Nothing is Enough

Summer is ending.   Usually I greet this occurrence with ambivalence.  While I feel a nostalgic longing to experience the turning of leaves and breathe in the scent of their earthiness as they crunch beneath my feet and litter the ground, or to sip fresh made cider during walks through old apple orchards, these sentimental desires are in stark contrast with the melancholy that accompanies the farewell to the summer.  The knowledge that the warm and gentle summer breezes that ripple across lakes will soon be replaced with the harsh cold northern winds, as the setting sun gives ways to the lengthening of nights brings a sensation that is reminiscent of the grief that accompanies the departure of an old and trusted friend.

This summer has contained such emotional upheaval, that at first I embraced the thought of the changing of the seasons, ready to put the past behind me.  But for the first time in my life, I recognize that Autumn will bring me no miraculous answers either.  Instead of pouring down upon me, I feel the sadness rising from within.  No longer looking for the solutions in some unknown near or distant future, I simply accept the current moment and embrace this “in between.”   I am in between the seasons of my life, no longer really summer, but not yet autumn either; a “nothingness” in time.  I find a freeing thought from this growing awareness, reaching for the knowledge that happiness now depends upon me, myself, and I,  and not the current season.

If I embrace this precarious moment, no longer looking forward or looking back, I strip away the pushing and the pulling of the “would have, should have, could have” and the sense of urgency that I must “getting things right”  Only then can I discover the  simple pleasure of sitting with quiet.  The chatter of my constant mind settles a bit and my thoughts are more serene as I sit in transition and accept that “nothing” is finally enough.

Say a Prayer From Heaven

I wonder if Mother Theresa looks down from Heaven and believes in the true goodness that came from her existence and the labors of her work?  Does she finally feel as if her life and spirit form a chord of harmony,  aligning in a way that was so painfully absent when she walked amongst us  in her human form?   I wonder if her soul is finally at peace?  The more I read about her spiritual darkness, the more fondly my heart grows for her.

From where I sit, I know her. I understand her plight.  Yet, I recognize the arrogance in making such a statement as one might conceive I am making a comparison between us. I  do not mean to insinuate such  an arrogant thing.  But simply, I embrace the comfort in knowing the degree of inner dissonance she suffered.  The more that she succeeded the more distraught she became.  I know her fear.  The fear that if the world knew of the true  torture  her soul endured, that knowledge would negate the good that she had done, that others would doubt her and in doing so doubt God.  But, oh! how this knowledge brings me hope and courage of my own, for she kept on trying to cling to her faith and to Christ’s love, even through the decades where she felt abandoned by him.  Stumbling and fallible she always carried on, a true testament to devotion that inspires faith.

“If I ever become a Saint — I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’ I will continually be absent from Heaven — to [light] the light of those in darkness on earth” she wrote.  Oh, Dear Theresa please come and visit me and know that those of us who share the dark night that you felt, need a saint to guide us, one who knows our plight, one who brings us comfort through compassion and understanding instead of a sense of inadequacy as their holy perfection only amplifies our guilt and sorrow, self-inflicted through our awful sins that have served to demoralize and leaden the pain within our souls.    Oh Dear Theresa, I think I’ve found a friend…Come, please be with me, be my guiding light and when you can not share your company with me,  please say a prayer from Heaven.

 

 

 

I am what I am.

I continue to sing “Amazing Grace” on a regular basis these days.   The words:  “I was blind but now I see” play over and over again in my mind, like the vibrations of a needle stuck on a broke record.   “God saved a wretch like me…”  feeling more like a question than a statement of fact.

Is it true I wonder? Have I been saved?  Is there a grace that has or will salvage what is left of my life? I am beginning to believe it is possible.  I think that it is true.  Like a shifting crevice deep within the earth, a quake of monumental proportions finally settles and secures the fragile fault line.  Something permanent is different  within me.  I feel it deep within my core.

Faith.  That is the word that defines this difference.   At first I thought perhaps that it was the growing absence of fear.  Fear consumed me.  Fear so pervasive, so dark, so large in magnitude that it swallowed me, dwarfing me in comparison.  In the belly of the beast each and every breath is shallow and painful.  Fear of death.  Fear of abandonment.  Fear of rejection.  Fear of pain.  Fear of failure.  Fear of physical injury.  Fear of isolation.  Fear that I would feel lonely  forever.   Fear that I wasn’t good enough.  Fear that I wasn’t strong enough.  Fear that I couldn’t survive on my own.  Fear. I wore a cloak of fear and it fueled my self hatred.  Fear was the filter through which I saw, felt, heard, tasted, and touched every aspect of life around me.

