darkness & light

When I slow down and become aware of the thoughts that pass through my mind, I am keenly aware of the constant push and pull of darkness and light.  Even as a positive, encouraging, or hopeful thought formulates - a negative, discouraging thought counters it.  When I am still and paying attention - typically as I'm trying to find sleep - it is alarming to witness the battle. 

Darkness doesn't give up.  It is persistent, unceasing.  It is manipulative.  It knows my weak spots.  It knows which buttons can be pushed.  It knows where my bruises are.  I can no sooner release an uplifting thought - much like a balloon - before I quickly release a thorn of darkness to pop it.

And despite becoming aware of it, it doesn't subside.  I marvel as I go through it over and over.  It literally feels as if my soul is wrestling.  But I refuse to give in.  I refuse to be pummeled.  I want to be love and light.   The smallest glimpse of light breaks darkness.  Light can be faint or bright.  Darkness is absolute, yet it is merely the absence of light.

I Am...

I am five years old, my practically white blond hair shining in the sun as I swing upside down on the limb of our tree.  I wait impatiently for my father to come home so we can begin raking and playing in the leaves together.  I'm a daughter and a sister and a kindergarten student, eager to understand, ask questions, and stand out to my parents and my teacher.  I am sweet and shy, watching the world around me as I subconsciously decide who I want to be.

 

I am ten years old.  My teeth are all jacked up, coming in on top of each other.  My stubborn, unpredictable hair is darkening and waves go through it as I unsuccessfully try to train and tame it.  I fill my afternoons and weekends playing with friends, practicing drama, conflict, and resolution.  I'm figuring out my talents and interests, measuring each decision with the weight of the crowd's approval.  I'm a daughter and sister and fifth grader, advanced in all classes, bored and un-stimulated easily.  I am silly and awkward and labeled a nerd.  The backlash tempts me to purposefully under-perform, but I can't resist the rush of competition and the feeling of success.

 

I am fifteen.  Waves are giving way to spiral curls, leaving me clueless as to how to manage my mop.  Dreams for my future are beginning to form in my open mind and heart.  Eager to be an adult, I swallow the small sense of sadness and hesitation that comes from letting go of my childhood.  Fitting nowhere and everywhere, I navigate a diverse social scene.  I am a daughter, sister, student, and BFF.  I am involved at my church voluntarily for the first time in life.  I am hopeful, eager, and open.

I am twenty.  They call me a butterfly and I resent them implying I was once ugly and unnoticeable.  I hide my body in baggy, wild clothes to deflect attention, not yet realizing my figure is attractive.  I am soaking up college like napkin over a spill, loving the luxury of learning and enjoying a fresh slate in my social life.  Where I once held no opinion, I now know where I stand and I stand there passionately.  I'm a daughter, sister, college student, roommate, girlfriend, and employee.  I have removed myself from the church.

I am twenty-five.  I believe that I know who I am.  I've achieved 2 college degrees and have been married for one year.  I don't know what I want to do for a living, but I'm working hard in the meanwhile.  I want a baby desperately and am eager to begin that chapter of my life.  I am enjoying being an adult, making my own way, and the future seems full of possibility and specific dreams.  I'm a daughter, sister, employee, and wife.  I have found my way back to church and feel comfortable there. 

I am thirty.  My marriage is falling apart and with it my entire sense of identity and dreams for the future.  I have 2 babies, and I cannot imagine how I will care for both of them WELL all by myself and hold on to my job and my home.  I've literally just started a new job for a tiny start-up business, not knowing if they'll be there to employee me a year from now.  I am convinced I am no longer attractive.  I feel like a failure.  I am afraid.  I am lonely and overwhelmed.  I'm a daughter, a sister, employee, mother, and soon-to-be-ex-wife.  I feel out of place at church, even with my peers, and while I still believe, I have an awful lot of questions.

I am thirty-five.  I feel comfortable in my own skin, as if it finally fits snugly - neither constricting me nor hanging loosely.  I am pulling off this single mother business and it has required a complete facelift of my routine, strategies of living, support network, budget, outlook on romance, and many, many other things.  Everything, really.  My employer is successful, growing, and providing a great place for me to spread my wings and feel successful at work, even as I doubt myself in most other areas.  I am doing things I've never done before - traveling, joining organizations, and feeling free and independent.  I am a mother, daughter, friend, employee, and sister.  I am craving something deeper at church.

