Sadness and Grief Deeper Than The Deep Blue Sea

waiting inside suspended animation, bathed in the numbness of sadness mixed with the heat of grief building upon itself. No answers. No way out. "So brave," they say, "to stand your ground." I hear "so brave" as a distant voice shouted towards me from far away. I am confused. Who is so brave? Not me. Not me inside this silent place waiting for a reprieve, a momentary release from the exquisite, laser sharp focus fueled by sadness and grief. A sense of loss intrudes. I look around me. I am a stranger in this place. I wish to be excused, please.

Where is my darn pocketbook?

It is a rarity for me to lose something for a long period of time and  more of a rarity for me to lose something and not find it again. Having made that statement I am constantly misplacing items. This results in late starts as I frantically search for my keys or my glasses or my pocketbook. In addition I plan to decide what I am going to wear and lay it out so I can get dressed quickly. This does not happen either. The plan is made. The execution of the plan remains an attractive option to throwing clothes into the air as I search for two things that will fit and match. I have gained weight. My clothes refuse to comply with the extra pounds. They are so stubborn in that respect. My tops have blotches of this or that on them. I often find those blotches when I see myself in the bathroom mirror of the doctor's office or the restaurant. This is when I adopt my, "I don't care how I look because I am in the middle of a potential mental breakdown" pose. I drop a few sentences by way of explanation. This is a creepy mind-set. Since I have gained weight I go out less, dress with little consideration for how I actually look, buy no clothes and think about losing weight one day. Always gonna start tomorrow. I don't know if this depresses me so much as it surprises me. Like so many things in my world at this time eating and weight take place far in the back of other concerns. I am more puzzled by my lack of self-discipline. I greet that character trait with a hesitant hello. Yes, I understand. Yes, I know, I know! I mutter to myself during my quest to find first one thing and then the other. Our cats are well versed in my chatter as I roam from room to room and back again. If my husband is awake he asks once in awhile if I am talking to him. When I say I am looking for one thing or the other he is not surprised. He volunteers to help find the lost thing and I say no. Not because I don't want his help. At his point in his life he cannot walk far without falling, his balance is tenuous. The searches I have asked him to make end as his body begins to collapse in a puddle towards the floor. We are a pair these days. Our lives have taken unexpe
cted and abrupt turns. The result is this combination of non-ambulatory meets no clue. It begs the question of why he believes I am dependable and trusts me with his life. We have developed our own form of marriage and relationship. I imagine all long term relationships come to a place where the odds and ends of each other make peace with themselves and settle into a wholeness full of contradictions, familiarities, hard won acceptance and a fondness for knowing what the other of us is going to say even as the other of us protests with indignation. None of this finds my pocketbook for me. All of this puts that loss into perspective.

Begin Again

Spring arrived before I felt winter. Winter must have happened or maybe it was just cold rain, day after day after day. I wonder if life can go by even faster than it does now. I could meet myself leaving an appointment before I arrive. My life is full and focused on meeting needs, anticipating future needs, lost in an overwhelming array of data. There are people who organize well. Prioritize well. See the big picture well. I am not one of those people. The requirements on my time, need to focus, plan, prioritize require an incredible amount of mental energy for me. I am a smart woman. I can do many things well. Yet I am at a point in my life where I am avoiding the thinking parts and living in the reactive parts of daily events. Oddly enough, to me, at least, I have a calm that arrived recently, on the heels of what appeared to be an impending nervous breakdown. God works in my life twenty-four hours a day. He worked out this calm thing. He has not, as yet, given me the organizational part. I am calm despite the chaos and sneaking suspicion I have that important things are going undone. They go undone while I look for my keys, my purse, a shirt to wear, shoes, that bottle of ketch-up I know I bought at the store. The list is long. I was diagnosed with ADHD in the past two years. Stress exacerbates the symptoms of ADHD. I can bear witness to that sentence.
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. I celebrate the Risen Christ. Easter Sunday is special because it has always been special. When I met Jesus Christ as a living God and knew Him as a reality in my current life; not an idea or a concept but a real, living Jesus, Easter became a remembrance opportunity. The reality that Christ is risen is an every day reality for me. He is as much a part of me as my DNA. He is risen, made manifest, living now, at this moment, in me and around me and for me. When I met Jesus in this reality I became alive. I became resurrected in the sense that I died to myself and became a bond servant of my Lord Jesus Christ. Easter is a remembrance. Maybe more of a birthday of Jesus than Christmas is for me. When Christ chose to die and was resurrected He became the Christ I serve today. My life in and with Him is far from a cake walk. I am challenged, unsettled, often straining to be full of my own will over my surrendered will. Life with Christ is vibrant, breath-taking, life more abundant than I could ever imagine. Abundant with the love and surrender of my will to His. Come Lord Jesus! Happy Easter, friends!