But faith has brought the light that melts away the black darkness, illuminating the shadows cast by fear.  I understand why the first step of any recovery as believing in a higher power.  I sing to myself…” T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear… And Grace, my fears relieved… How precious did that Grace appear…the hour I first believed…”

I fought so hard against believing.  Believing in myself.  Believing in God, a church, and love.  And it took the dangers, toils, and snares to get me to see.  Not because I didn’t want too.  I tried so hard before.  But I became a rodent on a wheel, running no where fast.  Fear was my fuel.  The more frightened I was, the  faster I ran and the faster life spun around me, but yet I  stayed in place.

Some how faith trickled in to my life, giving me the courage to rise above this fear.  That’s not to say I don’t still have moments where I feel afraid. But I see them for what they are, an inescapable part of life, a burden I must bear. Yet, they are intermingled with an underlying presence and peace of mind that I am going to be okay.  Despite my sorrow, despite my guilt, my greed, my selfishness, despite the current turmoil and tribulations that I face, underneath all the hardened exterior  is a warm and loving heart that shines more brightly every single day.  A heart that has the courage to endure and sit with sadness instead of seeking escape from it.  I have lived my life always seeking endless validation from others to escape the fear bequeathed to  me through childhood that I was not good enough, with the “golden parachute” thoughts of  suicide strapped firmly to my back.  “I was blind but now I see” what a selfish indulgence that it was. I am loved.  I know it and I feel it.  I’ve spent my life being unable to sit and tolerate pain, always running from it, but never escaping its grasp.  I  felt it constantly.  It was everywhere and I hated myself  for feeling this way it and never understood why.  So I tried every way imaginable to avoid and hide from  it.  My journey became an effort to find something or someone who could  rescue me.   Now I realize that those efforts drove me to act in ways that made me become a person worth hating.  The self-fulfilling prophesy at it’s best I suppose.  My fears now realized, I’ve hit rock bottom.  Escape is not an option.  Perhaps too late, but none the less, I accept this fact of my life.  Instead of thinking about how  this pain feels strong enough that I’ll simply die.  Instead of thinking of a way to escape and avoid the hurt in my life, I am challenged to accept my fate and find a way to live with myself.  I never thought that way before.  I never accepted “this is what it is” and tried to just cope.  I always sought to change my life but never change myself.  Even my wording has begun to change.  Instead of saying “I hate myself, I simply want to die”  I find myself thinking “living with myself is not easy sometimes.”  How cliche…should someone ever ask me: “how can you live with yourself” my replay would be “it is difficult.”

Like Alice in Wonderland who finally accepts her fate and faces the Jabberwoky.  I’ve grown tired and weary.  I can  run no more and backed myself into a corner any way.  But in facing my fears I finally have a chance to redeem myself.  To cast away the image of who I’ve thought I had to be to please the faceless world, because I’ve failed miserably at that, and simply be myself.  Trying to be someone or something that was pleasing to everyone else just made a mess of things.  Whether I am good enough or not is no longer the point.  I guess Popeye said it best “I am what I am and that’s all that I am” … so now I just want to make the best of that.

 

I could not see the stars

I sat out on our deck last night, gazing towards the heavens and was reminded of the countless times I have sat under a star filled sky, feeling distraught somehow, searching for answers.  I have always been disappointed by  the absence of some sort of existential validation that all of life has some divine purpose and meaning.  As I lost myself deep within my thoughts, the Milky Way shimmered above the place I sat, reminding me of my smallness in this cosmic universe.  A wave of guilt washed over me and I was dumbstruck by my awareness of the magnitude of hurt that can be caused through the selfish acts of such a small being.  This awareness makes the balance seem so out of proportion.  How can just one single person’s ripple effect create so many waves?  And why do the effects of poor choices cause so much more harm than the effects of something good?

I saw a shooting star and wondered whether it would collide into another one and then begin to form the basis of a planet.  It could be happening right before my eyes  and I’d never know.  Realizing that I was wearing my old glasses with outdated prescription lenses, it occurred to me that there were so many more stars than what  I was able to see.  I know there are more because  I have seen them before.  I was reminded of the first time I saw the Milky Way and realized what it was.  I was in a sand dune that mirrored a small and barren desert and thought the glow of the sky was  that of a distant town or city.  Surrounded by no trees and no other lights, the stars and the moon illuminated everything around me as brightly as the sun.  Had I never seen that sky, in this moment, I would never even known that more stars existed.  I reflected on the countless times there were things I should have seen or  known about life, love, and relationships, just like the absent stars that are really there, but I simple could not see.

“How blind I’ve been to life” I thought.  So I took my glasses completely off, allowing my poor vision to skew my experience in that moment.  Looking upward I could only see three or four globes of light.  The images before me were reminiscent of sight through tear filled eyes,  the way that light is softened by drops of water on eyelashes,  blurred and muted in stark contrast with crisp astuteness of 20/20 vision.  I could only see the few soft spots of  faded light.  “How blind I am” I thought, literal and figuratively.  Again I was reminded of insight  that had I never before seen a picturesque and starry night, based on the lens before me, I would never even know that I was missing a thing.  I couldn’t see the stars, but this time I knew it.

