Jeans and a Sweater

I push the door closed until I hear the quiet click. I don't even turn on the light. A few steps, and my hand finds my bed. I don't slip off my jeans or pull off my sweater. I pull the comforter back and lie down. One thump hits the floor. Then the other. I pull the cover over me--jeans, sweater, and all. I don't have the energy to take them off, and no one notices anyway.

It has been a long time since I dreaded going to bed. It has been a long time since I couldn't bring myself to undress...because there is no one to undress for.

Friends ask how I am. I shrug and say I am tired, not sleeping well.

I am telling the truth.

They suggest sleep aides, various sleep help. How do I explain this?

Oh, I can say sleeping alone is hard, and people nod because we all know how tormenting an unreleased sex drive can be. What people don't know is that the bed is so much more than sex.

The bed is where rest is found, and there is none here. I know when I lie down that within a few hours, someone will have a dream that bothered them, someone will suffer from insomnia for some unknown cause, or someone will have misty eyes from missing their dad.

The bed is a place for intimacy, and I am intimate with no one. When people ask how I am, I answer fine. If I cannot answer fine, I say nothing. In fact, if I cannot say I am fine, I avoid people altogether.

The bed is a place where the day is settled and dreams in the waking are rolled around, but I am too tired to settle anything, and my dream...? I chuckle to myself. It isn't going to bed in jeans and a sweater and it not mattering.

The bed is a place of knowing...knowing someone else...someone else knowing you. Vulnerability. Honesty. Letting someone see beyond the jeans and the sweater. And I wonder if I have enough trust in me to do that anymore...in bed or out. I try to swallow the reality that I don't think I do...and am terrified I never will.

The tears slip quietly and soak into the odd corner of the blanket where my head lies because it doesn't matter if I take up the whole bed.

Then I hear the voice through the door. His legs are cramping. Will I get him some ibuprofen? I barely have time to say I am on my way and wipe the wet from my face when I hear the emergency call. The toilet is clogged and backing up, and she thinks it may overflow, and how does the plunger work anyway?

I close my eyes tight squeezing back the hot tears and breathe deep suppressing the ability of the scream in my mind to escape from my mouth.

I pause. Compose. Toss back the covers.

Doesn't matter anyway. After all, who really expects to sleep in jeans and a sweater anyway.

That Kind of Day

It's the kind of day I don't know what to do with.

I want take every heavy glass anything I own and smash it against the wall and scream the entire time, but of course, I can't, so I don't. What kind of lunatic does that anyway.

And I want someone to scream to, not necessarily at, but to, and there is no one so I try to keep calm, look good, pull off the day well...and I end up with a body tight with tension and a throbbing head.
Then I find myself once again a sobbing mess on my knees on the floor in my bedroom with no words other than, "Please fix this." Knowing it's a kazillion to one chancce of it being "fixed". It's more likely going to be survived and learned from.

And I finally give in to the pain and nausea and take meds to help me get it under control, and I doze off....only to be awakened by the sound of children screaming at each other over...a Lego piece. And I know it's not really a Lego piece.

It's about the fact they are in the habit of not sleeping, and they have been up past 2 am clamoring around in their skin since Anna landed the role of Willie Wonka, and I wonder if they even know why. I have a guess that it has something to do with Rob telling them if he could be any character from any movie it would be Willie Wonka, and it just so happens that the ony production is the 15th, five months from the time he died.

It's about the fact they are anger and hurt, too, and all the "emotion" projects and "processing" doesn't change the fact they are angry at God for letting him die and angry at him for leaving in the first place...and while screaming about how he abandoned them, miss him more than their words could ever express.

So I feel overwhelmed because I'm the only one in this. Oh, I know. God is in it. I do KNOW that. But I'm the only human, and I'm tired. And I so desperately want a break, and there isn't one, and really, two hours away doesn't solve anything because when I come home, Anna still hates being the organizationally-challenged artist, and Robert still doesn't want to go to friends' houses because it hurts him that they have a dad and he doesn't but he doesn't want to tell them that because...really, who gets mad at friends because they have dads?

