You Wouldn't Know.

You wouldn't know I was in this much pain. You wouldn't know that acid continuously creeps up my throat. You wouldn't know that my chest cavity is caving and I am debilitated by the burden heaved within me. Even now as I attempt to blog through it, there is this blatant average face on me, and I wander between post, washing dishes, flipping pancakes, chatting through the morning. You wouldn't know that inside is this roaring lion, screaming at and through me.

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And a remark on this, I don't know how to let you know. I don't know how to let you know myself in this. Yes, sometimes I purposefully bury it under layers of me and maintain my composure to not be overwhelming to you or a constant need or a load to carry. But outside even this, I don't know how to let you know the intensity that I am. I don't know how to write these words, and still feel them and let it show. It is caved up with stone walls within me and I couldn't break them even if I tried. So instead I just simply shrug and clean a few pots and pans, meander through the house, or ramble jovially about my day...

Feel What I Feel.

Some say to let myself feel what I feel. But I don't know how to feel what I feel. I don't know how to bow and kneel and be engulfed enough to let it take me, to let it release me. I don't know how to pull open my chest and extract my acid and pare away at the flesh inside me. I don't know how to grieve. I don't know how to let it go.

Session of Grief.

I was talking with my roommates this morning about death and loosing people that you love, and explaining to her this process and how different it looks for me.

When my grandpa died two years ago, I mostly felt like I missed him right away and that missing is the overarching feeling that continued the whole process, and still today. I don't remember or really know of any other feeling but that.

Then my student died last year, and I felt a wallow of pain. It was an instant pain and a jerking pain. For two weeks I didn't want to talk to people and felt I was aroused only in the pain of missing him. Six months after that, I still had to pull over on the side of the road with tears because of how much it hurt that he had died. And I can recount the exact places my students were sitting when I told them about the first incident, and then the second and final. And what I did with them, and crying on my stool in front of them. I can remember walking them across the street to the church and thinking over and over again, "No one could ever prepare you to walk your students to the funeral of their friend...."

And now with my mom, everything is very different. I can remember walking into the funeral home for the first time and feeling 'fine' and then walking into the room and just falling down and not being able to get up. Then talking with my aunt that weekend and saying that "I just don't feel it, I don't feel any pain." And going through two months feeling that she could just walk right back into the room and it wouldn't be weird. I could imagine her in the kitchen, or walking the stairs to my house and seeing her and feeling no different sense than if nothing had happened.

Then I went to Colorado and so much changed in returning. That next week was my birthday, and I just wanted a chance to sulk for myself, and not have to do or be anything for anybody. So I shut the blinds, closed the curtains, put on drowning music, and let the deepness take me. I can remember the vivid feelings of the day and the necessity of that space to let myself crash. These times were hurt. For weeks it just felt like 'someone had hurt my feelings' like an adolescent flash-black.

And then, since an incident on a Saturday in August, all I feel is pain. Deep pain. Grinding pain. Pain that is cutting and jarring and so intense that even my body reacts to it and no amount of pills can cut the acid in my throat. It clutches around my chest, pulls the breath from me. Its pain so engulfing that no vice I dare try cuts it. Its pain that my intellectual self doesn't know how to connect with, or how to deal with. There is this point and aspect of grief that just burns in me so deep that I know know how to grieve or mourn or release or let it go. It simply burrows itself in me and claws me like death in a motion.

Everything about this grieving process is different than what I thought. Everything about it is surprising and frustrating and messy. I want to just be able to name and label and package it up and let what is done be done. But it keeps pulling at me and dragging me and doesn't let me go. I keep thinking "If I only could.... [hike, drink tea, journal...]" then I would get it all out of me and let go. But none of these things really release me from it. I can sink into them and enjoy the vice for a moment, but once it is over, the blade of pain is replenished and I am released no further than what I was before.

I thought I would miss her. I thought I would miss her so deep that it is all I would think about. But I haven't been allowed to miss her. I don't know how to miss her. I rarely have the sense of missing her. Especially not like I thought or intended. It's like my head and my heart don't connect on so many levels and something in me says, "She's gone. Period. So missing her or wanting her back doesn't help." So the thought of missing her is just cut off. Invalid.

Something in me makes me think that sometime that will come. That I will feel the depth of needing her. But right now I am stuck in the season of pain. This session lasting endless with knifing, suffocating, enduring pain.

Limited Circle.

In short, I am going to try to keep my blog... its "my baby" as my aunt says, and something in me will die without it... However, it is limited to certain people, so please keep that knowledge safe for now, and I may expand it after this season passes... Thanks for respecting that space. If you know of someone who really wants to be able to read my words, but I haven't given access to, e-mail me and let me know and I'll see about it... Thanks. I have to write. I need to write. So to keep writing, I will.

Exploited.

