Monday, March 22, 2010

the rules remain a mystery

I keep trying to avoid sharing some of these things, but the truth is, sometimes there just isn't a better way for me to process through something, other than this. And I'm to the point where I'm in desperate need to process through this, because the weight is not only quite literally hurting my back, but I can't and don't think straight anymore.
I've experienced loss in my life before, even loss of this kind, and while the sting of hurt is the same sting, this loss is seeping deeper into my skin than the others did. The worst part about it, is that for three months I've tried and tried to be patient and gracious and forgiving and understanding of situations that I just. don't. understand. And so now I'm having to swallow the truth that I am, in fact, suffering loss.
Maybe it'd be easier if I were fighting to understand just one bewildering situation - it feels like there are so many. This is not a neat and cohesive rant about one thing. It is a jumbled, emotional mess, processing a few things.
2010 is proving to be a rough year. I tear up just thinking about some of the emotional and spiritual battles I've been fighting in the last eighty days. I keep telling myself the reminders that I need to know: and eighty days of reminding myself is getting SO old. I want it to stop; I don't want 2010 to be characterized as a rough year. I want to not be hurting anymore and I want to know what it is exactly that I'm hurting over. I want to feel things I felt before, to be passionate about things I was passionate about before, or maybe even passion for new things. And I want to find joy in...something. I am trying really hard. Every day I resolve to try again. I don't want to keep existing the way I have been - I want to start living again, but there's a giant part of me that knows that to start living again means I am going to have to keep fighting and keep reminding - and I am exhausted. It's so much easier to sink back into my hole and be numb and stuck and invisible and forgettable.
I have a handful of really great friends. And I have a wonderful family. I do - and I know these things. But there's only so much I can say to them, partly because I don't even know what to articulate. And also because one of the few things I'm actually feeling these days is jaded and defensive, so I don't want to need people. It's a very weird thing to not feel like you belong in your own family. And not because of anything that anyone has or hasn't done - just because it's where I am at in conjunction with where they are at. It feels too different to be the same.
I called my Mom the other day to tell her I'll basically be living in another state in August. Truth is, I've never been more excited to get the hell out of dodge. And in my heart, I want her, and others to hear that and be sad. I want them to tell me that they don't want me to go and they can't imagine me not in their life, even if for just a month. When really, I'm already not a part of their life, so the transition I'm hoping they want to avoid has already happened.
My mom tries really hard to be encouraging and understanding, but like me, she just doesn't understand. She can't relate - my Mom hasn't been alone in her entire life. And I'm grateful that she hasn't ever known that. But in part, it's painful to seek counsel from someone who is so unacquainted with this kind of funk.
In more than one way, I am the "good" child. I am the adult child who hasn't caused my parents great heartache and that misappropriation has become a really huge part of my identity. Do you have any idea how much effort it requires to be perfect? I don't like having to tell my parents that the good child is a disaster. I don't want to have to tell them that I'm tired of being so good, while remaining seemingly fruitless. What do I have in my life that they can be proud of? I don't know the answer to that. And I get mad when I think about all the energy I spend trying to maintain that kind of absurdity - and I have nothing to show them for it. And I probably have absolutely zero need to.
The thing that was promised to me would never happen, is exactly what has happened. And no matter how far & fast I run from this truth & the hurt that accompanies it, I can't understand how it was so easy. How can you be a part of something so securely one day, and the next - just not?
That is the loss I'm having the hardest time accepting. And that gaping wound of loss that I keep trying to ignore only gets bigger the more hurdles I face in a given day. I want to love what I do, I want to love where I live and who I invest in, I want to tangibly feel the love I know that exists in my life. But I don't.
I don't want to answer any questions - I don't even know what the answers are.
Contrary to what some might think, I am a strong woman. I know what I want, I have hopes and desires and dreams and goals - they're just really really faint right now. But I believe in those things, and I believe in the One who will see those things through. It's just in the waiting that is so painful. It's in befuddlement and numbing pain of loss that it gets hard for me to get through day to day. But I will get through and I will resolve again tomorrow to try again.

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