Spiritside

I look up

I talked with Susie yesterday.  We spoke of my life, my history, my children.   She knows my story better than I know it myself at times.  My anger, my posts about the fighting with my neighbors, the words I spoke and those spoken to me keep me from being who I want to be. 

I read Natala's posts and am convicted and enlightened at the same time.  Same as when I read Susie's. 

I am the victim of abuse, of neglect, and more recently of terrorrism.  In my need to protect myself and my children I do and say things that are not the best.  I make choices daily that I wish I could change. 

But being a victim doens't mean I have to stay a victim.  Although I do believe I will be healing from the loss of my husband, the pain of a childhood that haunts me, and a serious of events after my husband's death in which the very people who were supposed to be there for me chose to slander me and attack me with their words, I have a choice to make.  Perhaps the reason I spent so much time trying to come to terms with what my neighbors said to me and my response to them is because this is so new to me.  While my husband was alive no one spoke to me the way they have since.  I have felt like an inflatable clown that bounces up for  blow after blow after blow.  I've been called names, both to my face and behind my back, I've been told that my husband would be so disappointed in me.  I've been called neglectful of my children for allowing my daugher to become overweight.  I've been falsly accused, and not one person has been interested in the truth.  So I'm sensitive where words are concerned.  Not much provokes the monstor that sleeps inside me.  My anger awakens with a tone, a word.  And it doesn't settle back down easily.

Yet I have decided to look up.  From this day forward, I look up.  And when I do an amazing thing happens.  It just doesn't matter.  In His light I'm seen in truth and still accepted and loved.  When He looks back at me it's with the tenderness that's been missing since  my husband's death.   I suddenly am driven to my knees in prayer.  For forgiveness, for freedom, for the very people who have destroyed me with their words.  I am overcome by His grace.  If everyone only knew.  Would it be so easy to harm others if we stayed in that posture?  How can I judge when I am so humbled by the love that has set me free from judgement.  Is there anything one man can do to another that is bigger than His love?  When I look up instead of outward I see differently.  It doesn't always take the sting out of anothers hurtful words, written or spoken, but it does allow me to choose a course of action.  To retaliate, to harm, to harbor resentment.  Or, to love in spite of, to forgive, to use situations as places to grow.  The most amazing thing that happens when I look up?  My focus is not on myself, but on the One who is always loving me.  Trusting in His constant vigilance for my sake, I can bask in the peace that does indeed surpass all understanding.

Here I am Again...

I feel like I've posted more in the last few days then ever.  Here is why.  I have all these thoughts swimming round my head.  Some days, I'm happy and I find myself wanting to post about how wonderful and amazing God is, others, like now, I'm not so happy and not quite sure how to find some good to write about.  But I feel like I will explode if I don't get it out of my system.

Here is the truth about single parenthood as I've come to live it.  I'm drowning.  There is not one area of my life that feels remotely in control.  My nine year old is seriously over weight.  I am sure there is a physical reason as I watch her eat all the time.  She loves food, but no more than her sister.  She used to fill up because she had an emptyness, but we've worked through many issues (Thanks S!) and it seems to me like she turns to food out of emptyness or boredom less and less.  I'm in charge of her diet, so I know she's not eating chips and soda all day.  She loves t.v and video games, and does share my tendancy toward laziness, but no more then it seems every other child.  So I need to get her to a doctor.  But I'm scared so I put it off.  Then I feel terrible for being such a lousy mom.  I love this child so deeply yet haven't done my best for her.  If her father were here, he'd have taken her and I would be able to share this burden. 

My house is not even three years old yet it looks more like ten.  I can't keep up with it.  Partly because Chris is here all the time again, and his kids are here every other weekend or more, as they have been lately.  Every room is a mess.  I have no idea where to begin getting this house the way we need it to be.  Again, if my husband were here I'd have help, someone to work alongside me and make it our project for our future.  But there is just me, trying to keep afloat in laundry, dishes, clutter, animals.  My kids have begun to help more and more, but I'm so far behind.

Emotionally, I cannot keep up with my kids moods.  I want them to find joy in this life.  I believe it can happen even after the events of 9/11,  but no matter what I do it's never enough.  Again, if my husband were here there would be two of us sharing the joys and burdens of raising these amazing girls, instead of me one step behind all the time.  I try to not let them see me upset, and lately that's been hard because I'm upset all the time.  When is it my turn to grieve?  Where can I go alone to cry my heart out where they won't either hear me or come looking for me?  I need to bang on something, scream, and there is no time to let it out.  I try to be there for them, but they seem to need so much more than I can give.  I carry around this exhaustion, it prevents me from making any real progress in my life.  Talk about cycles!  There needs to be time and boundaries, I get this.  But without my husband here to help me I don't know what to do.  How can I be so lost after almost four years?  Why is it so much harder now then in the early days.  And the anger.  Oh God I am so angry all the time.  How could he leave me to deal with this by myself?  Why did we get such a taste of this amazing man yet not get to keep him?  Why did my kids get to have such an amazing dad for such a short time?  My twelve year old said to me today that there have only been two people in her entire life that make her think of her Daddy.  She said, and I quote, "Really mommy, there just aren't many men like him in the world.".  I'm so glad she knows this, yet so sad at the same time.  I used to think it's better to have love and lost, but now I'm not so sure.  For in knowing what we lost the pain seems that much greater. 

