To all the girls I've loved before....

To all the women I love and have loved. To all of the women who have loved and still love me... I wasn't leading you on. I never meant to hurt you. I wasn't being fake in the moment, or tolerating your presence. I truly love you, and the heart connection you felt is real.
It's not you, it's me, and I can explain. 

I love people. I love women. I love hearing their stories, and standing in wonder at the trauma and hurt women suffer through and yet pull themselves up to march on.. maintaining a strong softness that often belies the intimate stories of disappointment they work at healing. I find it easy to connect with people. I often find myself listening to women pour out their hearts in the grocery store line, waiting outside kids' classrooms before conferences, and sitting on the beach during family vacations. I love to talk and to listen. I love sharing ideas and experiences. I have had multiple connections with women that lasted only for a weekend retreat, or three month bible study. Women with whom I feel deep chemistry with; a sisterhood and joint heart understanding. Women who, given different circumstances, would imprint themselves upon my daily life and bring new ideas and adventure. I have experienced the feeling of finding a soul sister only to know the timing was off, or the gift was meant for that moment only.

Collages are small representation of women I love!!

I've been more than blessed with women who have loved me well. I've had good friends since as far back as I can remember and have been mostly protected from the wounding that comes from actions of a girl I considered a friend. I can recall the feelings of awe I had sitting on the front row of church holding my mom's slender, manicured fingers in my own childish hands. I watched my grandma snap peas and laugh over the pitcher of her too-sweet southern tea. I can still hear her raspy soprano melt into my grandpa's bass as they sang Bringing in the Sheaves inside the musty, brick church. I've stood in the mirrored paneled living room of my aunt's house and watched her and her sisters argue with great passion. I've giggled until my stomach hurt in the dark bedrooms of friends when I spent the night. I've crouched at the top of the stairs straining to make out the hushed, somber voices after a woman in our community had miscarried the baby she had longed for for so many years. I've cried on early morning walks when my sister friend told me she knew something was wrong with my son. Women have impacted every facet of my life and I have breathed it in with full, deep draws.

But as well as I have been loved, as intensely as I have been protected and cared for, I have struggled to be a good friend in return.

In my adult life, I have lived in a place of chaos and need. When I became a mother, I was thrust into a world of violence and fear and struggle I hadn't known existed. I went to doctor after doctor trying in vain to get my son help for his raging tantrums and violent behavior. I lived on a military base and was surrounded with women who loved me. I had a friend who lived down the street who would run to my house and take my baby for hours while I turned my attention to my screaming toddler. She would keep my second born safe along with her own growing family while I struggled to survive the terrifying life I had found myself in. For the years we were neighbors, she served my family in ways I've never been able to repay.
Years later when my marriage imploded, I was left with the immediate need for housing, as we had to leave the military base we had called home. I had no job, precious little savings, and no renting history to help me secure housing for my family. I was given the chance to rent a tiny bungalow owned by a woman and her husband I was connected to in my church. When the time came to move on from the cozy dwelling, I was offered the basement of another woman and her family. She only asked me to watch her lively toddler as she pursued her career. We settled in and began to live the reality of being a severed family on that beautiful property. When they moved on a year later, I was permitted to rent the entire house and I began to feel some semblance of normalcy. In the years since I was thrust into single motherhood, I have hustled in every way possible to provide for four kids. I have cleaned houses, mowed yards, babysat, used my photography skills, bartered, sold things I never dreamed I'd have to sell, written articles, applied for more than 60 jobs, worked multiple part time jobs at a time, and walked into the social services office to ask for help. I've been on welfare, cashed out CDs my grandmother had given me as a child and humbly been helped by my parents and various friends. I've spent nights lying awake in bed wondering how I was going to pay my rent, afford the kids medications, and watched several medical bills go into collections. I've prayed and cried, and experienced the miraculous when a check or package appeared unexpectedly just when I thought we would never make it.

I'm proud of how far I've come. I was given a wonderful job by a woman who has lived her own pain. She looked into my eyes and saw me as more than a liability. She saw who I could be, and took a risk in hiring me to assist her. Because of her belief in me, I've been able to work myself off of welfare, pay off the bills that were held captive by bill collectors, and now sleep soundly knowing I am able to take care of my family.