And I'm tired of well-meaning people who throw out opinions and judgments and don't care about knowing the truth, and they don't know.

They don't know what it is like to hear their son say he doesn't "want to be manly because men just lie and leave." And they don't know what it's like to hear their daughter ask, "Why did Dad not love you so much he'd leave us?" And they don't know what it is like to lie in bed at 2:00 am wide awake with no one to talk to about it and no one to simply reach over and touch so you don't feel totally alone. But they have all the answers.

And they are more than happy to tell me who to date, when to date, and not to date at all...because after all, *I* don't need a man.

Of course, they aren't the ones asking God to send a godly example for their sons so they can learn that not all men lie and not all men leave...and it's okay to be a man because they can be men of integrity and honor or for a man who can show their daughters that daddies who believe they are worth fighting for do exist.

And today I am grasping for a vision. Shoot, I'll just take directions for the next step. And I just want to go in my closet, close the door, and lie on the floor and find some kind of quiet, except I can't...because I can't abandon the kids, and there is no one else to step in. If I don't do this...whatever THIS is....it won't get done. Then I think I'll just drop off FB so no one hears me scream, but then I get emails and phone calls telling me Satan is trying to isolate me so he can defeat me and by disappearing I'm letting him win. I laugh because I realize I'm already isolated.

And there is no cavalry.

And I question all the progress I thought we'd made, and I wonder if we've healed at all or if I am wishful thinking. My counselor assures me we are doing great. Dear God, what does "bad" look like?
I feel that I have no place to rest. If I say anything, I get cliches and pat answers, and if I don't, I get told I'm an easy target and willing isolation victim. And I don't have the energy to smile and say, "Fine," when people ask how I am so I can avoid all of the above.

And my back aches and my shoulders ache and my head aches...and my heart...aches.

Yep, it's been that kind of day.

When You Want to Quit...Please Don't

This morning I was praying for you, for the people who comment and those who don't either because you don't have anything to say or you are afraid others don't value what you say, and I told the Lord...
...if I could give you anything today...
...if I could impart anything to you...
...speak anything into your spirit...

I would say...

DON'T QUIT!!!!

I know the road is hard. I know it hurts. I know you want to give up. I know your heart aches more than you ever dreamed it could, and I know you are tired and weary and feel battle worn, and just lying down and saying, "Enough is enough," is so tempting.

I know.

I've been there.

And I am begging you...DON'T QUIT!!!!

You are not here because of some cosmic glitch. You are not here because God saw a blank line on a family tree and needed to put a name there.

You are here because YOU HAVE A PURPOSE.
You are here because YOU ARE AN ANSWER TO SOMEONE'S PRAYER.
You are here because THE GOD OF ALL CREATION SAYS YOU ARE NEEDED, WANTED, AND DESIRED.
You have something that no one else in this world has.

If I could look you in the eyes right now, I would tell you,
"You are amazing.
You are beautiful.
There is no one like you. Never has been. Never will be. YOU are beyond compare.
Your dreams have not been forfeited.
You are not a hopeless loser.
You are not beyond repair.
You are not damned to live a life of pain and hurt.
You, beautiful and beloved one, are the one Jesus died for.
You are the one God is pursuing with wild abandon because He sees who you really are.
You are so much more than this world has told you."

And I know some days that is so hard to believe, and I know some days you can't see it. I've never seen a platypus, but I believe they exist. The same God who made that platypus made the incomparable YOU. If you can believe there is a platypus, please--PLEASE!--believe in you...not because of what you have done or can do but because God is reaching out to you, because He woke me up at 5:00 am to tell you this...because He led me through the hell first so I could reach back, give you a hand, and tell you that you CAN get through this.

Please, please don't quit. You are more valuable than anyone has told you, and I'm telling you now. I thank God for you. I thank God that He has answered someone's prayer by giving you life. I thank God that you are more valuable than rubies, that you are more valuable than you have courage to believe. You are priceless.

You...are to die for.

Praying for you....