…And There Will Be Bad Days.

When I was first injured, people used to tell me “there will be good days, and there will be bad days.”

Some days, a huge fight with my husband can set off a bad day. Other times, it can be bad hair or a zit on my chin that makes me cry for hours. I never know when and where it’s going to come from, but a bad day always seems to creep in on me.  Those are the days where I question everything. My worth, the intentions of the people around me, my purpose in being here…and the worst place to be during one of my bad days is inside my head.

I’ve struggled with anxiety since I was 17 years old. I’ll never forget the first anxiety attack I ever had. I was cheering at a high school football game, when all of a sudden I felt like my chest was caving in. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was dying.  More recently, within the last year I was in and out of the emergency room. I was convinced I was having a heart attack or that there was something wrong with me. After the doctors gave me my results of my EKG and all the other test they ran and told me I was physically fine, I realized my anxiety had made its very dramatic return. They weren’t huge stresses in my life that were causing it to set off. It was just a bunch of small things that I let pile up with nowhere to go. It took a bit, but I worked through everything and it got better.

I’ve always been really good at coping with things on my own. “Cry it out. Dry it up. Put on your big girl panties and move on.”  I envision myself running into Harry Styles at my local Target with puffy red eyes, ruining the photo op of my lifetime. That would be a tragedy. But in all seriousness, I don’t know when I got so good at not talking to people when I’m struggling. Part of me thinks it’s because I don’t want to burden anyone with my problems, but another part of me thinks I don’t want people to see the non-perfect parts of my life.

I’m constantly being told what an inspiration I am or how great it is that I’m always smiling. But there are days when I’m a mess and those smiles are not as easy to come by. This morning, as a matter of fact, I sat at the mirror and cried because my face is as oily as a garlic pizza. Maybe there are other issues that got me to that point, but that’s all it took to push me over the edge. Not exactly the picture of perfection some people see when they think of me.

I always tell myself that it’s just a bad day and I get another chance tomorrow. It’s ok to have bad days and it’s ok to talk about it. I think this blog post is my way of doing that…letting it out so I can start the process of picking myself back up and getting to the next good day. It’ll never be easy, but it’ll always be worth it. If any of you are struggling, please remember that.

Now, who has a good remedy for oily skin??