we can do hard things

We had our 20 week ultrasound last week. The one where they check EVERYTHING. The heart from different angles, the little kidneys, the toes, the bones in the arms. Everything. And it’s a little scary, you’re a little nervous. This thing that you can not see yet, but you feel so responsible for, and someone is gonna tell you if everything is oke yes or no.

We walked out of that appointment with a 10. A big ass sticker. It was perfect, he was perfect, everything was looking well. But there was one thing she saw that didn’t look concerning, but later in the day we heard from our midwife that it is protocol to have that checked in the hospital by a gynecologist. They assured us it was a very good sign that it didn’t look concerning during the ultrasound, but that it’s possible to have it double checked. So we said yes. And we went from a perfect ultrasound, to a hospital referral. And that’s where the fear kicked in.

The hospital appointment is this thursday. And there’s this feeling that is just creeping in there from time to time to remind you that you have something to worry about. A stomach feeling that never really goes away. And everything after thursday seems unimportant. It’s this danger you have been given that you have to overcome before you can move on. And maybe this is just my hypochondriac mind making it worse than it actually is but this is definitely how I experience it.

So I was thinking about this feeling. This feeling of unease. I know this feeling. I’ve had it many times in my life. Some worse than others. It can be a hospital appointment, a wisdom teeth that needs to be pulled, a difficult conversation you have to have with someone you love, a presentation at school. It brings this little shadow over your life until you finished the task. And I don’t like that shadow. Because that shadow doesn’t serve me. It doesn’t make the possibility of a good outcome more likely. It doesn’t give me any control. But somewhere you feel that if you let go of that fear, that shadow, that you do loose control. That you might let something slip. So you hold on to that shadow until the very last minute. Until the actual: ‘OKE’ from the hospital.

But that makes me so dependent. Dependent on good outcomes. Because what if it’s not oke. What if there is something wrong. What if I completely black out during my presentation. What if my loved one doesn’t take the difficult conversation well at all.

What if

Is that that bad? Do we make bad outcomes way worse in our mind? What would the worse worse case scenario be. And would that really be that bad? I feel like sometimes it’s good to lean into the darkest outcomes. Because that’s where you can find the light. Our life is mostly our own reflection on things that are happening outside of our control. And I feel like we spend too much time fearing the unknown. And we forget how good we actually are in handling the though situations. How well we’ve already dealt with difficult times. We can not escape difficult situations, they will always be there for all generations to come. The only thing we can do is when we feel that unease feeling coming up. That stomach feeling of a danger that might be coming, that we relax. And let it move through us. And to not lock it up.

Because we will be ready when hard things happen. It is oke to let the shadow go.

And this whole paragraph is just a reminder to self haha. I’ll be back here reading this whenever that feeling pops back up.

xx your girl