I realize that blogging is on the Internet, for others to see... but the last few months I have been trying to wane down this process with the amount of viewers. So it is off facebook, off my friend's blogs, off google or any other way people could find it, unless you were my friend.

But someone has been exploiting me. Someone is printing off my writing and passing it around. Without my permission, without my knowledge. You have exploited my heart and my way of processing my life and my grief. So this blog is going to stop for a while. And for those of you who are using my heart in these words as a way of gossip, please stop doing so. It hurts.

Showers & Wedding Bells.

As I look forward to buying a house, there is an anticipation and excitement that comes. There is hope. There is that gleeful feeling of thinking about decorating, painting, finding furniture, filling my kitchen, and designing rooms. None of this is set in stone, but it still leaves me awake early in the morning and restless as night with excitement - and apprehension, because bills do come included :).

But it also comes with a bit of thought that for most people, when they buy a house or get their first place, they are blessed with showers and wedding bells. I am in no way frustrated with this and love that many people recieve that blessing. And, there is not sadness in my fingertips here either. But there is simply the realization. That I acknowledge that no envelops of money will come my way to help pay for a washer and dryer, no crock pot will be wrapped with a bow for my cupboard, no pillows or blankets or bathroom towels will be gifted. It's okay, it's me, and this is the life God has blessed me with. I look forward to strolling World Market to pick out my own supplies. I like meandering Target and thinking what I can put where. I appreciate the shelves of magazines to browse at Barnes and Noble for ideas. It's okay doing it by myself. But it also is something I acknowledge as I look over my budget, my plans, my excitement, my growing list for Bed Bath and Beyond... that I am doing it by myself and it may take months to paint the walls, add the furniture and fill the cupboards. But, it will be my home. My harbor of rest. Filled with my things.

Small Triumphs.

I woke up this morning and about six inches of the corner of my bed is still tucked in. Small triumphs. I have been trying to look for the little things and count my blessings as I go - from big to small. And yesterday and today both brought such glad spark when I saw this small piece of my sheets still buried beneath the mattress -- it means I'm sleeping a bit more restful. It means less dreams, less toss and turning, less waking in the night. So though I write this at 5am, I still see this small corner of my bed as a small (big) triumph in my life. Funny how this little thing means such a big deal to me. Thank you God.

Act of Faith.

In church this morning, the elder prayed and these words caught my attention. Struck me so that I stopped mid-prayer to take out my pen and write them down. He said:

"..sometimes it is an act of faith to rejoice..."

This captured me. I have been bruising myself trying to make the choice to rejoice. To follow Paul's command to "Rejoice in all things" (Philippians 4). But these words said something different. They said it is an act of faith to rejoice.

I look at these two so different. So stark and contrasting. As my processing of this season of life through a Biblical lens continues, I wonder what this means. What are the ties with sackcloth and ashes, with rejoicing in all circumstances? When is it okay to simply feel sad, when is it necessary to bridle the horse and move on? How does one feel and recognize the grieving process, the many momentous transitions, and work through them properly to bring freedom, release, and healing... and yet push forward through daily life and responsibilities and gather optimism through them?

In all these things, I pause and wonder...

Sackcloth and Ashes.

In the Old Testament, it was customary for people to weep, wail, mourn, and display this in wearing sackcloth and ashes. I was reminded of this with Nehemiah. He prays for four months straight, 120 days, before seeing the king. In this, he is in agony. He is hurting, mourning, fasting, weeping, fearful, and prayerful all at the same time.

"I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven..." Nehemiah 1:4

He didn't just say "Ah, the city is falling. Move on. Lets rejoice."

He saw what was bad or evil or painful, and felt it.

I am reminded of this as I hear so many words from so many people. Some say to just press on, walk forward, and keep moving. Others say, offer yourself some grace. You've been through a lot, its only been 4 1/2 months. It's okay. And its okay to feel all of the things you feel.

As I read Nehemiah this morning, I am grateful. I am grateful that God gave me these verses, to see Nehemiah's struggle and his heart in the midst of it. I am grateful to see Nehemiah's action plan: his faithful walk of prayer. But I am also grateful that it reminded me that hurt and pain and mourning are not sinful, they are not disobedient to God, they are not wrong.

Absorbing Suffering.

"When people suffering loss do find community, it comes as a result of conscious choices they and other people make.

First of all, it requires a choice on the part of those who want to provide community for suffering friends. They must be willing to be changed by someone else's loss, they they might have not been directly affected by it. Good comfort requires empathy, forces adjustments, and sometimes mandates huge sacrifices. Comforters must be prepared to let the pain of another become their own and so let it transform them. They will never be the same after that decision. Their own world will be permanently altered by the presence of one who suffers. It will bring an end to detachment, control, and convenience. It will prevent them from ever thinking again that the world is a safe place full of nice people, positive experiences, and favorable circumstances....