But while things are so much better than they've been, I still hustle. I work full time and part time - 7 days a week. I have four kids who all need specialists and three of them have some level of special education. My time is spent juggling work, and kids and doctor appointments, teacher conferences, my house and trying to hold it all together. There is no down time, rarely time for fun or evenings out or phone calls, and always a fire needing my attention. What that means is my friends still don't get my friendship in the way they deserve. Calls go unanswered, texts flash across my phone waiting for my response, and plans get cancelled. I know I've hurt women. I know I've let down my friends. I know there are women who think I lead them on and think only of myself. I know there are women who mistook my silence for ambivalence. I have seen hurt in the eyes of women who think that my scarcity in their lives is a reflection of my feelings towards them. To those women I want to say- it's not you. It's me.
I don't often share the struggle of my everyday life- not because I'm ashamed of it but because it's not necessary. I don't want pity, I don't like to linger in the hard places, and I would rather spend the precious little time I have with friends talking about other things. But I need you to hear me- if you have felt my love- please don't doubt it. Please don't take my silence personally. I used to talk to my mom almost daily, and now it's a good week if we manage one phone call. I am trying hard to figure out how to do it all, but the truth is, I can't. And what often falls is my active engagement with my relationships. I have days when my energy level soars, and the stars seem to align and I am able to reach out to let you know I think about you always, but there are also times where the chaos in my home reaches insane levels, and the only thing I manage to do is keep everyone safe. I desperately love and need the women in my life- and am so grateful for your presence, and I know that I haven't been the friend to you that you deserve. If I had it to give, I would in a heartbeat. I don't have answers and I don't know how to make it better in this moment, but I want you to know that I am not unaware. And while you may feel it, I don't take you for granted.

On Facebook and Healing

Facebook gets a bad rap. It's been around long enough to get a reputation for being a catalyst for cheating, lying, hiding things from loved ones and as a tool to bully and slander. Social media can be a sticky place where truth fades into the reality we want to portray and we have the ability to censor ourselves to allow fringe people in our lives to see only what we wish them to see.
There have been studies done showing FB can provoke anxiety and depression. We look at other people's posts and photos and compare the smiling faces in their photos to our bickering family not captured on film.
Despite all of this, I love social media. I love connecting with people I don't get to see anymore. People I love who would have fallen into the recesses of memory and out of my current life. People I haven't heard from for years show up as a friend request and in moments I get caught up a bit on where they've been and what they're doing now. I've enjoyed the immediate connection to my community that spans continents, socioeconomic class, and age. I've managed to avoid social media drama and instead feel it to be a gift in my life.

Grief has a way of leveling the life you knew, and in the healing there is great opportunity to inventory the life you've known and rebuild the life you were meant to have. Familiarity breeds contempt and in my life, the familiar struggle numbed me against pressing into authenticity and the hard work of looking inward at the broken places needing mending. One of my biggest struggles in my adult years has been the mistaken belief that I was not enough as a mother. I believe this to be a universal struggle for many women and one that can hold us hostage, preventing us from being the mothers we truly are. I've shared before how my first born has had struggles since toddlerhood. At the prompting of a dear friend, I started seeking answers and support when he was just two years old. Sadly, as happens to many mothers, I was brushed off with disdain and told that stricter parenting and the awareness of him 'being a boy' would solve all of the terrifying behavior that I knew at a soul level to be abnormal and dangerous. However, in my vulnerable state, and tender age, I allowed those words to take root and begin growing into a powerfully strong vine that snaked itself around my heart and squeezed the vibrancy out of motherhood. When he was a few short weeks from marking his fourth birthday, well meaning extended ex-family told me the problem was me. If I would change my behavior, and admit my shortcomings then my son would no longer be punished or tormented by the myriad of horrible things he was experiencing. As I had already given space to the other statements by doctors regarding his challenges being a direct result of my parenting inadequacy, the soil of my heart was tilled and ready to receive this final fatal blow to my fragile seed of hope. The story spreads a decade since then and the abbreviated version has me retreating into hurt, anger and sadness. I've since learned none of those things were based in truth. I've since come to realize that God doesn't make mistakes and just as He designed me with purpose, he also gave me the children He gifted me with on purpose. Within me is everything I need to best raise and love the ones I've been honored to birth, and I've worked through the lies of inadequacy and sliced through the poisonous vine that had embedded itself into my heart. I hate that I have spent ten years parenting out of shame and guilt and sadness, but I'm grateful I was able to escape the prison of deception while I still have time to reverse my approach to motherhood.