I placed my glasses back on my face, preferring  the ability of seeing thing clearly over that of blindness.  Yet, I recognized there are still more things I can not  see.   But, now, my eyes are open and I hold on to the faith that, because I at least conceive that more exists, I will be more likely to see the things I should and continue to grow and evolve,  just  like the forming planets that right in front of me, the ones I can not see but know they exist, maybe some day growing enough that they will sustain and nourish  precious life.

God Sightings: Through the Eyes of a Six Year Old

“Mom, we have home work to do.   Well, not real home work.  There is no writing or studying.”

Thinking that my daughter was referring to the thick packet of worksheets and reading lists sent home from school for summer vacation, the very same packet that I inadvertently threw away, I  asked her to explain her homework more to me.

“We need to be on the look out for God sightings” she answered.

Then it dawned on me that this was homework from her vacation bible school.  I felt a sense of relief and peacefulness come over me.  Statements like that were the exact reason I signed the twins up for it.  It was why I had to color code my calendar in order to figure out how to coordinate and keep track of all the  transportation, child care and work schedules, sometimes cursing myself for trying to juggle so many things at once, feeling slightly like a masochist who brings unnecessary discomfort on them-self.   There have been countless moments where I thought, “Forget it. Why bother. They’ll never notice if they don’t go.”  But that quiet part of me that listens to unspoken wisdom whispered softly “This is important. Make the sacrifice. Find a way to get them there. Things will work out.”

My daughter proceeded.

“Do you know what God sightings are?  We each have to share one tomorrow.”

I mindlessly rattled off a list of things I thought were indicative of God’s presence, from rainbows to the child birth, then rambling on about Noah and God flooding the earth.  She replied in such an adolescent tone, not uncharacteristically precocious for her 6 years,

“Mom!”  As in, Mom you need to be quiet now! “I ALREADY  have one.”

She said it with such assertiveness and confidence that I was instantly intrigued and completely dumbfounded by what she might say next.

“Oh sorry honey” I said. “Tell me what your God sighting is.”

She answered “It is getting to see my mom and dad.”

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me by my own ignorance and lack of insight.  She knew right a way that a God sighting means love.  Her response and insight was far simpler and more pure than I could have fathomed.

Then she asked “Mom, can a God sighting be when there is something bad?”

“Well, what do you mean honey?” I asked.

“I told them that Aunt Bev has cancer.  Can she have a God sighting too?”

Tears filled my eyes and both pride and sadness filled my heart.  I don’t know if I will ever stop being surprised by her insight or that of her brothers.  I explained that yes, Aunt Bev could have a God sighting and that sometimes God brings comfort and peace, acceptance, to people who are dying in pain if they are willing and trying to look for it.

Then she quickly changed the subject and began to describe the songs that they sang at vacation bible school.   She showed me the dancing and hand gestures that accompanied the words.   She broke out in song, singing sweetly, imperfect, and beautiful for her confidence.  She swayed her arms over her head, dancing in rhythm as she sang the words

Stand firm when life changes.

Stand firm through the ups and downs.

Stand firm, for you know that God is in control.

The storms of life will push and pull, but we are standing on the rock that never rolls.

Again, tears filled my eyes.  Is she six or is she an angel?

I gently asked “Do you know what that song means?”

She innocently replied, “No Mommy, will you explain it to me.”

I paused for a moment and said. “Well, honey, it means that some times it seems like life is so awful we are just going to die because of it.  It seems like everything bad is happening around us and it hurts us so badly that we think we  aren’t strong or brave enough to get through it.  But, we need to remember that God never gives us more than we can handle and if we put our faith and trust in him, then we will some how find the strength to survive even, when we think we can’t.”

“Oh” she said thoughtfully “I should sing this to Aunt Bev.”

Her astute clarity clouded my own as I fumbled for words, trying to choke back my cries for fear that she would think she said something wrong if she heard them.  I replied with a simple “Yes you should” but wish instead I had said “Oh my precious, sweet little girl, you should sing it for the entire world.”

Lives are Interwoven

Thoracentesis.  That is what it is called, the procedure they’ve repeated several times on Aunt Bev.  The last time they removed over a gallon of fluid from her lungs.  At this point they’ve just left the tube in so they can drain it daily.   With a fever occurring every afternoon, the doctors say she’s not strong enough to tolerate the surgery needed to remove the cancer that is consuming her body, eating away at her from the inside out.  The cancer has spread to three separate places and her blood counts are bad.  Chemotherapy has worsened her already poor hearing, making it difficult for her to have conversations with those that she loves.  There is no denying that she is dying.

