We Need All Of Who We Are...

 Hi!

So this is what happens when you clean out the fridge. 

A couple of tomatoes that were on the verge of getting squishy, some leftover chicken, bits of cheese, some green onion, some mini-sub buns, etc. The cookies, well grandbabies were coming with short notice, I had some butter, eggs, remnants of a variety of chocolate, and other bits, well...cookies. (The favourite kind thus far, apparently)

Leftover ingredients from things that were planned. The extras. The bits and pieces set aside, not needed, but, not deserving of being tossed out. 

We all have them. The bits, the pieces. Things that were set aside, not needed, but not garbage.

They are the things we have from birth or we develop as we go through life, or some combination thereof.  We need pieces of every aspect of ourselves to walk through our time here. 

I've said it before. No one gets through life without scars. It's simply not possible. Some are deeper than others. Some barely scratched the surface, but still leave a mark. Some are a result of happy, exuberant occasions that spark beautiful memories. Some are horrid reminders of trauma we fight to muck our way through on a constant basis. 

We all have them. The bits, the pieces.

When something big happens we put together what we need to make it to the other side of whatever it is. Whether it's a happy thing like a wedding, or sad, like a funeral. The things we plan tend to be the happy things, the meals, if you will. The sad things tend to hit a bit more out of left field, without the luxury of preparation. We use what's left.

The happy things see our best ingredients. We have time to prepare, get everything in order, making sure we have everything we need to make it great. 

When sad things hit, trauma, we tend to clean out the fridge. 

Happy things, though happy by definition, can, and often do, include stress. But we deal with it using our fridge right full of fresh ingredients, because we knew it was coming, we were expecting the stress. We were ready.

Sad things, well, these hits get whatever is left after day-to-day grinding, running to activities, work, laundry, homework, bills... We pull from our ingredients little by little to take care of all the things. Then, tragedy strikes. We haven't had time, we didn't know this was coming, we are far from prepared, we weren't able to stock up and brace ourselves, so the sad things in our lives get the bits left over.

The thing is, sometimes, in fact, a lot of the time, the most incredible things are built from the bits. Think of your favourite comfort foods... the soups, the stews...

In a perfect world, our resources would never become depleted. We would have a perpetually full fridge, brimming with nothing but the best quality ingredients to draw from. 

That's not the real world. The real world requires us to use all of our bits, the warm and fuzzy bits, even the hard and crusty bits, making the most of what we have, creating comfort from the things we were tempted to throw away. 

We need all of who we are. Every bit is integral to our success. Don't throw away pieces of who you are, you never know when you might need them. 

**************************************************************

May you celebrate every part of you, even the parts that are tough to acknowledge. They all brought you to who and where you are.