This is where FB enters the scene. The photos and posts about my children that now forever reside in the interwebs aren't pretend. They aren't staged or prompted. They really happened. The truth is, nothing in life is perfect. No birthday party, no playdate, vacation or outing. There will always be sand in the bathing suit, ants at the picnic, siblings who bicker more than they smile and hug one another, and dirty dishes in the sink after a beautiful birthday supper. But the good stuff is there too. Life then becomes where we put our focus. The photos of my kids playing cards together was real. There may have been arguing three minutes after I snapped it, but that doesn't negate the reality that for a moment, peace hovered like a bird, spreading calm with each thrust of its wings. For me, FB has reminded me I've done something right. It shines bright on a screen and belies my inadequacy. Living with the belief that I'm not enough is a lie that only ties me to being less than I am capable of. My treasure of photos and posts that span years speak to the beauty that really happens when I least expect it. Mothering for me has been messy and hard and at times discouraging, but there is a tangible reminder on my FB page that it's also beautiful and funny and sweet and powerful. I'm grateful for FB. It's helped me stay the course in recovery from drinking in lies never meant for my soul. It's been the antidote for my weary mother's heart and brought a smile where a furrowed brow once was. It's revived the passion I once carried in my chest that was aflame with hope and dreams and expectation. Now those gifts are tempered by age and experience and I'm learning to look to the mundane to find the extraordinary. Facebook is one of the tools that has led me out of that darkness, and I'm forever grateful for its gift.

Camping anyone?

I don't always have to write with a deep, brooding tone.  I can be silly. In fact, in real life, I'm pretty hyper and silly a lot of the time.  So to lighten the mood a bit- here's a post about my adventure.

I took the kids camping last night. Alone. For the first time.
I really love being outside.  I love hiking, and swimming, and being in the forest. I always wanted to go camping as a family in years past,  but often I was the only one who wanted to go.  Since life has changed, and I can make the decisions now, I decided I would take it upon myself to get out there and do it.  It was awesome. It was enlightening. Fun. A good education.

Here is my fun list of our Family's Camping 101.

1.  When setting up your tent, either be super humble and ask someone for help, or be super confident and just pretend like you know exactly what you're doing.  Sneak glances around you to see if it looks like everyone else's and pray that no big wind comes and carries it away.  (I did both. I set it up very confidently, and then asked one of the guys in the registration office to pop on by and make sure I did it right.  Guess that thought that I needed a man to tell me if it was right or not is taking a bit to go away. He came by and guess what? I had done a great job!)

2.  I can make a fire.  Really!  I can.  And not a smoky, smoldering mess.  A real roaring fire that calmed into a slow burn for hot dog cooking and s'mores. It was beautiful. And yes, I'm very proud.

3.  Remind your almost-a-teen son not to wander around the site with his swiss army knife drawn.  He said he was looking for wood to whittle, but all I could see was us getting kicked out of the campsite for brandishing a weapon.  Next time I'll remind him before he goes exploring.

4.  I'm not too prissy to sleep on the ground.  I may however, be too old and bony.  I took my yoga mat, a blanket and my sleeping bag. My hips didn't like digging into the earth and while I did sleep some, I think I will need more padding in the future.

5.  Birds are noisy in late evening and early morning- and I loved it.  So many songs joining, and so incredibly beautiful.

