[Image credit: digitalart]

Today’s post came to me as I reflected on how, from the outside, my injured ankle seemed ready to sport a pair of my “big girl” shoes (a.k.a. hot heels), as well as resume working out.  But below the surface, the muscles and tendons and ligaments were (and are) still healing, preparing my ankle to support my weight (in fashionable pumps and while performing lunges).  And I started thinking about how many of us are like that with our hurts and disappointments.  On the exterior, we appear to have it all together — nice home and car, good kids, decent marriage and career — but in reality, many of us are habitually stuffing our hopes into the far recesses of our minds to collect cobwebs and possibly die off altogether, while disguising the cracks in our shells the best we can.  Maybe it’s easier that way because we don’t want to make waves, trigger strife or hurt the ones we care about, or we’re afraid of change, it’s too much work and so on.  Or perhaps we’re in the exact place we’re supposed to be for a given season in order to prepare for the day when we can finally reclaim our dreams of happily-ever-after, dust them off and fully live in the moment we’ve been waiting for.

Do you hide your true self by stuffing it in, or go after what you want without looking back?