Dasani Me

I had a conversation with a client today about llamas.  That turned into a conversation about camels, which got me thinking, again, about desert wandering.

Actually deserts have been on my mind all week, along with the so-called "sufficiency of Christ".  Try to keep up.  Or just forget it, close this window, and go watch a YouTube video.  Either way, I can't seem to stop my relentless grinding mental wheel-turning.  Is it weird that a scene from Princess Bride just flashed in my mind?

I've never been thirsty in a desert, even in the slightest, but I have been extremely thirsty in less dramatic locations.  So, are you with me? Llamas, camels, desert, Princess Bride, no- wait, extreme thirst...

The other conversation of the week that I plan to marry with that train of thought is the one I had Monday at the Benjamin Meeting.  That's what I'm calling my weekly Monday morning sanity hearings with my counselor/mentor/friend/thingymajiger/person.  Anyway, I like Ben.  He's experienced in EVERYTHING.  He's a long time boxing coach/trainer, former alter boy, former electrician, former dairy hand, veteran of the Navy, father of 8, husband to the coolest lady alive (to hear him tell it), has theology degrees, counseling degrees, compassion, patience and insight.  Okay, that's a scratch of the surface, but it's enough to give you tonight.  The BEST part about the Benjamin Meetings is that he came to me and asked to meet with me.  Weird.  I was putting off the urge to call him all summer.  Sooooo, the result has been a couple of months of me sticking my toe in the waters of trust, testing their depth and trying to figure out what exactly the end result of our friendship will be.

Ben is the first church leader I have felt completely comfortable around, especially when I don't like what I'm hearing.  More than once I've told him that he or "it" pisses me off.  I may or may not have used the phrase "so what you're telling me is that what I think/want is @$^&%*$$?"  He is always calm, always even tempered.  I'm pretty sure his blood pressure never raises.  Which is good, because I'm (at times) highly, frustratingly, emotional.

So, Monday we were discussing the idea that I'm supposed to magically find my "sufficiency" in Christ alone.  I was mad that those words are SOOOOO bumper-stickery and the perfect Christianese example if why I HATE being around glossy, churchy people.  No one can give me a satisfactory example of how that meshes with real life, especially in the life of a worn-thin, tapped-out, mostly-penniless, stupidly-idealistic, overly-trusting, weakly-hopeful, massive-hearted, single mom of three.  More than a few numbers went up on my blood pressure that day, as well as the pouring of a few dozen jugs of tears and snot.  I'm sexy when I cry. Wait, nope, that was someone else I saw on a movie once...

Ben and I had come up with a list of five of my harshest daily realities.  They all started with "P".  Okay, all but one, but we changed it to a "PH", so take THAT.  At the end of the problem solving/perspective gaining session I told him about my current grief-category anger as it applies to two and a half of the "P"s:

"I feel like my whole life I'm been excruciatingly thirsty, standing alone in the middle of an enormous desert.  In two of those categories I was recently offered a glass of water.  Before I could grab it and drink, the glass was torn from my hands and a teaspoon of that water was trickled onto my lips.  Now, I've tasted it.  What I've craved, no NEEDED for survival, tasted sweeter than my exhausted, treacherously parched soul could have ever dreamed up.  It's beyond cruel.  Actually, I believe that this is worse for me than if I'd never known water existed."

We sat at his table and argued about semantics for awhile.  I told him that my understanding is that I'm not supposed to want or need anything.  In fact, how dare I even try to ask for a "want", when "needs" are constantly in my face?  I'm supposed to care less about the frivolity of asking for Dasani water, when Arrowhead isn't even an option.  I hate Arrowhead, it tastes like dirt- my faucet's city water is better...

He let me rant.  He tossed a box of Kleenex at me and waited.  Then he said, "Collene Jesus was a man. Even He said 'My grace is sufficient for you'..."  He went on to say, "don't you think that if He was physically sitting next you in an actual desert, He'd give you actual water?  He never just sat by someone with real-life needs and became their "sufficiency" just because he was physically present."  He made me define "Grace", which was easy because it's part of my daughter's name- God's Blessing.  Okay, so then he made me define what a blessing is..."a gift", I told him.  Yup, sooooooo if all that is true, then why in some of these areas, am I being tortured with barely moistened lips and I'm not even seeing swamp water in a mirage on the horizon?  Is there some "Christmas Day" I have to wait for to take even a teeny sip again?  What happens if I die of thirst first?