6.  I like the smell of fire, earth and even sweaty kids all mingled together.

7. Drunk people were annoying in college and drunk people are still annoying now.  (Go to sleep you silly annoying drunk people! )

8.  Sleeping through the night in a tent with four other people under the age of 13 will not happen. You will be awakened at 3am by a naked child standing over you shivering and loudly whispering that he has had an accident and is now frozen and wet.  You will sit up and realize that your 'extra' blanket choices are limited and will try to bundle him up as best you can, without waking anyone else, and then pray that he doesn't die of hypothermia as you settle back into sleep.

9. Take more blankets next time.

10.  The thought to take .97 cent solar torches was brilliant.  I used one set on top of a jug of water (which softly illuminated the whole thing) as well as one in two different corners as really low nightlights.  It helped the kids a ton.

11.  None of my children are too old to be sung to sleep.  My lullabies saved the night.

12.  Bug spray. Even more than you think.  Ticks? Oh they are already having parties.. some of them were having parties in my kids underwear. yeah.  For real.  Thank heavens for the tweezers on the swiss army knife.

13.  I should have asked for more help setting up our site, but I was so excited to be alone in the QUIET that I kicked them out. Made them go play. It was heaven.

14.  Insist that every child use the bathroom before bedding down.  See #8.  Enough said.

15.  Don't let the kids go in and out of the tent in excitement before it's time to bed down. What seems so fun will turn your tent into a bowl of sand and dirt, and you will be using your car broom to try and get it as clean as you can before realizing you're just going to be lying in it all night and what the heck, we're made from dust, we go back to dust and tonight? We sleep in dust.

16.  Keep expectations low.

17.  Remind children at 6am that it is still time to be quiet and the sides of the tents are not, in fact, solid walls. Whisper loudly to them that their exclamations of 'There's a tick on my testicles' and 'I need to throw away my pull-up' can be heard by everyone within a 1/2 mile radius.

18.  Don't make eye contact with anyone after you emerge from your tent when everyone has just heard about the tick and its choice of location.

19.  Decide that the tent WILL in fact go back in the bag. Refuse defeat.  You will do this. Shake it out, fold it up, pull it into the bag where one lip of the bag will always slide off until you realize that you do not, in fact, have the super power needed to do this particular camping task, ball it up and put it into your car. With the bag on top.  To fix at home. Or, to ask your neighbor to help you fix it.

20.  Cheer the kids on and tell them how wonderful they did.  Chuckle at the preteen who arrived with an attitude that it wasn't rustic enough who is now sitting by a morning fire with a mouth full of pop tarts exclaiming that 'This is my most favorite place ever'. Decide to do this. Again, and again.  Healing comes amongst the trees.

Baby Steps Forward

I have tried several times to start a post and then can't get it out the way I want to.  A lot has happened, and I'm emotionally tired.

I told the kids last week about their Dad and I getting divorced.
It went... ok.
How good can that moment go?  I prayed a lot before, during, and after. I'm painfully aware that this will be a moment that is forever seared into their memories and I wanted to control it as much as possible.  I wanted to do it in a beautiful outdoor sanctuary.  But.. it's been so cold. The kids were starting to ask hard questions, and I couldn't keep avoiding it... so I drove to the place, but we had to stay in the car. It was.. anticlimactic.  It was hard. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But we lived.
As I have moved through my grief, the hardest part of this process has been watching my children hurt. It's been doubly hard because I haven't shared many details with them. I talk about it as much as I can, but I am very careful to protect them from many of the details because I want to preserve their relationships with their Dad.  The hard part is that there isn't a lot for them to cling to in way of understanding because the details are too ugly for me to share.  I struggle to find the words to satiate their curiosity and hurt while still preserving their innocence. It's an awful place to be and I pray often that God would give them peace in those broken and confused places that I can't soothe.
I do talk with the kids about our circumstances fairly often.  I have learned from listening to friends of mine that many families who go through divorce do it without talking to one another.  While I'm not offering many details for my children, I am being available to answer questions, to listen, and to let them know that it's ok to hurt and to be angry. I am doing the best I can to make space for their pain and allow it to be in the open now. I'm praying that that effort will prove to be healing for them as the years go by and that it will lay a foundation of trust for them that will allow them to share with me in years to come when they are hurting as older kids or teens and processing through the pain of this divorce.

