A Decade of Introspection

With the new year quickly approaching, I sat down to write and reflect on this past decade. I wanted to share it to be an encouragement to you, dear reader, in whatever stage of life you or your loved ones may be in. Life is complex, messy, and full of beauty and transitions.

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At the start of the decade, I was living within a world of depression, listening to my demons, finding solace in darkness, deafening my reality through near-daily drug use. 

I became addicted to that lifestyle, so encompassed that it itself tried to suffocate me. And in a last ditch effort, playing the odds of Russian roulette, I left everything and moved across the country. 

That’s where I was able to meet myself; I learned my love for writing, and drew closer to my sister. I learned to throw out religion, and draw into a relationship with God. That’s when the healing happened. 

I got clean from cocaine, opioids, and was freed from my long-standing eating disorders. I was able to begin to think clearly, openly, honestly, vulnerably. I wrote everything down. 

I met my husband and we fell in love quickly. We got married shortly after. There is such beauty when two imperfect people come together in partnership. We learned to embrace conviction and challenges. We learned how to speak to each other with truth and love. 

I learned that healing is a journey. For even though my freedom happened in a moment, the demons were persistent and continuously tried to make a home out of me. I sometimes succumbed to them, but more often, I rejected them. I was able to build this muscle. The resistance became easier. Depression is no longer my normal. I’m filled with so much more joy and warmth and happiness than I ever thought possible. 

I see my early 2010 self, and my heart is moved with compassion. I’m just so thankful that I held on for a little longer, and moved forward with the loving words from the small, still voice in my head. 

It feels like every year becomes challenging in different ways, and that our exposure to complex experiences increases. I think it’s meant to be that way. Even if our hours, weeks, years seem to be the darkest or the most dismal, there is a bright and beaming hope.

More than anything, I’m filled with anticipation for the growth to be had: the soil, the seeds, the shoots, the fruit. All I can be is full of gratitude and awe for the contrast between the beginning and end of this decade. 

And while my mind can’t fully comprehend it, I know that still, the best is yet to come.

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This past decade I wrote a book, sharing more of my journey: the struggles, healing and the all the in-between moments. It’s titled Morning Air, Morning Light and is available through this site. If you’d like a book, but are unable to get a copy due to finances, send me a note here; I’ll be sure to send you one!

Illustration by Regan Smith; photo by Eliza Miller.

That Consistent Question

Writing without rules or constraints from even punctuation, this way of the pen offers a clear channel from mind to paper, without any hinderances. This stream of consciousness uncovers my vocation.

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That Consistent Question

By Regan Smith

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I pose the question that I’ve asked my mirror reflection for the past decade am I happy with what I have become when I was sixteen I whispered in the night that I wouldn’t make my twenty-first birthday due to the death of my own hand whether that was an overdose of substance or overdose of the absence of food or the overdose of dark thoughts causing my own undoing but I am standing here strong and tall learning each day to love the bones and body I was born into knowing that I was created for a purpose with this moment held sacred and close to my heart and I can say with confidence that I’m happy with what I have become a life alive with breathing lungs that lose breath from laughter with arms that hold those I love and a voice that declares freedom and breakthrough and words that I can share with another sixteen year old girl that whispers to herself in the night

Awakened

It’s hard for me to explain this season that I’ve lingered within the past couple months. I want to describe it as a slumber, but I’ve been awake; not in the way of an awakening, rather, that moment where eyes open only slightly in the morning, and you roll back over into welcoming warmth of the bed. It’s been almost lethargy, a depression that I masqueraded as ‘resting to recharge’ to pacify my lack of understanding for the current season.

I’ve recognized it for what it is. While I have thought that I was ‘recharging’, neglecting everything that inspires me, I was really punishing myself in hopes of a deeper understanding. My personality always wants to grow, stretch, learn. But I was wanting to learn, only stripping away all else. I was pausing my life, hoping that I’d have an epiphany that would change my world and maybe other’s too. This idealistic concept never came. I don’t think it would ever come in this state. I wasn’t living life. I was sitting at a prideful pause, rather than a state of stillness. I was missing stillness’ humility where growth truly incubates.

The irony in it all is that I have learned one thing: that to learn I must lean not on my own understanding, but through discernment in all things. I’m pursuing this art to marry the two together, discernment and living. I’m finding that I don’t have to fear fumbling, that I’ll be guided once I relinquish control and solely trust. I can be confident in knowing that deeper soul-growth won’t graze by. I’m living with my eyes wide open.

What Awaits

I’ve resided within Nashville for an entire year this weekend. This time has sprinted past me, with the frequent change of the calendar’s months. Swiftly taken, I have been encouraged to grow in many aspects rapidly—utilizing all circumstances for a self-reflective glance with an unfiltered view.

Outpouring over the edges with enlightenment, this growth is the introspective iris—the persistent perennial. It inspires evolution within other aspects of my life, nurtured and guided from prayer to practice.

I look back on this growth fondly. For even my daily life has taken this impact and morphed a different shape. Patience is no longer a struggle and peace is much more prevalent. I’ve been able to become intentional with others and collect thoughts from various individuals. Through both readers and outside thinkers, ideas have sprouted and actions have developed. This advocacy has vastly altered my perception to where all previous mindsets are a foreign former self.

For this past year’s unfolding is in such magnitude that it's almost tangible. For this has been so elaborate, that I know the triumph which awaits will be staggering. I will strive to forever be open-minded in recognizing my flaws; engaging in altering my perspective for His purpose for my pen.

This is what awaits—a future of freedom, continued growth with many more foggy mornings of self-reflecting.

I appreciate you for being here with me today, reader, taking some time to read through this brief letter. I ambition my words to take physical form, looking to finish my first book early next year—with its publication in your hands in the latter of 2017.