Flotsam and Jetsome

Why does this font look so little? I have chosen "large" and saved it at least six times. Yet I persist with a degree of determination that would be better spent on cleaning my poor home. But that is of little value to me except to use as a battering ram when I begin to like myself a wee bit.

"Oh sure, how can you feel good about yourself when you pay no attention to your home. You abandon it for any whim that comes along so don't think you are all that, girl!"

So I take the obligatory guilt and shame trip and even organize a completely  irrelevant drawer or two before distraction takes over and I am blowing bubbles for the cats or playing a game on the ipad. 

I do have plans, mind you. I plan to paint and pull up carpet and rid the house of clutter and scrub the deck and buy things in matching colors. That is what I need. I need a color scheme. Then I realize that I could give a fig about a color scheme and the front tires on my car are nearly bald and I return to other , more intriguing ventures that are, for the most part void of value. I spend an inordinate amount of time remembering dates and times of appointments or looking for my glasses or my phone. I lose the memory of where I place items the moment I let go of them. I am either quite smart or the village idiot and I'll be darned if I know which one I am or if I care for that matter.

Another day...

Standing at a high point looking out over the ocean all the way to the horizon, straining to see a little further reminds me of the place in me that only God can fill. There is always a tension of being away from home, watching to get a glimpse of home's distant shore with a delicate homesickness pulling at my heart. It permeates every breath I take though I do not find it intrusive. Rather, I find it hopeful. I am gone from home for a time such as this and I long for home with sweet abandon yet I know this is where I am meant to be for now. At the most poignant of those moments when I feel the joy of a future reunion I think I cannot bear the wait but my Father comforts me. He comforts me and sends me back into this world to live this life He gave me. Sometimes this home, the here and now, feels pulled by an aggressive gravity bearing down heavily. I wonder if I can stand or fully breathe. The mystery that lightens the burden is for me to stop trying to stand or fully breathe. At the exact moment I choose to abandon the effort and stop trying to save myself the gravity releases me. I find myself free

What Do Ya Want?

What do ya want, girlfriend?


I want the air to smell like a cool, mountain afternoon after a light rain.


I want my anger to be absorbed by the love that is in my heart and sent back out as acceptance and forgiveness.


I want to keep commitments I make to myself that are the "who" of who I am.


I want to lose myself when I am talking about Christ's love to someone else.


I want the perfect crème brulee and to be able to have just one drink when I am eating a terrific steak and to have those things at an old wooden table in a stone house with open windows letting in a chilly breeze smelling of earth and grasses. I want to eat my meal with a large and slightly heavy steak knife, one sturdy fork and a delicate, silver spoon for dessert. I want to share this meal with someone who enjoys a wide range of topics, loves a loud and hearty laugh and suffers, like myself, from a touch of melancholy when moments are so perfect as the one we are experiencing together. I want that person to be a friend with no expectations of romantic love or commitment. Warmth, friendship, delight in our time together and separation as the evening sun fades. I want all of that to disappear into a mist as I walk away. I want never to recreate that exact moment again. I want to remember it until I die with joy and satisfaction.


I want to serve God with an open heart and  honest motivation.


My one frivolous and decadent want is for a full-time cook/housekeeper who has the confidence to decorate and maintain my home without asking me questions and to prepare a menu that I love without opinion.


I want to die falling into the arms of my Lord Jesus!

Collapsing Bridges!

A story was told to me today of a town that had contentious groups of people. Apparently they fussed and treated each other in loathesome ways. As the story would have it, the bridge was a connection between the groups. It provided the opportunity for people to cross from one side to the other creating hate and discontent among each other. No one was forced to cross the bridge to participate in this ritual nor did many of them remember why they felt compelled to make the trip to the other side and participate in the stress and chaos. At one time or the other someone would raise the topic of staying on their side of the bridge and letting the other side alone. The effort was made but each time it ended with someone from one side or the other losing control and crossing back over the bridge and into the fray. One day the bridge collapsed. After the initial shock of the distance between them the two groups of people began to smile and wave at each other over the short distance between them. They were no longer minding each other's business nor could they cross over to create problems for each other. Faced with the distancing each group began to experience relief and a new sense of friendship for the other group. They began to enjoy the occasional visit with each other made less rather than more frequent because of the distance in travel imposed on them when the bridge collapsed.


Bridges in my life are collapsing. I am depending on the distancing to prepare the way for relief and friendly waves over the imposed distancing.

I Don't Know This Child

I don't know this child. A conversation with a friend brought to mind that I did not know myself as a child. When I look at photos of myself from a early age I know as much about myself as I know about this photograph pulled off the internet.

SIGH!!

I tried to align to the left margin.

I tried to embed a song. I tried to embed a video.

This will have to do for now!


and this

Because he is wonderful! AND, he has obviously forgotten he is in a public place!