“I hate to ask and have  you go out of the way, but could you bring 2 quarts of 2% milk please?”  Grandma asked.  She married a farmer over 60 years ago, bearing six children, one died before he reached the age of two.  At a time when divorce was unheard of, she abandoned her family when she realized she could handle it no more.  All the children, still young in age, remained with their father.  The rift that was created by that decision turned into a ravine, that today is a canyon of hurt, remorse and regret as she realizes what she has missed.  The Christmas’s.  The birthday’s.  The births of great grandchildren.  She was so reserved and withheld so much emotion that she never even used to give hugs or kisses.  That knowledge is always in the forefront of my mind as she embraces my children and kisses their cheeks.

Born into a family with an alcoholic father, she once told me how cruel and frightening he was, trying to hide her emotional scars.  Perhaps that is why I have compassion for her.  Running from demons that are similar to mine, she chose the road of trying to escape.  But in seeking escape she created more damage, as her children and grandchildren bear the scars of rejection with pain that still echos today.  She is alone.   Her children help her as much as they can.  Not out of joy or desire, but out of a mix of obligation, resentment, and bittersweet love.  There is no pleasure or enjoyment in each others company, an experience I can understand.  But I like her and always have.  I suppose that in comparison to an alcoholic grandmother with schizophrenia who I hardly ever saw and a grandmother who beat me with a baseball bat, my opinion is jaded.

She is dying of old age, separated by hours from her daughter who is dying as well.  She knows she is not likely to go first.  She has no way to reach her, unable to drive and easily confused by the many of phone numbers provided to her.  With a stack of hand scribbled notes a half inch thick, written in print she struggles to see and only succeeds with a the help of a magnifying glass,  she is unable to remember which one to call; cell phones, home phones, hospital rooms.  That confusion is understandable for her age and considering she spent so much of her childhood with no phone at all.    I watched as she sat in her chair gazing off to the left, with a vacant stare that I know so well.  Grandma where did you go? I wondered.   “I can’t get a hold of Bev” she said.  “I don’t know if she is still in the hospital or not.”   Uncharacteristic tears filled her eyes and her voice crackled in a way that wasn’t caused just by old age.   My heart and chest burned for her.  I pulled out my cell phone and called Bev’s daughter, who true to her nature, was by her mother’s side.  I watched as grandma’s face lit up, a genuine smile and even a subtle warm glow emanated from her as she got to hear her daughter’s voice.  I wished the rest of the family could have seen this transformation, her authentic display of love.

“We always love you” they wrote on the card.  The one I received from my parents yesterday.  I read it just before I brought grandma her milk.  I’ve not spoken with them in about 6 months.  The guilt of the estrangement weighing heavily upon me, exacerbated by witnessing grandma’s distress.  It’s not that I hate them or that I don’t forgive them.  I just want to be able to be around them without feeling such anger, hurt, and grief.  Even their kindness angers me.  Being around them reminds me of the hurt they have caused and the poor decisions they continue to make.  A torrent of emotions bubble up and spill forth in a way that I can’t contain.  It is impossible for me to not  feel like a hypocrite as I offer compassion to Grandma, or June, or the grieving mothers at the support group, all while I can’t offer it to my own parents.  I think about the way it would hurt them to know that I can offer such kindness to others but not to them.   But I do it for others because I can’t for them, secretly hoping  that in this great big world, someone will show them compassion in a way that we all deserve.  Seeing the common thread of these family dynamics interwoven through generations and spanning across unrelated families,  I wonder if either of my parents ever sit in their chair, gazing off to the left, with an absent stare, wondering whether they’ll  ever see me again.

Life Doesn’t Suck

“How are you?” she asked me.  “The same.” I replied. “No better, no worse, thanks for asking.”  She stopped and turned as she walked towards my door. “Life sucks doesn’t it?”  No doubt my jaw hit my desk, I’m certain I felt my mouth formed a large gaping hole.   I wasn’t prepared for her flippant statement, a half-hearted attempt at empathy that was some how meant to acknowledge her concern for my emotional struggles of late.  Caught off guard by the tone of her statement I wanted to rail against it and feel angry by its callous ignorance.  My eyes widened, but my tone remained steady and calm as I softly stated “No, it doesn’t” pausing for emphasis,  then I continued. “I am not dying of cancer.  I have no tube inserted into my chest draining my lungs of deadly fluid.   Do you have any idea how many women I know that have lost a child? Life doesn’t suck.  Some parts of it do.  Sometimes we have to live with things that are hard and painful, but life definitely does not suck.”  I had an Ally McBeal moment where I saw a glove literally slap her upside the head in some form of reality check as her tone, mannerisms, and postures relaxed.  Softening her face in response to my statement she said “You are right, it can always be worse.”

I was surprised by my instinctive and genuine response to her statement.  Without thinking, I said what I meant and meant what I said.  Only a few years ago and I would have responded differently.   I would have seen her comment as an open invitation to complain and seek sympathy for every ache and pain or tribulation I faced.  But that thought never even crossed my mind, I was just too disappointed in the statement she made.  As I drove home from work I reflected on that interaction and recognized it for what it was,  an affirmation of my personal growth.  I still have bouts of depression and spells of self-hatred, and have been struggling more than not lately, but my longing, desire, and efforts to grow and evolve into something more beautiful and stronger are certainly starting to show.  I am “becoming.

