The Breaking

I’ve maintained this blog for the better part of four years now, and I’ve taken breaks during those years. It seems to happen in seasons, seasons where I need to batten down the hatches of my soul and take time for just those who exist within my walls. Other times it’s because I’m so deeply involved in my community that I have little time to process and even less time to bang out the results of that processing through my fingertips.

These days, perhaps it’s a bit of both. There are lovely things happening. There are challenging things happening. I am busy and exhausted, and overwhelmed and grateful.

I leave for Russia in seven weeks. SEVEN weeks. There has been much preparation as I push myself to master more of the language before I go, and much preparation as the Not-So-Casual Observer and I have hashed out my role in counseling and prayer ministry on the trip. I am excited and terrified and humbled and expectant as we prepare to leave.

My focus right now (foci, if you will) are my Russian language skills, finishing my fundraising for the trip (I’m quite close to my goal), and letting the Lord prepare me for counseling. I’m also kicking around the idea of going back to school in May, so there’s that. I’m not sure what will come of any of it, but this is a season that feels like sowing. Planting in Russia. Preparing my heart for Easter. Considering school. Raising babies. Busyness.

So if you wonder why I haven’t been writing, well, that time and mental space has been largely crowded out by other adventures. And that’s ok.

Honesty

I’ve been thinking a great deal about honesty as this Year of Truth comes to a close, and I think something is finally real and apparent to me. There are people in my life who say, “I’m just honest” or “I have to call it like I see it,” in one iteration or another, and then take that preface as license to say really hurtful things.

(Sidebar: I’ve actually called a couple of them on it the last few weeks, let them know that the things they’ve said aren’t OK, that they’ve hurt my feelings, etc. One of them actually tried to talk me out of my own feelings. I mean seriously. After working this hard to be honest and authentic about how things make me feel, you’re going to try to tell me that I’m wrong? Don’t think so, buddy.)

But I think what I realized today is this: people who say such hurtful things couched as truth are cowards. They inflict hurt without caring about its implications because it forces people away from them. Once the other person has labeled them emotionally unsafe, no one comes close enough to get to the heart of the mean one. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” and all.

When I think about the people in my life whose opinions matter, really matter, I realize that they all have one common thread. They know themselves. They’ve faced their own demons, and they’re honest about their fallibility. None of them will say something unkind to me that isn’t based on absolute love of Jesus as the Truth and love for me. Likewise, the least kind people in my circles are those who work hard to keep people at great distance, but deem themselves the “honest” ones. Wow.

I suppose the challenge for me, then, is to be able to trust what Jesus says about me when an “honest” “friend” says something unkind. Also I need to pray that Jesus will come after them with every ounce of His love, because nothing else on earth will tame a tongue with the power of death in it.

I think that’s a pretty cool revelation for the last day of the year. I can’t wait until the Year of Vision starts tomorrow!

For Reina

This post is for you, my friend! I hadn’t forgotten that I have a blog, just don’t feel like I have much to say these days. But since you asked, here’s a post!

You, wow. You are precious to me. And while I can’t imagine what it will be like to not have you in my everyday experience of life, I know that you are my friend for as long as this life lasts, and longer. That is a testament to your faithfulness! I love you, and I can’t wait to see what adventure awaits you in 2012!

From Birth

It’s thick, this heartbreak
Black and smooth
a vacuum rather than a raging, jagged mountain
Where nothing enters and nothing exits,
where love rarely penetrates,
it stands unhealed.

This cavity of a broken heart, dysfunctional before its debut,
It is solid, it is visible
But it’s hidden
You have to come by the back door to see this wound, not meant for the eye of the casual observer
It swings open with cavalier comment,
flip brush off
casual carelessness

“You were not meant to be whole,” it says.
“No one ever wanted you,” it says.
“You are the problem,” it says.

How is it that a void shouts such violence?
Hidden and small, ferocious and unrelenting, this.

I was born with a broken heart.

Slapdash

It’s been two weeks, but there’s not really much to update. I’m still in this hybrid grieving/depression thing. The Not-So-Casual Observer and I spent the majority of my session last night just working out strategies for getting through the next five weeks when there should be some relief, at least in the schedule aspect.

We explored both hopelessness and helplessness and spent some time imagining my ideal life. While it seemed silly at first to imagine all of these things I “can’t” do, it was actually pretty helpful in determining what I’m really passionate about.

The bottom line is that there are two areas of my life that need some serious attention: education and marriage. The Music Man and I spent some time discussing those two things, and we’re hoping to get me back in school by next fall. So, while I’m still depressed/grieving and struggling, at least that feels like a start.

So there it is. Still alive, still struggling. Oh, and tomorrow’s my birthday. So happy birthday to me and all.

Sometimes Honesty’s Hard

Today is one of those days when it’s a challenge to be honest. When you feel like, “If I say this out loud, people are going to think that I’m wallowing in self-pity, or I’m a danger to myself or others, or they’ll think I’m just flat crazy.” But it is what it is, and I can’t control what anyone else thinks.

I’m tired in that bone-weary way. In a way that doesn’t feel like this nightmare schedule is ever going to end. In a way that makes me wish I could go hibernate and just never have to wake up.

Now, I know that sounds scary, like I’m deeply depressed, and maybe I am depressed. Heaven knows I haven’t felt like this in a long time. I truly don’t see anything lovely waiting at the end of this road. All I think is, “I just want something in my life to change.”

Never in my life have I felt so rock-bottom exhausted. I don’t have an ounce left to give to anyone, even my family. I’ve spent the last week hiding from my kids for the better part of the day, immersed in the cleaning, the laundry, the work (sigh, I’m so tired of thinking about work).

If this is what grieving is supposed to be like (and I don’t know if it is, actually. Will mention to the NSCO next time I see her), then I can’t see that it’s worth it. I can’t imagine any joy on the other side that would be worth this.

So that’s where I’ve been for the last week or two. Trying to hang on and keep all the necessary plates of child rearing and homeschooling spinning. Trying to be with Jesus enough to make each day bearable. Trying not to get sucked into a dark vacuum.

But I’m not hopeless, not reckless, and definitely not suicidal. I’ve also got a pretty sweet support system in place. And music, I’ve got music. And lots of Jesus, so we’ll count it doable.

Ghost Story

This poem about child sexual abuse split me in two today, and I thought it was worth a read.

Ghost Story
by Matthew Dickman
for matthew z and matthew r

I remember telling the joke
about child molestation and seeing
the face of the young man
I didn’t know well enough
turn from something with light
inside of it into something like
an animal that’s had its brain
bashed in, something like that, some
sky inside him breaking
all over the table and the beers.
It’s amazing, finding out
my thoughtlessness has no bounds,
is no match for any barbarian,
that it runs wild and hard
like the Mississippi. No, the Rio Grande.
No, the Columbia. A great river
of thorns and when this stranger
stood up and muttered
something about a cigarette,
the Hazmat team
in my chest begins to cordon
off my heart, glowing
a toxic yellow,
and all I could think about
was the punch line “sexy kids,”
that was it, “sexy kids,” and all the children
I’ve cared for, wiping
their noses, rocking them to sleep,
all the nieces and nephews I love,
and how no one ever
opened me up like can of soup
in the second grade, the man
now standing on the sidewalk, smoke smothering
his body, a ghost unable
to hold his wrists down
or make a sound like a large knee in between
two small knees, but terrifying and horrible all the same.