I am learning so much through this process. About myself, my children, and the utter lack of control I have over other people.  At the end of the day, we all are responsible for our own actions and behavior, and nothing I can do can change his behavior and his actions.  I've never wanted to change someone so badly in my life.... I want to 'fix' him, and 'heal' him and make it all better for my kids sake, his sake, my sake.... and yet I am powerless to do so.  To watch someone you care about make choices that harm themselves and ultimately the people they love is the most awful and powerless feeling in the world, and I am learning the ultimate lesson in letting go.

This life is so drastically different than the one I had mapped out in my head.  I sometimes feel as though I've fallen asleep and woken up in another person's life... surely this can't be my reality!  But it truly is, and as I navigate these new waters of single parenthood, and single adulthood, I am learning to fall in love with myself and also fall in love with God.  I am living in a place of complete faith and also independence at a level I've never been required to before.  I'm learning to trust myself and make hard choices that not everyone understands or likes, but are choices that need to be made for the care of my children and myself.  I'm learning that I am enjoyable, dependable, human, strong, resourceful, and motivated. I'm learning that I can do hard things.  Harder than I ever dreamed.  And I'm learning to live this life as Heather. Not as someones wife, or mother, or friend, or employee.... but as myself. And I'm learning that I really do love that girl.

Thankful for my village

I'm glad you're here.  Reading my words, my thoughts, my struggle and movement inside of this life.  

I do want you to know that I don't always sit in despair. I have told you that I am addicted to hope, and that is a hard addiction to break. 

I am a feeler- I feel deeply, intensely and many times I am harder on myself than I would be on any other person. 

I do struggle as a mother.  Since Samuel was two years old he began with challenges, and the reality is that for the majority of my mothering career, I have felt more like a survivor than an all-hands in, excited, joyful participant.  Some days that gives me pause.  I scan my brain and intentions and wonder if some part of me is fractured.. some 'enjoyment' gene I missed inheriting... and I begin down the road of mommy guilt and sadness.. but many days I am able to recognize that mothering (like any other intimate and ongoing relationship) is one that is filled with struggle and difficulty. Being in close proximity with others, and being the one trying to shape those others naturally brings about challenges... and I am becoming more and more aware that many mothers are behind closed doors struggling with something- loneliness, guilt, inadequacies, infertility, disappointment, disillusion.  This doesn't mean there isn't also laughter, and joy and silliness and cookies! and an intense connection with flesh and blood (or adopted blood!) that brings us to our knees with its sacred beauty.... but being a mother is tough.  And walking through it day after day can leave you feeling ragged and scraped raw. 

I don't always hang out in despair.  I am aware that things are happening behind the scenes in my life that are causing me to be lower on the rungs of resiliency.  Because of that, it is easy to fall into the well of pity and hopelessness.... but somehow that golden ladder out of pain always appears.  

Being a mother is hard.  Being a single mother is impossible... without all of you.  Hopefully, in the shocking things you've read at my hand... you will be spurred to be kinder to other mothers around you. To offer smiles to the mom pushing her cart in walmart with a wailing toddler in the seat.  To really look a woman in the eye as she tries to avoid you as she leans over to pick up her spilled purse contents, or her keys that her baby has thrown for the bazillionth time.  The reality is that none of us will get through motherhood without some injury or scarring.  So love on each other.  Give one another space to screw it all up and to also succeed miraculously- even if her rules and ideals don't necessarily match up with yours.  I've been incredibly gifted with a community who rallies around me when I begin to sink. I had one small text message that caused a friend in CA to call me immediately- just to pray with me and encourage me last night. I had many personal texts after my post, and several private requests to offer help.  I don't even know what to ask for- but the reality of having people who love me at my finger tips is a gift I don't take lightly. 

So, if my post rubbed you raw, and made you squirm for me, or for yourself- take that energy and love the mothers around you.  The mothers who don't have babies in their arms yet because their bodies won't yet give them the children they cry out for, the mothers whose husbands are across the world fighting for our country, the mothers whose husbands have walked out or whose husbands have been kicked out. The mothers of children with special needs, and the mothers whose kids just seem to be brats. We are all doing the best we can, and the most potent antidote to that hopelessness and mommy guilt is the soft word of another woman telling us we are not failing and not alone. Those words hold weight that presses back against the darkness of our pain and reminds us of the intense responsibility we are wading through, and it shows us that there is light here. 