Later that evening, while harvesting vegetables from my garden,  I noticed three swallowtail caterpillars munching on my parsley.  I paused for the moment struck by their vibrancy.  While their green matched that of the plant, they seemed so tragically beautiful as the brilliance of their camouflage reminded me how bright and shining life can be, yet how vulnerable and fragile we really are. They had nowhere to hide and moved ever so slowly, they could easily be plucked from their perch by any predator that set their sights on them.  Perhaps I should have been annoyed by the fact that they had eaten most of my parsley, but instead I was thankful for moment and insight they brought, the simple reminder that life contains many small wonders and so much is beyond our control.  I became  mesmerized by their movement and lost in the mental image of their transformation.  Soon they will change from small little worms, bound to the ground, crawling one millimeter at a time, into a being of the sky, traveling farther and much more quickly, gracefully floating along a breeze as an adult butterfly.  I thought to myself, they are “becoming” as well and decided to leave them to eat their fill of my garden.  Chuckling to myself, I lovingly named them “Id’ “Ego” and “Superego” so that their trinity can symbolically represent my personal growth, a humorous attempt to acknowledge Freud’s description of the three levels of a single human’s conscience, entertaining myself with the silliness of the thought.  Realizing that it is mid-August and that they don’t have long to transform themselves before the nights temperatures begin to dip and cool, I wished them well.   Hoping they make it, hoping I make it,  I whispered softly  “Life doesn’t suck” and then walked away, my id, ego, and super ego all  in unison, no dissonance, consciously accepting my personal journey.

There But For…

Isaac Newton. Ludwig van Beethoven.  Winston Churchill.  Abraham Lincoln.  Ernest Hemingway. Vincent Van Gogh.  John Keats.  Virgina Woolf. Peter Tchaikovsky. Albert Einstein. An impressive list of some of the most prolific minds of our time.  Making revolutionary contributions to the fields of science, mathematics, literature, art, and political leadership.  All are interwoven in history by the common thread of mental illness, be it depression, mania, or some other mood disorder, these individuals who in many ways graced the world with their presence paid a high price for their success.  From the outside it appeared  if there were a deep well within them, one that taped into an eternal spring of creativity and imagination endlessly inspiring.   Yet each one struggled with the pain of feeling different and socially awkward, feeling disconnected from others, and suffering bouts of melancholy and sadness.  Does genius or creativity cause madness or is it the other way around? And, if these people with such amazing minds struggled with their own demons, perhaps I can be more forgiving and accepting of myself for having to battle with mine.

Empathy is an interesting thing, it can be highly developed or muted completely.  People with autism struggle to experience it, not because they wouldn’t want to if they could, but their brain just doesn’t register it.  Children who have been abused struggle to  with it as well, although I suspect they feel it more than they let on.  Research suggests that empathy converts to our compassionate actions and those actions are what allows others to know we feel for them too.  In the book, The Other Side of Sadness, George Bonanno, Ph.D describes psychological studies that demonstrate that people who are experiencing sadness see reality more clearly.  During my own bouts of depression I had often thought that but dismissed it as delusional or simply self pity.  It is a difficult experience to describe because depression can fog and cloud your mind, it causes fatigue to the point that your body aches and even breath is labored.  How can that greyness of make things more clear?   I think it is because when we feel sad, our emotional defenses are down and we are willing to examine painful things that we’d prefer not see when our moods are good.  When you are happy and enjoying yourself, why would you want to stop and think about the fact that young women are still being sold into sexual slave trades in foreign countries?  When you are celebrating your child’s birthday, why would you want to stop and think of the family who’s child is gone, or who’s mother is dying?  Empathizing with mother’s pain is hurtful to us, but when you are already sad, what have you got to lose?

I was reading a research study last night that describes the way that our faces react when we are feeling sad.  Our pupil’s constrict, our eye lids droop, and our mouths turn slightly down.  All of these are involuntary, our body betraying the inner workings of our mind.  But then the research study went on to say that by simply empathizing with another person, our body can mirror theirs, our pupils constrict, our eye lids sag, our  mouths form a pucker…we see things through their eyes. But we must choose to perceive it, we must accept that sadness is there.  That interests me because sometimes I feel as if I am a mix between a radio receiver and a sponge, feeling intensely things that I see.  I remember sitting at lunch on Mother’s Day several years ago observing a women a few booths away.  Alone and cloaked in a shadow of sadness she anxiously and frequently checked her watch.  As I watched my heart filled with sadness and I simply wanted to cry for her.  It felt as if there was a psychic bridge between us and I could not help but be distracted by her.  It distracted me so much that I could not carry on a decent conversation, I lost my appetite.  Some times I am haunted by the memory of her and my failure to say a kind word.  I wish that I had asked her to join us, I wish I had silently and anonymously paid for her meal, but instead I kept my head down and pretended not to see her.

