Inside Bell's Brain

This week has been crazy. But I suppose that could be said for every week. It’s always just exceptionally so any time you come back from an extended time away from the classroom.  It seemed like every one needed something from me this week that I just couldn’t give. A deadline to be met. An email to be responded to. A problem to be resolved. An issue to be investigated. A situation once thought to be finished yet continuing to be a thorn in the flesh.  This calendar year has brought a lot of growth for me - personally and professionally. And I can’t help the feeling that this school year will do the same. I tell a lot of my 20-something friends that awakening into your 30s changes things. And I do think that’s true. I am a different woman now than I was then. And I’m a different woman today than I was a year ago. Maybe that’s the point... never being the same person you were yesterday, or a week ago, or a month ago, or a year ago... most definitely a decade ago. Either way, I’m finding

It’s hard. To be surrounded by the world’s standard of beauty all the time and yet not fall victim to it. There are so many unattainable standards of beauty in our society, and it seems they’re ever changing. I sometimes feel like I’m the only one who finds it exhausting to keep up. Am I beautiful enough? Am I fit enough?  Am I soft enough? Is this big enough?  Is this small enough? Does this make me look fat?  What if I stand up?  What if I sit down? What if someone takes a candid picture and it isn’t flattering? What if my tummy has rolls when I sit down? Or lean over? Is this too tight or just fitted?  Is this too loose?  Is this too flashy?   Is my makeup perfect?  What about now? What about my hair?  Is it better up or down? Why can’t I look like her? Why is her {insert whatever insecurity} better than mine?  My head literally spirals with thoughts like this. I know objectively how far I’ve come. Forty pounds gone is no small feat. Yet it still feels like it’s not enough sometimes

I’ve had it on my mind for a while now to reapproach my blog. So many changes have happened in 2018 (and even in the recent years prior) until I am no longer the same person I once was. That’s not bad; it’s just that I’m evolving. And I think my blog needs to also. It’s also been on my mind to voluntarily be more transparent than I have been before. As I opened up on social media about my struggles with anxiety this summer, I realize that there are so many other women experiencing similar - if not the same - things, feelings, insecurities as I am. Why can’t we openly share and discuss that in order to grow together and support one another?   I’m writing this from PTP, a spiritual retreat that my home congregation hosts in Sevierville every year. It’s come to be one of my favorite times of year to regroup my spiritual life and connect with other Christians who have the same goal - to get to Heaven.  I’ve had this idea on my mind a while now, so it’s fitting that I commit it to written w