So, thank you for reading.  I do sometimes write funny, witty (ish) and silly things. But, I have to be free to see those things first, and sometimes to get to the light... we have to swim in the dark.  But morning always comes dear ones- it always comes. Don't give up on me now.  

Can Anyone Handle It?

There is a viral blog post going around about God giving us more than we can handle.
It was sent to me personally more than 10 separate times.

This means one of two things:
Either I've done an awesome job of being loud about my own personal feelings on this http://honesty-becomes-her.blogspot.com/2013/04/totally-cant-handle-it-after-reading.html  or God is preparing me for more struggle to come.  To be honest? After a night like tonight? I'm more aware than ever that I cannot handle it.  Not even a little bit.

Tonight was one of those evenings where it was illuminated as to why this parenting gig is meant for two people.  It takes two people to make a child, and I believe that it was intended for it to take two people to raise a child.

Raising four of them alone is way more than I can handle. On a daily basis.

Some days I do a decent job of pretending.  I can do sleight of hand, and some fancy footwork, and throw some cookies here, and a little dance there, and a lot of the time I manage to keep everyone fed, clean and alive.  Sadly that is often the measure of success these days.  Clean and fed.  Beyond that? Icing on the cake.

Nights like tonight have a way of throwing me into a tailspin.  The kids were hyper and irritable, I was tired and feeling low, and it was the perfect storm for hurt feelings and a giant emotional mess.  At one point, I had two boys crying in different rooms, my daughter crying on her bed because I had hurt her feelings when I was angry, and I just wanted to run away.  Out the back door, into the cold, dark night and take off in my car.  I'm not sure where I'd go- I just wanted to be far away from here and the responsibility of being the mother.
Before you call CPS on me, please know that I'm still here. I'm not writing this from borrowed wi-fi at starbucks (although that sounds tempting).  I stayed.  And cried.  And walked away many times.
This isn't meant to be done alone.
I should be able to lean on a husband who would trouble shoot at least one of the meltdowns while I tend to another. I should have the protective casing of marriage that allows me to press in when I'm weak and know that he's got my back.  Instead, I'm alone.  And the weight of the responsibility on my shoulders feels crushing.

I'm aware that we can feel this way even when married.  If your spouse is out of town, or deployed, or sick, or addicted, or disengaged, or even out with friends, or staying late at work- the gravity of parenting alone can feel like a load that is humanly impossible to bear.

I wish I could tell you that I always respond with grace and love.  But I don't.  What you don't learn as a child is that parenting is one giant soup of personal experience, skill, and attitude.  Today was a hard day for me personally... which meant that I went into this evening already depleted in the grace and patience tank.  Their arguing and disobedience grated on my heart and exposed to me all the places I was failing.  Despair was hanging out in the hallway, and sadly I flung open the door and welcomed it up to the table. Before I knew it, I was yelling, snarling, and even disappointed in myself.  My anger and frustration can boil up so hot that I want to punch anyone in sight.  Again- I don't.  But I am going to be the mother who says what many of you feel but refuse to admit- maybe even to yourselves.  There are moments where the frustration and despair and chaos and grief can all mix together into a toxic poison that longs for the relief of a physical act.  Maturity and grace and God's protection keep it at bay, but most mothers I've spoken to in private will admit that they want to occasionally throw their kid out of the window. (Once again- I would never throw my child out the window- I feel that I have to put this here- but I think you get my point)
Mothering has no end.  There are no progress reports from a boss who gives you constructive criticism or a pat on the back.  No end of the year bonuses or gold stars to admire.  In fact, most of the time, the things we do 'wrong' are more obvious than the things we're doing 'right'- because the struggle always draws more attention to itself than the ease.  So I sit.  Watching the dreams I had for my children fall through the cracks.  Things I thought I was guaranteed.  A young son who would never curse at me.  An older son who would say yes ma'am as he took out the trash.  A daughter who would agree to brushing her teeth without falling on the floor in a heap of hot tears.
That's the rub isn't it?  That's the part we can't handle.