They are changed because they choose to get involved and allow my suffering to become theirs. They refuse to give me only a month or a year to return to life as it was for me before the loss. Since they knew life would not be the same for me, they decided that it would not be the same for them either."

~Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, p 176-177

Shutting Down.

Shutting down. Closed. Done. Exhausted. I have nothing left to give. Nothing left to for anything to take. I just need time. I need days. I need space. I need refreshment for my soul. My soul is locked away right now, closed behind the walls of survival. Its the only way to grunt through all the aggravation and aspects of my life right now. Like rubber burning against the tar, it feels like that sensation grinding within me. Too much. Frustrations in every place, at every level. And I can do it no more.

There are so many things with catapult this... One being my job. It's exhausting, taxing, wearing, and frustrating. I hate being yelled at all day. From 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. Kids yell, teachers yell, administration yell. About everything -- from tucking in shirts to lesson plans, to kids looking at others across the room the wrong way, to not wanting to work to walking down the wrong side of the hall. It's unbelievable what people yell about. And I sit unsheltered in the middle of it, pelted by the hail of their spoken vibrations. Stop yelling at me, is all I want to say, all I think. Stop yelling about everything. But instead I have kids and teach in a world which insults my hurting spirit more and I struggle to even give a piece of my soul to it, because I need to protect the little I have left to give. So I let the kid in the back sleep with his head down, because at least he isn't fighting with the kid next to him. I let the "F" sit in the gradebook and don't care, because the student choose not to do the work, not me. I let them pull faces, because I don't have the energy to fight every battle. I show up. I plan a lesson. I aim to teach. But other than that, I have nothing left to give. And I will give no more.

So I am shutting down. And this teaching is only one part of it. I'm done. Exhausted. Asphyxiated. Suffocated. Drained. A shallow strip of life. If there were anyway to release, I would. If I could quit my job and do something else, I would. I think about it all the time. If I could simply arrange something different to give my soul life back, I would. But I don't know how, not right now. I can't. If I could just complain for hours and be a jerk for a long time, I would. But somehow that is not allowed of me. So I suck it up and try one day at a time and step forward. But seriously, I'm done. Done. So this blog gets my frustration and emotion and empty, wallowing hole.

And tomorrow is Friday. Tomorrow will bring the weekend. Where I will try to see differently, try to see the mountains or the water. Try to shelter myself from the storm...

But right now, I am done. Done. No more. Shutting down. Finished with these days. I have nothing left to give. So please give me the grace not to take. Because this heart is closed for business. I just can't.

Restructure Sand.

This new phase of life is a restructuring of my brain. It restructures my emotions, my thoughts, my patterns, the way I think through things. I have been 'independent' for a while now, physically, financially, logistically. But this new phase clearly points me as this black dot in the middle of a blank page. Independent. Loosely connected.

There used to be a center, a foundation. There used to be a place to stand and a knowledge of the base that was behind me and under me. That is no longer. I stand alone. I stand with some friends and a few relatives holding my hands, but the reality is, I stand alone. I am an orphan on this dirt road journey. Wondering and wandering but finding small bits of clarity as I begin to make this journey this way. So I restructure my brain, change my patterns of thinking, reexamine my countenance, and walk without a foundation. It's feeble and faltered, but gaining steady steps. I walk. This journey, this orphan, this new pattern of sand.

Bitter Root.

You live your life like a tornado.
Destruction follows everywhere you go.
And you have no plans to stop or slow (oh).

I will not let this bitter root grow in me.
I will not let you leave that legacy,
But it gets so hard when pain is all I see (oh).

And every time I find healing, you're making a new mess,
And I am learning the real meaning of forgiveness.

And I tried to remove myself from your path,
But I keep on waking up in the aftermath.
So I pick up again and say I won't look back (oh).

And I will not let this bitter root grow in me.
I will not let you leave that legacy,
But this constant fight is breaking me (oh).

And every time I find healing, you're making a new mess,
And I am learning the real meaning of forgiveness.

And it hurts when you hit at the hearts of the ones I love;
When everything you touch is rubble and dust.
And it gets so hard to know how to trust,
But I will not let that bitter root grow.
I will not let it, no no.
But it gets so hard (oh).

And every time I find healing you're making a new mess,
And I am learning the real meaning of forgiveness.
And I could move and never send you a forwarding address,
Or I could learn the real meaning of forgiveness.
~ Sara Groves "Tornado"

The bitter root is growing in me. It is already rooted and snarled and snaring and entrapping against me. It is like a giant banyan tree, with clawing fingers nabbing around my heart. This bitter root, it grows. But I do not want that legacy to become a hold on me. I do not want this root to foliage around everything. I am not at forgiveness, I cannot learn the meaning right now; I am tucked so deeply inside this root. But this song is the words of my days, waking and fading. This bitter root that grows in me. Let it not leave this legacy.