my worth. I know what I want in a spouse. But I am moving through this grief and I need to come out the other end before anything more can happen with anyone. I need to forgive myself, allow myself to be pruned and grow back stronger.

I know my testimony is weak. I have been silent for so long. But it’s not gone. It just needs strengthening and conditioning.  One day at a time.

Writing for myself is hard. When I write, I write through someone else’s voice. They are the shield I use to process my pain and frustration and dreams.

The idea of writing something strictly of ME, is daunting. I have so much that I feel I need to do before I can tackle something like that. But I do want to write it.

I want to write from my own perspective of an absent grandparent who showed up for group birthdays only because the travel grew too painful the older she got. I want to know her as a person – a system – and who they really were. I don’t need to know how they got there, but to really know who she was as a whole. I wish every day I could have asked them myself, but now this is what I am left with. I want to be close to her even though she’s gone.

I want to honor my grama. And I think I’ll learn some things about myself, too. I want to know myself more. What I want, what I strive for, what makes me passionate.

 Who am I?

A daughter, a sister, a manager, a front desk agent, a transformer, a traveler, a wanderer, a divorcee, a survivor, a badass red head.

I am Sunny. I am Cortney. I am growing.

I am trying every day.