In hindsight I’ve never lacked empathy, I’ve just failed to let it be seen by withholding  compassionate actions.   There but for the grace of God go I…perhaps those are words I should live by.

 

Fall From Grace

These days I often wonder whether my husband finds any reasons, not necessarily good ones, I’d accept even “slightly okay” at this point, but any reason at all that he would want to be around or near me.  It seems as though I’ve nothing to contribute, nothing interesting or worth while to speak about, and all my thoughts just come out wrong, or are topics that make me seem self-absorbed or arrogant.  I don’t know how to talk with him any more and I don’t know what to say which makes it nearly impossible to explain to him that I miss his companionship and conversation.   We’ve just returned from a three day mini-vacation in a resort town at the foothills of some mountains.  Scenic enough to catch a breath taking view of the setting sun or crispness of  blue mountain lake, yet lit with enough flashing neon at night to entertain a child of any age.  The trip was an attempt to ensure the twins capture a summer memory, something to break the fluctuating tension that has built in this house that we once called a loving home.

I’m glad we made the decision to take the trip, although we both had apprehension about how things would since we  are stuck in this cycle of doing fine for a while until the tension slowly builds up then spills over for a bit.  The children no doubt, have picked up on it and my only comfort from that reality is the fact that  life doesn’t require perfect parents, we just simply need to be “good enough.” I’ve watched as my husband, in recent months has immersed himself more fully in the children’s lives, spending days in a row as their primary nurturer during their long summer days off of school.  I’ve watched as he’s begun to tend to their wounds, to feed them, play with them, and just become their friend, more in the last few months than ever before.  It is bitter-sweet.  I am so thankful that my children are receiving such wonderful fathering and are becoming so much more closer to him.  But the fear that they now need me less and less grows ever more greatly each day.  At one point during our mini-trip, my children each held their father’s hands, the three of them walked several steps in front of me.  Trailing several yards behind, it felt as if I were loosing my family, my inclusion in their happy mix felt burdensome and awkward, so I intentionally lagged behind, with a heart laden with grief and sadness, each step burdened by a  100 lb weight of guilt, shame, and remorse on each side.  If I didn’t keep up I’d lose them forever, but yet somehow I didn’t quite fit in with them either.

A person can only tolerate so much insecurity, so much guilt, and remorse before their defensiveness kicks in.  When I feel defensive I get angry and lash out at the people around me, I yell, say hurtful things, and am just plain rude.  You’d think that because I am aware of it I’d stop it.  I hate that part of me and try each day to contain it, but sometimes I fail miserably.  Regardless of my good intention or desire to suppress it, sometimes it builds so quickly or so intensely it spills before I can keep a lid on it, causing me more shame and embarrassment.  Some days are easier than others.  But going new places and trying new things often triggers my insecurity.   Feel uncertain and unsure is a recipe for my impatience  and  irritability as I am more likely to interpret interactions as feeling judged, criticized or just with a negative lens.  Any small comment, meant with no malcontent feels like a personal attack, intentional, and fueled by hatred of me.  I worry incessantly, pointlessly, only to have it disrupt the calm I am trying to create.  On the first day of our trip I ignored a phone call from my CEO, letting it go to my voice mail, reassuring myself by  repeating over and over, like it was some prolific mantra “I’m on vacation.”   Reminding myself that my family doesn’t get my attention often enough so I needed to devote it entirely to them.  Twenty four hours later the worry and curiosity were wracking my brain enough that I caved in and checked the message…”Leigh, can you meet at 9:00 on Thursday?”   My first instinct was “Oh crap! What did I do?”   And my mind started to race as I created all sorts of elaborate scenarios of reasons why she might be displeased with me, all of them deluded and distorted of course.  Yet I still  envisioned myself returning from vacation and walking into her office  to be told to turn over my keys.  I sat with that fear and anxiety for another 24 hours before I finally  sent her a text to ask her what was up simply to be reminded that she needed a briefing  prior to her meeting  with some government officials.   Three days of pointless worry, the anxiety running a constant stream throughout my conscience, making me testy, impatient, and just plain difficult.  I wish I were a different person.

