Somewhere along the way I had lost my sparkle. At least that's how it has been explained to me in various ways from various people. I saw it too, a lull clouded my life. I stopped smiling all the way because it didn't feel genuine, laughing felt foreign. The colours around me became a bit less saturated, the air harder to inhale, my body felt heavier, and I began to experience life from the inside out.I can't really tell you when it started...slowly, gradually I guess. Before I was responsible for anyone but myself I think it was a lot easier to fill my bucket, without a whole lot of extra effort, with perhaps the exception of a few big transitions to grow through. When our first was born, yes, it was an adjustment, but I found surprise in how easy and instinctively parenting came and kind of felt like I was killing it.
Somewhere during my childbearing years, however, I lost hold of that sure confidence. I remember looking back at my life a year after my second was born and realized I had been depressed since her birth without really knowing it. I worked my way out of it (but did I?) in a traditional achievement oriented approach, and within a year I was religiously following a exercise and nutrition plan and kicked my ass into killer shape. One day, while evaluating my body in the mirror, I realized the dissonance between how I looked and how I felt and I asked myself, "Will it ever be enough? If I can't be happy with my body now, will I ever feel skinny enough, strong enough, muscular enough?" I think at some level I knew it was an issue with much deeper roots (another topic for another day).
Those years in between are a bit of a blur, I don't remember much, I imagine most of my energy was spent just trying to keep up with two toddlers and all the responsibilities that come along with them. I had been warned by a number of 'more experienced' parents that going from two to three kids is a huge adjustment. Ignorantly, I brushed off their comments as character to their less-than-desirable attitudes and went along my marry way, convincing my hubby we wanted another. Shortly after our third was born I found myself knocked facedown on life, and have been working my way back to my feet ever since.
Of course I can't blame it all on the little guy, after all, how could you with that smile?! Some pretty major life things have happened in the last four years that have contributed to personal setbacks. It was more a mere accumulation to the load, that became too heavy and I buckled at the knees. Eventually, old strategies became redundant and I had to start to learn life differently. I reached out, became vulnerable, and took up therapy and medication to help carry some of the weight while I relearned how to be me in a more authentically crafted life.
So in the process my sparkle got buried in the rubble. Once in a while it would make an appearance, but never too long lasting before life's happenings would frighten it away. Most days I spent what energy I had just trying to stay on my feet, and became discouraged often as I would somehow get knocked down whenever I started to dust off my knees. But something in me knew the sparkle still lived, and over a matter of time this little guy would make its long-awaited appearance in my life again, and stick around for a while.
Beneath all the hard work, a better something was happening. It was difficult to see, especially by an outsider, but despite the persisting doubts, I knew it was happening at some level and it had to start to show eventually, didn't it?
I can't give credit to any one strategy in my life to finding my sparkle, as it has been a much more complex process than that, and so many experiences and relationships have contributed to the Now version of me. But I can tell you the day I recognized it. Not long after a healing session where I was encouraged to keep moving in the direction I was going, but with more permission, I attended a yoga festival and my sparkle and I were reacquainted. Through guided visualization I found it buried deep in my core. As I acknowledged it's presence, a tiny light illuminated the dark of my inner womb. This acknowledgement was all it took to stimulate its confidence emergence. My relationships with others and with myself transitioned. I became surrounded by a community of soul nourishment, providing a safe space for my vulnerable little sparkle to come out and play, fear demoted to the backseat.
Today I can smile and mean it. The air is lighter, easier to breathe in. I have found the confidence in my gifts and inspiration to share them with the regular world. Ambition, hello! Shit, I might even have a sense of humour. For a brief moment I held the suspicion that this feeling better was just a familiar high at the highest peak of the biochemical rollercoaster, just before the fall, and it was all just an illusion. But then I had a low week. Make that two. But this time life didn't knock the wind out of me. I still had good moments, and didn't feel that familiar feeling of desperately treading water, it was more like floating, riding it out, managing with ease. Turns out the sparkle floats.
Others have noticed too. They tell me so. And they show me in a I''ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours kind of way. I take a lot of satisfaction knowing I can effortlessly brighten another persons day simply through my presence. It really keeps me going going.
I look back on the last few years and all the energy I have put into getting to this shiny checkpoint and think to myself, "It's about fucking time." I know life challenges aren't magically going to disappear and my days are going to be all rainbows and lollipops. I'll likely even have moments where I feel like throwing in the towel. But I have found a new confidence in all this that tells me I still have joy, and I deserve the light it brings into my life. As it turns out, I don't always have to take life so seriously (aha!). Somehow I imagine holding this sparkle closer to my heart, sharing its warmth, I'll find more ease in the hard days. And the tools I've collected along the way will help me manage until it is the sparkle's turn to brighten up. Comfort resides in the knowing that its always there, some days it may dim a little lower, but nonetheless, always there.