Single parenting would be so much easier if I hadn't had such an amazing partner.  Keeping everything together by myself not so taxing if I had no one to lean on for so long.  My heart not so splintered if it had never been held together by so much love.  So much love.  How does someone go on without the better part of themselves?  How can my girls and I become a family again?  How will I ever know joy again. 

In the song we danced to at our wedding are these words:

Some may want to die young, young and gloriously.  Get it straight now mister, that ain't me.  Cause I have something on my mind, that sets me straight and walking proud, and I want all the time, all the Heaven will allow.

I guess in the end that was all we had, all the time heaven allowed us.

Back to single parenting.  I'm struggling, and today in a desperate moment looked up Mail Order Brides!  But without my husband's financial guidence I can't afford one.  Again, another area where I can't seem to get it right.  He took care of me.  Maybe that makes me sound weak, don't know and don't care, I just know that without him everything seems so wrong.  I have so many mistakes to un-do.  When I was posting about addiction I wrote about the damage caused preventing the real healing to take place.  That's how I feel right here, right now.  How can I get to the place of healing when I have done so much damage and have so much work ahead of me just to get on level ground?  Am I going about it wrong?  Should I let the house fall apart, not worry about money, enlist some help, and concentrate on healing?  I just keep feeling that if I can get my girls healthy, my house and finances together, then I would be able to focus on my heart and spirit. 

My heart is broken.  My heart aches.  I cry myself to sleep every night.  I have painful longings that I know will never be fulfilled.  I pray that I will dream about him, afraid every night that I won't.  Then I do and when I wake up my heart is broken all over again.

I wish this didn't happen to us.

I never saw it coming...

Before I write about the part of the movie "The Island" that moved me so, I just want to say something about life in the blogging commumity.

I started blogging needing an outlet for my pain, my grief in the loss of my husband and a place to be authentic and hopefully meet one or two authentic souls along the way.  Little did I know.  Little did I know how my life would be blessed by the computer!  I could read the day away and still not touch on all the stories out there that move me in different ways. 

Lately I have been raw.  Not just sad or angry, although that is certainly a part of it, but raw.  I realized that it's because of this community of people who share so openly.  It's finding a place where I am accepted after years of being rejected.  I have a place to rest after being on gurard for so long.  Finally the feelings that have been buried so deep surface, and I find that healing may be a reality.  But it means walking on a dark path first, before moving into the light that I catch a glimps of every once in a while.  My pain story is compex.  9/11 taking my husband of thriteen years, single parenting and watching as their lives are also impacted by the death of their amazing father.  A new relationship with a man who though I love has added elements to my story that I was not prepared for.  And of course my walk with a God, who has revealed Himself to me in many different ways of late.  I've enjoyed seeing Him in the words of Natala, Susie, Hope and all the many who share honestly their unique stories of relationship with Him.

Yes I am raw.  And when I first started blogging I thought if no one responds, no one reads what I write that's ok, I'm doing this to help myself find my way.  Now I realize that what makes this a healing experience is the people.  The wonderful, amazing, honest beautiful people who give away of themselves so that others may be blessed.  This experience of reading and writing has become much more than I ever imagined it would be.  Thank you, thank you to all who have written, read, commented.  Thank you for being honest, authentic and sharing your gifts.  I feel like I have a new list friends to call on, and can be a friend as well, for that's how this becomes community. 

Her Post Made me Cry

This morning I was Reading my usual line-up, which really only consists of three other blogs daily, and many others when I have the time.  But I always read Natala's, Susie's and Linda's.  They are three very different women blogging about different things, yet in each of them I find commonalities that cause me to shout "Yes, I get that, I get you, you get me!".  How exciting it is to read Natala's bio and discover she also likes Nora Jones, and even Diana Krall, who transports me to a different place every time I listen.  Seeing she lives in my old neighborhood, Yea!  She knows.  How wonderful it is to know and connect with women who value the same things, struggle with the same issues.  I started blogging with the hope of meeting people.  Widowhood is lonely, and at times I feel too old to join clubs and take classes like everyone suggested I do to meet people.  It's the same advise I gave my mom in law after her divorce and she complained about the same things.  Friends treating her different, no one understanding the issues, single parenthood exhausting me to the point of tears. 

But I digress.  This morning as I read natala's site I found my vision blurring.  When I stopped I discovered tears streaming down my cheeks.   There is no way to explain why but to link to her site so here goes.  http://heretogoal.blogspot.com/  I'm sorry I'm not computer savvy enough yet to link to the particular post that moved me so, but it's her words on the emerging beauty she sees in life as well as herself.  How I relate to  the unfolding of beauty from a dirt field.  From what I can tell there is more beauty in her soul than could ever be contained in a wildflower garden, no matter how big! 

Widowhood wiped my slate clean.  9/11 stole from me what I was becoming.  Trying to find a voice, a self, in the light of such a blow has been hard work, and I guess it could very well be likened to a dirt field, and indeed the work involved does require nurture, nature, and tender loving care.  It's work to take root, and even harder work to push out of the dirt that so often threatens to choke the life out of me.   I don't always feel strong or beautiful, but i hope.  i hope that one day i look back and discover that i withstood harsh storms, glaring sun, even shoes tromping over me.  Thank you natala for giving me a vision, sharing of yourself so I don't feel so alone on this journey, and once again for sharing your gift.  Yes I cried, but the healing tears of a spirit touched, not the painful sort that have been a part of my life since my husband was taken from me.