As we drove home the twins fell quiet in the back, watching a movie or playing their hand-held video games, ear phones muffling their noises and that of the rest of the world.  Through the winding and twisting mountain pass, the light and gentle snores of my husband let me know that he was slumbering beside me.  The tragedy of our situation struck me in the fact that I was relieved that he was sleeping so we could avoid the awkwardness of not knowing how or what to talk about.  Lately I feel as if I get so much wrong, as if I can say nothing right.  I don’t meant to insinuate he’s difficult to please, but simply because I’ve become someone different from who he’d thought.  At one point, unbeknownst to me, he thought me perfect and wonderful.  Where we fell apart is from the pattern of me being an endless pit of need and attention and his belief that “no news is good news,”  both of our needs and emotions in contrast with each others, fueling a cycle of slow disrepair.  As I drove for hours in silence I could think of nothing but the moments where his anger, hurt, and pain shot out from his eyes and I believe he was consumed by a  hatred of me. I don’t blame him,  it’s justified.  There have been moments where I’ve been a  lousy wife.   This awareness and the fear of hurting the kids are the burdens I carry each day, my penance I suppose.   But for me the hurt for me comes not just from that realization, but in the awareness that I’ve been so tragically wrong.  I have spent the course of our marriage thinking that I hardly mattered, that I was simply just a “role” for him, only to discover much too late, that I was so horribly wrong.  At  one point, for most of our marriage, he thought I was wonderful.  But, I’ve fallen from grace, and now I know what it is that I’ve lost.  With tears streaming down my cheeks I was thankful to have had my sunglasses on as they covered much of my face while I struggled to choke back my cries, understanding why that phrase is used to describe the experience as my throat swelled and cramped, and physically hurt.   Taking a sip of water in effort to suppress a sob, I was nearly unable to get my throat to cooperate, feeling as if I were choking.  My efforts to comfort myself, to reassure him that I still love him and want to work through this were met with no response as I drove, in silence and sadness as I wondered whether he was really  asleep or simply feigning so as to be able to ignore me without argument.

Nearing a community we’ve both known our whole lives, I reached for his hand one last time.  Resting mine on top of his we drove past a building that is now a medical office, but once, in our youth was an Italian Restaurant and instantly I was reminded of one of our very first dates.  It was his school’s homecoming weekend and we were attending the semi-formal dance.  Neither of us able to drive his mother dropped us off at the restaurant for dinner.  As I drove past it yesterday I vividly remembered the excitement I felt, not because I was going to a dance, but because this young man whom I liked so much seemed to be interested in me as well.  I remember the way he stared at me, attentive and eager, polite and kind.  The memory came back to me in the image of a tossed garden salad accented by a crisp cherry tomato, the thing that I was eating at the moment.  I remember catching a glimpse of his maturity, sincerity, the intensity of his emotion and feeling frightened by it so I nervously looked away and down at my plate, like a camera forever preserving an image, “snap” my mind took a mental picture of my tossed salad containing all the emotion in it.

The intensity of the memory, the innocence of youth, the recollection of a time before I spoiled his perception of me feels like I’m grieving a death, the death of a person I could have been, the death of a marriage it should have been, the pain of the reality with no adequate way to express my remorse except to be committed to being different and taking it one day at a time, hoping that years from now, I will have spent more time getting it right then I spent getting it wrong, hoping that the words “I am sorry” some day gain some worth.

 

 

 

 

 

Seeking Serenity. No Escape and No Going Back

As I think back on my life I get a sickening feeling in my gut as I realize how many precious moments I have squandered, trying to escape from the present, perpetually spinning my wheels and getting no where, instead of seeking acceptance and resolution.   It is embarrassing and humbling to admit that I vehemently clung  to the belief that I could escape from my self hatred, remorse, guilt, and depression in the same way that  a child clings to a favorite blanket, soothing them self with it and screeching as if their life were ending when someone takes away.  I laugh in disgust at myself as I reflect on the times  I would drive by offices in tall buildings that lined the streets of large cities and think to myself “if I had a job where I was important enough to work there, THEN I’d feel happy and good about myself.”  I used to think that if only I were loved tenderly and attentively enough “THEN I’d feel happy and good about myself.”‘   If I had the perfect house and landscaped yard “THEN I’d like myself”  if I took a relaxing vacation, if I had different friends, if I had better hobbies,  if I were a size zero…THEN I’d like myself.  Some how I’ve actually managed to accomplish all of those things but not a single one has made me feel a better person or like myself any more.  If anything, I feel more foolish for having been so ignorant and naive.  All these external “things” that I had constantly sought in the hope of constructing a perfect life, believing if I did then I’d fill the endless void  that exists within me,, were never enough.   I’ve finally realize that I’ve been looking in all the wrong places for all the wrong things.  Actually, I shouldn’t even be looking at all because I need to just accepted that I may always feel horrible about myself.  Even if I don’t feel awful I now understand that every life, even the most perfect one, has  hurt  in it sometimes and life is about coping with that fact.

When life gives you lemons make lemonade right?  Not only did I compulsively try to make lemonade, but by inadvertently forcing moments in a desperate effort to create their perfection, I sweetened the drink so much that I ruined it all the while hanging out a banner for the world to see brandishing “LEMONADE!  LOOK AT ME! LOOK WHAT I’VE DONE!  I’VE MADE LEMONADE! I SHOULDN’T HAVE BUT I DID! AREN’T I GREAT?!   I never stopped to taste it myself, because what did my opinion matter?  If I had I would have realized that it was spoiled.  I never enjoyed a drop of it.  Instead of seeking attention, instead of seeking validation, instead of seeking escape, I simply should have sat back, quietly, and tasted the freshness of the juice I had squeezed.

