I am Machine

So it's been quite a while since my last post.  I have been doing a lot of self reflection.  Which has been very tough while taking care of sick kids and conquering new waves of grief for us all.  But it has also been very good.  Something I needed to do.  To keep moving.  To truly start thriving instead of just merely surviving.  

As I was making a trek to Tucson a few days ago a song had come on.  (Yeah I know, another song) But as I drove, alone, listening to the lyrics and the way the artist was singing it I couldn't help but think to myself, This is me.  I am feeling and acting just like this! The song that was playing was "I Am Machine" by Three Days Grace.  It talks about being human with pain and suffering, beauty within the bleeding and being able to feel it.  But feeling as if you are a machine.  Not sleeping, not feeling, only trying to fix what's broken and wishing you could feel something.  Taking so many things for granted in the highs and lows, wishing you could just belong.  Not caring about right and wrong, repeating feeling like a machine, not sleeping, not feeling and only trying to fix what's broken.  Since Dustin passed away, this is exactly how I have felt.

I feel as if I am a machine!

I don't feel anymore.  I don't sleep.  I have a hard time differentiating between some wrongs and rights and find that I really don't care sometimes.  I can be in a room full of people and feel like I don't belong.  Feel like I am completely alone.  All I have wanted to do is fix what is broken in my life.  Which unfortunately is impossible within this earthly life.  

After the song finished and I related so well to those lyrics, I thought to myself, Holy Shit Brianna!!  You can't keep going like this!  Yes, part of you, nope, no, most of you died when he died.  But you can't let that stop you!  I couldn't tell you anything else about that drive other than I spent the rest of it pondering how I got to this point and how I could make this better.  How I could stop being a machine and just surviving instead of thriving.  

I came to the conclusion really fast that the reason I became a machine was because I was not ready to accept the fact that I am now a widow.  That I was widowed at 24, pregnant with our fourth child, with three other children under the age of 5.  I realized right then I needed to accept that fact, that I AM a widow and a young, single mother to four children five and under.  I realized that I needed to basically slap myself in the face, wake myself up and smell my roses.  As wilted as they seemed to me, I still needed to smell them and realize the beauty they once had.  I needed to do this so that I could make my life and our kids' lives better by thriving and not merely surviving.

Now this is one of those things that is way easier said than done.  Waking up everyday, smelling those wilted roses, making myself break out of my machine and face my life head on has been very, very hard.  It has taken constant prayers, constant self reflection, constant pep talks.  I am mentally exhausted at the end of every day.  But when I look into my kids' eyes I am reminded of why it is so important.  I am reminded of why all of this is worth it.  They need to thrive and not simply survive, too.  And the only way they will learn is by my example.  

So, I am no longer a machine!  I am Brianna Owens, I am a widow and I have four beautiful blessings to remind me of why this life is so important to thrive in and not merely survive!!