Several friends and acquaintances of mine from the group, See Jane Write Birmingham, are participating in a month long “blog like crazy” challenge, led by Javacia Harris Bowser.  The challenge is to post meaningful content once a day for a whole month, which is definitely a challenge since normally I post more like once a month! Partly because it takes me so friggin’ long to write a post; I’ve written and re-written this paragraph about 8 times!   I’ve also been unsure of the direction I’ve wanted to take my blog, which along with being so busy, is another reason I don’t write more frequently.  I love sharing my struggles and triumphs because it helps me see where I’ve come from, and it helps me connect to myself and other people. After some out of town friends left this morning, I felt intensely lonely.  But as I sat down to write, the loneliness faded.  By writing and being part of this challenge, I feel connected to a whole community of women out there, many of whom I’ve never met.

I also know how much it’s helped me to read other people’s stories at moments when I’ve really struggled.  Today I am a pretty happy girl.  Most days I really do feel peaceful, content and centered.  I struggle with how to concretely create the life that I truly want, but I no longer live in a dark, depressed and hopeless world.  For many years, I wished that I had never been born.  Life felt like too much of a struggle, and I saw myself in a hole that I didn’t think I would ever climb out of.  But there were a few key people around me, one woman in particular, that consistently and lovingly held up the possibility of hope when I couldn’t believe in it myself.  And that was life changing for me.  It wasn’t a fast process, and I didn’t get out of that darkness as quickly as I wanted to, but I’m so happy now to not live in that state of constant misery.

I want to be a beacon of hope for people who can’t quite believe in it for themselves right now.  Because I truly believe that if we keep walking, if we keep putting one foot in front of the other, we’ll get where were going.  There have been many times in my life where it took everything within me to keep walking.  And I’m so glad I did, because now the peace and meaning I’ve found in my life is more than I ever could have hoped for.

I know this blog is about building a Passive House, and sometimes it feels kind of strange to one day post about such personal things and the next day write about how to build a super-insulated, air tight wall.  It might make more sense to have 2 separate blogs, but it’s about all I can manage to keep up with one.  So for now, I guess my techie construction friends will have to put up with some painfully introspective posts, while my other friends endure the occasional post about  ventilation systems and green building.  It’s a testament to me really because I’m all those things.  If I had a blog about only one thing, it would almost be hypocritical given how much I love variety.  It’s probably the thing that I love and hate most about myself.  The diversity of all that I do and the people that I’m around bring a true richness and excitement to my life, and it’s also what makes me feel scattered, overwhelmed and lacking in focus. That’s my journey, trying to live a life full of variety and meaning without being too stressed to enjoy it!  So I’m giving the blog like crazy challenge a shot.  I love the idea.  I’m not going to pressure myself into writing every day if I don’t have the time or don’t feel inspired.  But I’ll challenge myself to write more frequently this month.  Thank you for reading, and thanks for the inspiration, Javacia!