As I survey the scene surrounding me I see the carnage from my battle with myself.  I see deep and gaping wounds I have inflicted to those I love,  through friendly fire.   I never intentionally sought to hurt anyone, but now I understand that it happened anyway as a result of  being a weak and vulnerable person.  I get so angry at myself and the way I’ve lived my life.  My weakness and vulnerability were not a conscious choice.  I didn’t want them, I railed against them, I sincerely tried. In my rational moments  I understand that this way of being is the natural consequence of growing up with neglect and abuse.  I don’t think it excuses away the hurt or damage that I caused, I don’t think that it reduces the pain I have caused others, and that makes it all the more difficult to explain or to find a way to forgive myself for not being any different.  It’s like having a stomach bug that contaminates the ones you love  before you even realize you are contagious.  I’ve had my turn to writhe in pain and wretch as the disease works through my system. As I recovery and regain my strength, I see those around me fall weak and ill, their discomfort paramount because of the disease I spread.   I have moments where I believe that I am a contagious disease.  Loving me comes at a high cost, consider yourself forewarned.   If I could simply disappear and have all of the pain and hurt go away, I would.  When I think about the moments in the past when I had considered ending my life, for the same motivations and pain that I feel now, I understand that the only difference between the degree of panic, fear, sadness, guilt, remorse, depression that I feel in this moment and the past is that I no longer hold the delusion that if I simply disappear, the pain of others would stop as well.   I think back to the moments when I was on the verge of death and realize that I actually believed that others did not love me as much they really  do.  I thought that it genuinely didn’t matter if I just were no more. That manner of thought gave me the luxury of believing that nothing I did mattered, that there were no consequences for my actions.  But Newton’s law holds true…every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  I should have paid more attention in physics class.

So, now I sit with pain and guilt with the wisdom that there is no escape.  This is my penance, my punishment, living with myself despite the self-hate.  I can’t go back, I can’t undo the things that have been done.  I get so angry with myself that I can look back on things with such clarity now, but was so blinded before.  I realize that I simply didn’t have the ability to understand before but I still hang my head in shame every time I am asked:  “How could you not know that?”   The why is complicated.  It is so complicated, but in the end I just simply didn’t.

I want to find excuses to make my hurt and guilt lessen. But even if I am granted a pardon from my past, that doesn’t mean that those I hurt will feel any better because of it.  I struggle to cope with this reality.  As my weight continues to balloon, I realize that instead of starving myself, I now eat to comfort and numb my pain.  I can see the pattern most moments,  but when my panic or frustration mounts, without thinking  I consuming empty calories for no other reason than to satisfy a craving, making the ache within me go away for a few brief and fleeting moments.  Unconsciously, it works, but it is a temporary feeling, it never fixes the problems, and definitely doesn’t heal my pain.  I am so angry with myself for not having the ability to tolerate distress.  I can’t help but wonder what is normal and how other people cope with pain and misery.

Just recently I have started to remember things that make me understand that my struggles with food go back longer than I had realized.   Last evening as I was grilling hot dogs for the group of children splashing in our pool, I had a flash bulb memory  of being 6 or 7 and reaching into our refrigerator and grabbing an Oscar Meyer hot dog and eating it raw, repeatedly.  Then I remembered that I  used to eat uncooked pasta, ice, dirt and grass.  I used to suck on pennies and the metal tops that connected the erasers to a pencil.  I liked the taste of metal.  I don’t remember why I chose those things instead of real food but recall that I ate those things throughout my teen age years.  I remember that I liked the way the grit from dirt felt grinding on my teeth, I liked the metallic taste of the coins, the hard crunch of the ice and the way it hurt my mouth.  I liked to eat the grass just because I knew I could even though I shouldn’t.

Until I had children of my own, I never realized how abnormal those things were. That is painful to accept.   But not as painful as accepting the fact that some sort of pain and dysfunction that was not my fault drove those behaviors.  It is hard to say “I was a victim” because it makes me feel vulnerable and weak, as if my failure to admit it some how makes me stronger, safer, and means none of it happened.  But normal children with normal lives don’t chronically eat weird things. Why would I have done it otherwise?  Maybe infants and toddlers do, but they out grow it.  I never did.  Instead it just evolved and grew with my chronological self, while my emotional development was stunted.  I am so ashamed as I sit with the awareness, recognizing that so much of who I’ve been and what I’ve done just is not normal.  The origins of my thoughts and behavior are so clearly rooted in my childhood, but what difference does that awareness make when I’ve simply perpetuated the hurt inflicted upon me?  I understand why Alcoholics Anonymous starts each meeting with the serenity prayer…because it’s what I need to do as well.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

–Reinhold Niebuhr