There is Beauty in the Pain

     This week has been a rather humbling one for me. I arrived in Germany Monday. The day of Lexis Birthday. I had time to sit and think about her that day, be a part of the facetime call with her whole family as they did a Balloon release for her in the mountains, and then sit in my apartment getting myself organized for the new life that was coming my way.

    Practice started up the next day, and I have been at it ever since. At least 2 times a day, and getting my booty kicked every time I step into the gym or into a workout. The speed here is just so much quicker. The physicality is just so much more well... physical. Everyday I go home I am hurting in a new area, and have bruises and scratches that I didn't have before. Then I have a hard time sleeping because of all of those fun things combined, and its just an amazing combo if I do say so myself. 

    The soreness and bruises are something I can get past and treat just fine, and I work on that everyday. It is all apart of being a professional now and so I am taking it pretty serious, but there is one that right now that I continue to struggle with and there isn't an instant fix to help with it. And that is the fact that I have moved halfway around the world, and those who I love most aren't here with me on this journey. 

    If I am being completely honest, that hurts me the most right now. There is just a loneliness to this journey that I thought I understood before I got here, and now that I am living it everyday it has somehow elevated itself. I am not saying that I'm not enjoying this or I'm not having fun. Not at all. It's a blast and I love the grind and the process. What I am saying though is that this adventure of being an athlete is something that deserves to be shared. It is something that I want to share. There are so many cool and amazing opportunities that come with being a pro athlete, and to then just go home to an empty room, cook myself my own meals, and sit there without someone I love to be with is really really hard. 

    So I sit here and I have a lot of time to reflect on my own life. Which is something that I have desperately needed because I am really good at distracting myself and drowning out the things that maybe I should spend more time processing and working through. With that being said I have realized a lot of things and drawn a few conclusions about how I have seen things go down lately in my life. Not just recently but over the last couple of years and even further. 

    One of those conclusions is that there really is Beauty in the Pain. Which might sound so darn silly, but I personally believe it to be so true. Sometimes in our moments of struggle or heartache it is really hard to see how beautiful our lives really are. 

    Lexi and I experienced a lot of different moments that brought us heartache and fear. A lot of moments that brought us both to tears. But amongst all of that, so many memories of joy and laughter. So many moments of victories and cheering. I remember the last time that she was discharged from the Hospital. She was so determined to get out of there. She wanted to be home and with the family. She fought for it every single day and let the doctors know her intentions and goals. And with everyday that passed and she didn't get discharged she was bummed. Which she had every right to feeling bummed. She knew better than any of us the importance of time and how you can't get it back once it's passed. 

    Yet that last hospital stay gave us some of the most amazing and fun videos that we have of her. She made herself a goal to make a new tik tok everyday while she was there, and those tik toks still get played and viewed by people all the time. Her most played tik tok ever came from that hospital stay, and it has been viewed over 9.9 million times.... like what?! And now we get to look back on those every time we miss her and remember that even in one of our hardest moments, even when it felt like everything was going wrong, that we still were able to smile and laugh. 

    I don't share the amount of views to brag, but more just to express my amazement with her drive and effort. In her darkest times, she made it a goal to share love and happiness with others. And with that one instance she did it almost 10 million times. That is just plain amazing. It's something that I still get to draw from and smile about because it makes me happy to see her embrace and own the pain of her situation. Lexi owned life. She owned the pain, and made everyday beautiful. 

    In my best efforts I am trying to find the beauty in the pain. Some days are pretty great, and I feel like I can see and embrace the beauty of certain moments. Other times I just feel the anger and frustration of how things are and how I can control things the way I want. Like this week for example, where I just miss being held and loved, and where I miss being the one who gets to hold and love. 

    With all that being said, God is always so good to me. My life has been beautiful and blessed from the beginning. It has definitely been filled with its fair share of trials and pain, but those trials and pain have brought me the greatest blessings of my life. God has blessed my life with things like joy, laughs, learning, and smiles, but most importantly he has blessed my life with Love. And through that love I am able to recognize a few things, but for today it helps me recognize this. There is Beauty in the Pain.

    I look forward to continuing to find the beauty in life. The pain and trials don't just stop when we want them to. They keep coming, and usually when we think we can't take anymore and you feel like you are just going to break. But it is in those moments that we need to dig deeper and learn to love deeper. Because when we have love in our hearts the beauty in life becomes more apparent to us.