I don't know.  I'm still wrestling the narrative that stubbornly whispers "it's because you're bad and don't deserve it Collene".  The truth is, it's entirely possible that I took that glass of water and threw it out myself, rather than having it taken away by some mysterious ogre.  What I know is that I can't see it, solve it or repair it.  I'm concerned that, that which I destroyed (although it CAN be), WON'T be salvaged or replaced by Him... Tonight, I'm clinging to the last shred of faith that says He will.

I'll end by telling you, mostly for me to refer back to in the near future, what Ben told me last:

Apparently, from his perspective, I am not a mess.  I am surrounded by messiness, but I am "very well adjusted, intelligent, grounded, thoughtful and even sane."  I am an "unusual woman" (a compliment, I think) and "incredibly deep- relationally".  In addition, I am "a very good mom who parents with purpose and foresight" and oh, "any man with half a brain could see that I am a catch".  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, all of that is even uncomfortable to type.  I can't see it quite that way,  but whatev, it's his opinion and it felt good to hear.

Goodnight.

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Blessed

Last fall, when I started this blog, a friend called me to express her concerns about it.  She has always been on the lookout for potential destroyers of my heart and saw this as a huge risk.  She was right, it was, and continues to increasingly be, risky.  What neither of us could have known is that, despite the exposure, the risk has payed off in unexpected ways. 

Writing here, unlike writing in my tattered journal, has helped me process years of experiences and nonsense internal narratives.  I am being forced to confront the inconsistencies in myself while being held to a certain amount of accountability by my readers- whomever they may be.  This has made it nearly impossible for me to turn back and get comfortable again in the ridiculous lifestyle of "Egypt".  I am being changed.

You might be relieved to learn that I have not spent the entire last two weeks being angry.  The truth is, after I wrote last, I regretted letting you see that deep into me and nearly deleted the post.  I would have, except for the conversation I had with a reader the next day.  "You just summed up the entire two and a half years of life after my dad died, unexpectedly, my senior year of high school", she said.  Later, another reader sent me a reassuring message.  His grief also resonated with my ugly thoughts and emotions.  He went on to tell me more about his experience.  These conversations are invaluable to me, so I press on. 

For months I've been arguing with myself about whether or not to tell you more of the "everything" I committed to working through.  Mentally, I have written that blog 1,000 times since May.  Yet, each time I sit here to type it, I don't.  I continue to feel that I am at a loss pertaining to a specific experience this past year.  In some ways, I actually feel despair that I can't work the situation to a comfortable, healthy place of understanding in my head and heart simultaneously. 

I'm not sure when, but I plan to tell you about the foolishness of loving someone I "shouldn't".  Until (if) I find those words, I'll tell you about this year's Thanksgiving vacation:

Anger is exhausting.

I threw my fit, asked my "whys", retreated to my bed , sobbed barrels of tears and then, I drove.

Fifteen hours of road noise, kids happily chattering in the background, my iPod on shuffle, and my own noisy thoughts, brought me to my first destination.  I concluded that don't have time or energy to be mad.  I have worked my heart into a place of forgiveness and, if it were possible, I owe an apology or two.  By the time I arrived in Albuquerque my head and heart had shaken hands in a cease-fire agreement, for now, and I was able to enjoy my visit. 

She and I have three decades of friendship experience, most of which have been spent communicating by pen and paper. (It seems that I'll have to take my kids to the Museum of Natural History, past the Atari and Pacman displays, to the room of Ancient History to show my kids a postage stamp...).  She has known my family nearly as long as I have and has such sweet memories of things that I had forgotten or taken for granted.  Lately these kinds of conversations are deeply important to me.  It's funny, although we were surrounded by five of our offspring, most of the time, I didn't feel a day older than ten.  We reminisced and shared perspectives, updated each other on the current state of affairs and then shared plans for the near future... I am so blessed. 
 
Before I left New Mexico I had come full circle.  The "I don't want to do this" mentality of the days and weeks before, was replaced with the understanding that I absolutely don't have to do this, but I need to. I am aware that I have "outs", distractions.  Instead, I am committed to finishing the course and earning my degree. Pain is an excellent teacher and experience is what gives meaning to ideology.

I finished my vacation in northern Arizona.  Three of my five brothers met me there- at Mom and Dad's.  There was a sister-in-law, two nieces and a nephew thrown in the mix, along with my own kids, as well.  I can't define it, exactly, but the visit was different than usual.  "Simplicity" is the only word that describes it.  I have decided:   These people I was assigned to share life with from birth are the exact people I want to do life with when things get tough.  We could not be more different.  We could not be more perfect for each other.