I am forty.  I am now more accustomed to being alone than being with someone.  My best friend has recently received a grave cancer diagnosis.  I rage against the thought of ever facing life without her in it.  My life is a treadmill, constantly running, but feeling as if I go nowhere at times.  Still, I look at who my children are becoming and I know that what I am doing matters and makes a huge difference, if to no one else but them.  My career has progressed nicely to more challenge and more responsibility, although it also brings more stress.  I'm a mother, daughter, friend, employee, and sister.  I have found a church I adore, that pushes me to explore the truth of scripture and apply it to my life.  I want to be around other believers as iron sharpens iron.  I long for relief.

I Wasn't There

I wasn't there, but I imagine that she was quiet, absorbing the image of her lovies strewn across the room in restless slumber.  Even if she had the strength to speak, she chose not to disturb them just to meet her needs and desires.  She stared out the window until she wasn't sure if she'd been dozing or straight staring all along.  She felt frightened and brave all at once, a certain sense of resignation rising up her heart.  She felt her body slowing, yielding to a place of peace, warmth, and light.  She glimpsed a fawn wandering in the garden outside her window.  A weak smile crept across her beautiful face as she said hello just before she said goodbye.

Figuring out Forgiveness

Life is hard and it's messy.  It's rarely easy to figure out, even when you're actively trying.  All of us, at one time or another, make mistakes.  All of us have to seek forgiveness and decide whether to give forgiveness.  If you're a Christian, forgiveness is part and parcel of your belief system.  It isn't an option.  The only option is whether to reconcile or give a second chance to someone.

 

Trust is a difficult thing, whether you're just getting to know someone or are giving them another chance to earn your trust.  When you connect with another human, you run the risk of being hurt.  Others risk the chance that you will hurt them.  There is no magic formula.  There are no guarantees.  Good, Christian people fall from grace at times and make poor decisions that hurt others.  Lost souls do the same.

 

Only God can cast our sins deep into the sea and move past them with pure, unconditional forgiveness.  The rest of us remember.  We long to protect ourselves from hurt, and often times that means casting people out of our lives, as a surefire remedy to prevent them hurting us again.  At the same time, we erase the possibility of working through to a better connection and moving past the hurt.  We each walk in our own shoes and determine how to respond to the events around us.  We each deal with the consequences of our decisions. 

 

And so we struggle with this thing called life as we all crave human connection and belonging. 

The Chair & The Daisy

The last time you were here,  we sat on the patio and talked for hours.  It was one of those spring days where it is finally hot.  We'd survived a long, cold winter and longed for those days.  Finally, they had arrived.  My pale skin was burning at its reunion with the strong, warming sun.  You sat in the chair on the left, and I on the right. 

 

Now, 17 days after your death, I go to that chair.  I sit in it.  Somehow, it seems snug, as if it were custom made to fit me.  In it, I imagine that I feel you hugging on me.  It might sound crazy mon amie, but it lends me a fleeting moment of comfort. 

 

I look at the Gerbera daisy you brought me that day, and I hate that cheap little plant for outliving you.  I want to smash the pot on the stone patio, but I cannot bring myself to destroy the last tangible thing you gave me.  After all, it's beautiful.  It has died many deaths, appearing to be beyond resurrection, wilted, dry, limp.  But I tend to it and love on it, and it springs back to life again and again. 

 

I know you are with me.  I feel you near me at times.  I remember your words, and when I need new words, I intuitively know what they would be.  I know how you would comfort me through this.  I just want to hear your sweet voice saying the words.  I want to look into your lovely, loving, wise eyes and see for myself how much you care for my hurting heart. 

 

The emptiness and loss are massive.  The tears are a bottomless well.  I am carrying on, G.  I am.  I just wanted to carry on with you a bit longer before this separation. 

Pain Demands to be Felt

"That's the thing about pain.  It demands to be felt." 

from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Two days ago, I lost you, at least in the earthly part of my life.  And while I'm grateful for the incredible strength and comfort with which God has been supplying me...I grieve.  Deeply. 

 

You, so brave despite your fears.  So giving and nurturing, even as those who love you desperately wanted to nurture you.  In all of my life, I have never felt so helpless as I watched this dark and ugly thing called cancer take your life.  Still, your spirit was steadfast.  You remained your beautiful, amazing self throughout the entire journey of your earthly life.  I never could have imagined I could come to love you even more, but I did as I admired your courage, your selflessness, and your incredibly giving soul all while you bore the burden of your diagnosis and prognosis.

