“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.” –
My name is Amanda. I’m just a broken, fragmented girl who has made an average, happy life for herself. I stumbled into a life living as a wife to a good man and a mother to two beautiful girls. I’m not sure how I got so lucky, especially, when I look at the emotional turmoil I have put myself through. I have drifted through life. I am a drifter, but not the romanticized, good kind you often hear about. I’m a passive, pessimistic drifter. Always allowing things to happen, but never playing an active part. Just lazily drifting through life. How can you not play the leading role in your life? Somehow I have managed to do just that. I’m not complaining. I love my life and wouldn’t change it for anything. The thing I would change is my presence in it.
This tiny spot on the vast internet will be where I document my journey of becoming a presence in my life. I invite you along with me as I become lost. As I lose myself in order to find myself. As I work on releasing the girl locked inside who is so desperate to escape her captives and live. She has been kept locked away, deep inside, in chains she does not know how to break. This will be a journey of releasing her. Setting her free. This year is going to be about becoming who I was created to be. Becoming the woman myself, my girls, my husband, and the people around me need.
The quotation above is one of my favorites from a little book called Jane Eyre by Charolette Bronte. The first time I heard it, it sunk its claws so deep in me and hasn’t released me since. I believe I am finally ready to unhook its claws. I am ready to walk out of this cage and stop being a captive. Ready to be released. Ready to “soar.”
There will be a myriad of posts from day-to-day life with two active toddlers to ones of my mountain of brokenness. It will be a raw, transparent place to, hopefully, break down the walls built by fear. I have lived surrounded by fear for so long. This will be my attempt to finally tear down those walls. I’m tired of living in secret. Living in shame. It’s time to be vulnerable. It’s time to be real. I hope you find this a place to come, relate, and feel a sense of encouragement. To come and laugh at times. To come and cry at others. I look forward to connecting, sharing, and seeing where this journey will lead. Until next time, loves.
Becoming Lost 