Dad is feeling relatively healthy.  I noticed a few (unacknowledged) pained expressions, from time to time. He occasionally looked tired.  He has changed his diet and, to some extent, his daily routine.  He is softer.  Mom is too.  I have thought a lot about the reality that he (like all of us) is dying.  Sometimes I want the specifics.  Do I have two months, ten years, with my dad?  Ultimately, it doesn't matter.  No one knows, except God- and He's not saying.  For now, I have today and I am blessed...

Every Party Has A Pooper

If you don't appreciate a toddler tantrum thrown by an adult, you should go now.

If I could throw myself to the ground and toss my sippy cup and bang my head, hard, onto the concrete- all the while wailing and rolling around, I would.  If I could kick someone, hard, in the shins and run away as fast as possible, I would.  If I could beat my tiny fists against someone's broad chest and kick at the air until I ran out of steam, I would.  If I could lay my head on someone's shoulder and sob until they tucked me into my crib for the night- with my soft footy pajamas, I would.

But, I'm a big girl, with no sippy cup, no soft footy pajamas, no broad chest to beat, no shoulder to sob on, no shins to kick and a headache that wouldn't find relief slamming the ground.  There's no security within the four slatted walls of a crib and really, I'm all out of steam anyway.

Today, I'm afraid.  I physically hurt in chambers of my heart I never new existed.  I found that breathing too deeply released tears at stupid times today.  I'm angry.  I want to pick a fight with someone, anyone. (You'll be relieved to know, I didn't, mostly because I chose the "safe bet" to pick at today, and got no response.) I want to make the people who have most recently devastated me, hurt the very same way. Yes, I am immature and ridiculous, embarrassing even.  What I really want is just to be held, to be reassured that it will all be okay.

"It" won't be okay.  None of it.

I don't want to do this anymore.  I don't want to DO this.  I don't want to do THIS.

Most of them are stuffers, my familial heritage, that is.  When situations are complicated, emotionally speaking, the family handbook prescribes an ignore-it-it'll-go-away remedy.  However,  I'm only a recessive carrier of that gene, an anomaly.  I need direct.  I need a plan.  I need "why" to be understood.  I'm irritated that I'm so different.  In some ways I feel like I don't belong.  I can't find comfort in coping the way most of them do.

I am more alone than ever.

Last week I took the pre-planned trip back to Arkansas; my third visit since April.  The timing of the trip could not have been more perfectly orchestrated, actually.  My grandmother had just had heart surgery and was about to be released from the hospital. The trip was planned before Dad's diagnosis.  My dad had told his mother about his cancer, but spared her details, concerned for her own health.  In some ways, I spent the week reassuring her of what I'm not convinced myself.  She seemed naive about the entire situation until the day she point-blank asked me: "Do you know where they plan to bury your dad? Is there a nice cemetery near their home?"

I DON'T want to do this. I don't think his mom does either.

The other parts of the week were sweet.  And bitter.  Grandma told me about her fighting depression since grandpa died in April.  She told me she clings to the happy times, of which she had dozens of stories.  She is writing a book.  I told her I'd try to help her.  Who wouldn't want to hear about my 83 year old, semi-driving, itty-bitty grandma who "used-to-could" do just about anything?  This woman has a plethora of one-liners.

She assured me several times that she knows, very well, some of what I'm going through and that she understands how hard my daily life is.  I believed her because she willingly shared a few of her own experiences along with a few regrets and heartaches.

I found myself deeply loving and appreciating this woman in ways I didn't think possible only six months ago.  I found a little of myself in her and I found myself feeling very sad.  And mad.  And fighting emotions and doubts and hurt and frustration and years of confusion. And then I found myself, on the return plane, coming to a place of acceptance without understanding.  I hated leaving, wondering if I'd see her again.  There are so many places I need to be and only one of me and never enough time or resources...

If I had the energy, I'd tell you about the other pressures I can't quite escape.  I will say that if I'm being honest, at the end of the day fear, doubt, distrust, loneliness and the physical sensations of grief are ruling my heart.

 What I feared has come upon me;
    what I dreaded has happened to me. 

 I have no peace, no quietness;
    I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

 ~Job 3:25,26 

Will someone please send me to my room?