 

So often I find myself staring, absorbing neither sights nor sounds, only feeling this deep, heavy weight in my heart.  I eat, but feel weak.  I sleep, but I feel exhausted.  And then, in the most unexpected moments - a minor chord in a song, a glimpse of your handwriting, an image of you - my composure is lost and I unravel right where I am, melting into tears as my body shudders and sobs.

 

You would easily be the one I would call when feeling so bereft.  Just the sound of your soothing, lilting compassionate voice would quickly work its magic until I rapidly transitioned into a more rational state of mind.  From there, we would discuss whatever was troubling me at length, with you always, always, always offering a perspective that my analytic mind had somehow not yet considered.  Always, you would offer encouragement and support and love, saying "be nice to my friend Angie." 

 

Truly, you were an angel.  And I am exceedingly grateful for the chapter of my life I shared with you.  But selfishly, I want more of you.  There is a void, and it's deep and dark and empty.  My God, I knew this would hurt like hell, yet I underestimated it completely.

 

 

I Wanted You to be There

I didn't realize how much it meant to me to have you care about me until you stopped.  I kept waiting, hoping you would check in on me, acknowledge what I've been through, ask me how I'm doing, offer to visit or help in some way....but you didn't.  Oh plenty of other people are standing in the gap.  It isn't about need.  I don't need anything from you. The point is, I wanted you to be there for me. For o long, you just were.  I don't know if I did something to change that.  If I did, I have no idea what it was.  I wanted to feel the validation of our friendship.  I wanted to feel cared for by you.  I wanted to not have to wonder if you still care.  Instead, I feel hurt.  I feel neglected, abandoned, and unimportant....at least to you.  To so many others, I feel lifted up, prayed for, attended to, honored, assisted, and loved.  Still.....your silence is so loud.  Your absence is so very hurtful.  And no matter how many others care, none fills the hole that's waiting for you to care.

10 Years Post-Divorce

Next month marks the 10 year anniversary of my divorce (actually a dissolution).  I guess I find myself surprised, in some ways, that I've never remarried.  Oh, I've come close.  I came within 6 weeks of the wedding date a few years back.  I read once that, for every 4 years spent in a relationship, you need 1 year to be alone with yourself and heal before trying to have another relationship.  For me, that turned out to be very true.  But I was also never in a rush to date.  So many folks are dating before the divorce is finalized, even bringing the next "flavor of the month" to the courthouse, whereas I view such behavior as unhealthy, tacky, and even unsavory.  It would have felt like cheating to me, and that's not how I do business.

 

At this moment in my life, I think it's becoming less likely that I will remarry.  Oddly enough, this isn't about a lack of self confidence.  I know I'm a catch in many ways, and it's taken me some time to be able to say that.  The issue is lack of return on my investments.  I've had 3 significant post-divorce relationships in terms of length and depth.  If I cited the reasons for their endings, you'd swear I was lying and I'd wish I was.  After those three, I managed to try once more, only to quickly learn that one woman wasn't enough for that one.  Brief as it was, that one knocked my alignment out completely.

 

So I find myself on a self-imposed sabbatical.  I know myself well, and I know I need time to heal when my heart's been wounded.  I also am self-reflective and want to explore and understand why I've been repeatedly drawn to men who've been capable of inflicting such deal-breaking behavior. 

 

However, in the "single" chapters of life, there's no denying the absence of drama, the lack of tiptoeing around anyone's sensitivities and quirks, and the satisfaction of answering to myself, knowing I won't let me down.  My children are welcome, celebrated, and challenged.  It's very clear who will do the mowing, snow shoveling, cooking, wrapping Christmas gifts, taking the car to the shop, etc.  I'm responsible for honoring my own birthday in a way that suits me.  It's lonely, don't misunderstand me.  I'm grateful for the warmth and rhythmic breathing of my dogs' bodies next to me in bed each night because it somehow makes me feel less alone, less vulnerable.  Sometimes the loneliness is so palpable it brings me to tears.  Parenting feels daunting.  The holidays seem overwhelming.  And yet, I am so very tired of investing my energy, my time, resources, and emotions into underwhelming dead-ends.  I'm tired of coming up short or even empty.  I'm tired of getting the worse end of the deal.  So my valuable resources are being wisely invested elsewhere, and I must say, my interest is up.