I just realized what my problem is.

Me.

They say, when you keep having the same problem over and over again – with different people – to find the common denominator.

Well folks, ’tis I.

I wish I knew exactly why my feelings are so deep and so impactful when it comes to relationships. Cleeeearly, I’m being called to relationships…being pruned and refined with every necessary growing pain. But maaan, God – can you just let a page from your playbook slip out of your hands and land on my windshield? Because it’d be great to know I’m getting close…

There were a lot of feelings thrown into the mix this past week. Between family and friends, I tapped out emotionally pretty early on. But things came to a head when I found out my therapist was moving and closing her practice. On the outside, I was solemn. On the inside, Hurricane Katrina. COMPLETE. HAVOC.

This was a woman who took my jumbled, tangled, ball of emotions and helped me unravel each over the last 4 years. A woman who helped me own my big feelings, even if they were too much for others to handle sometimes. The woman who opened up my eyes to see the identity God had given me.

I realized during a coaching call on friendship this week just how overwhelming this idea of IDENTITY is for me currently.

How my identity is in many “entanglements” within friendship and almost … estranged … from ME these days.

And gosh, I think of all the times I sat down on my therapist’s couch ready to unpack co-dependency with a lens focused solely on my family, and how right now, I could really use a refresher with a friendship lens.

When I moved back from Las Vegas in 2013, I returned to a circle of friends I didn’t really belong in anymore. A circle full of girlfriends, fiancees, wives, mamas who were suddenly unavailable much of the time, unable to join in on the life I was ready to live out. It was a struggle to do things together anymore. Our schedules didn’t mesh. Whether permission from their significant others, financial constraints or childcare sorting, they simply weren’t as flexible as I was…so naturally we drifted apart. In addition to the loss, I found myself putting certain desires on pause, seemingly waiting on ANYONE to share in these experiences with me. My family, which had always been my solid foundation, gained even more of my focus. But when divorce broke our family apart years later, it was friendship I sought out once again.

Over the years, I’ve thrown so much of myself into building and nourishing relationships with other people. And there’s been SO much fruit to sprout from the nurturing. Buuut at times, I’ve neglected my own nourishment. I tend to give and give and give, show up day after day, overexerting myself tryyyyying to be helpful in any possible way, trying to meet the needs of everyone around me, trying to make myself needed, dependable, reliable, friend-ish. So when I get to those scenarios when I don’t have the ability to help, when it begins to feel forced, like more of an annoyance, when it’s discouraged and unwelcome, or when friends just aren’t available, I tend to shut down emotionally.

Who am I if not a servant….a helper….surrounded by friends?

Ahhh…. it’s in THOSE moments that I realize just how dependent I am on people to validate me or give me some sense of worth.

It’s in THOSE moments that I know it’s time to retreat.

And lately, it’s in THOSE moments that I’m certain God is at work, chiseling away at my sense of IDENTITY.

It’s been a couple of months that I’ve been aware of those same feelings of “waiting” and putting life on pause. A couple of months that I’ve been fighting against those selfish feelings that my life’s, in some way, altered because of others’ progression. But instead of saying NO to things or waiting on others’ schedules to align with experiences I’m feeling called to, I’m choosing YES. I’m choosing ME. And I’m believing that these feelings are stirring a personal work within me to break off roles and expectations and to firm up the foundation of my IDENTITY so that I wouldn’t sway too far left or right based on the status of a relationship. That no matter what, I know who I am. I’m still here, firmly planted.

The common denominator to my purpose.