The letting go. 

The continual act of surrendering what we thought would be for what truly is.  And instead of clawing back in anger, to allow what is to come forth and learn to respond appropriately to that behavior.

I'm not very good at that.

I know intrinsically that I can't handle this alone. But I'm not good at asking for help.
I am angry that I don't have a husband here to help me, but I am too prideful to ask a friend. People call me strong..... what they don't know is that I'm very, very weak.  I'm just skilled at hiding.

So tonight?  I'm not hiding.  I'm standing here in blog land saying (as many of you already know!) that I totally can't handle this.  I have no idea how to parent four children by myself.  To provide for them; not just financially but in every way we want to provide.  love. spiritual guidance. experience. safety. good memories.  I can see the vast chasm of my failings and yet I am beginning to think that that chasm would shrink if I could jump from what I envisioned to what truly is.
And that is what I will sit with tonight. Maybe tomorrow I can offer softer arms.  A kinder tone. More grace. Not just for these beautiful, challenging, hurting, precious people I am raising....but for the woman who looks back in the mirror.  maybe.

There is no rescue

do you ever get to the place where you think that there is nothing left?  you have nothing else to give?  i feel that way often.
parenting 4 children is hard work.. and several of them have challenging issues beyond just kid stuff.  add to that the grief of their parents being apart, and you have the perfect storm for chaos, pain, frustration and struggle.

i adore my children.. but the reality is that it can be easy for me to look outside of our family into the surface level of other families and begin to think that we are missing out.  it's like looking through a window screen on a sunny day- you can see inside, but you can't make out the details... so i see in others what appears to be fun, functional, normal families, and then i look at my family through the macro lens of our lives and begin to think that we're all doomed, and i'm failing.

i know i'm just getting back into blogging again, and all of this has been heavy, and i promise- i don't always sit here- in fact, i am a perpetual pollyanna which is probably part of the reason i've been able to stay standing over the last year+ instead of rocking back and forth on my bed.

my kids are difficult.  we have patterns and behaviors in place that aren't so great.  we have codependencies and unhealthy leaning on one another that i know isn't the best for us.  but we've been through hell.  we've moved twice in the last year.  we gave away our family dog. the man in our house is gone.  we moved from a 4 bedroom 2000+ sq ft home to an 800 sq ft home with only 2 bedrooms.  then- we moved again. living with friends so gracious to us that they are sharing their home with love and grace.  the kids have changed schools.  we've changed churches.  we don't have much income. we got chickens this summer and the neighbor dog thought them tasty treats.  we've struggled.  we've ached. we've yelled, and cursed, and screamed and cried, and rolled around on the floor. and some nights i thought we might not make it.
grief is tiring.  it takes best intentions and wads them up into a wrinkly ball of trash and drops them on the floor. the desire i had yesterday to implement family chores can be decimated today by the sheer weight of the kids emotional neediness.  i'm tired. lonely.  hurting and frustrated.

it hit me a few weeks back that ... there is no rescue.  there is no sound of the cavalry in the distance racing to save me from the stress and struggle.  there are no winning lottery tickets being dropped at my door, no maid to clean the mess and no supernanny here to help me start the boot camp for better  behavior.  it's me. just me.  i don't mean to say that no one helps- that's not true.  we have people who love us and serve us.. but at the end of the day... i am parenting alone.  and that is an overwhelming reality.

i vacillate between believing that we will not only be ok, but be stronger as i lead us all through murky, rapid waters... and then thinking we will all surely drown in the deep with no chance of survival.  it is a bipolar existence precariously balanced between utter fear and soaring hope... and i am learning to breathe as i row the boat and work to keep it from capsizing.

the last couple of days have been really challenging.  we have highs and lows- like anyone i guess.  it feels more intensified in the ever present blanket of grief and pain, but i have hope that we will come through it.

stay with me. i promise i can be funny and witty.  but i'm also honest.  and this evening... this is where my heart is perching.