The Container Store

I just finished reading Sex God by Rob Bell. It was fabulous. And terrible. He has a way of writing where there is less black and white, more grey, but at the same time, it's more clear, more defined, more confident than most of the writers I have read lately. It's a short book, took me all of four days to read. The last chapter of the book is not so much a finish, has a hanging sentence. I was so suprised it was the end, it took me a moment to realize it.

I guess that makes sense though. He was talking about how life is risky and messy and unpredictable and that the real question is whether or not we believe God is good. Then it ended. What else can you say, really?

I walked by the Container Store the other day and thought: I wish I could buy containers to organize my mind and life. Then I realized, I already had those containers and in reality, maybe that was the problem. The ways I had thought about life, God, myself, people, the way I had defined them, explained them, expected them to be, that was what gets me in trouble now.

I related to God, to people, to myself based on a set of definitions and all I can think now is, I wish I didn't have those boxes.

What would it be like to view God not from a picture painted by men, but by no one but Him? What would it look like? Would it be compassionate, or harsh? Would it be black and white, or full of color? Would He understand the difficulties of the life each of us face, or would he just be frustrated we weren't handling it correctly? The limited can only wonder at the limitless.

How would I paint myself? A mountain in front of me named all of the ways I fail, the doubts I raise, the questions I ask that seem too demanding, too unfair, too selfish, me at the foot of it, a confused and frustrated look on my face, always wondering how to scale the granite edges.

I subject myself to levels of failure and success everyday. Was I a good enough Christian? Was I a pretty enough girl? Did I work hard enough at work, did I say the wrong thing, did I do the wrong thing, and what was it so I can never do it again. An endless maze, working as hard as I can to stand up to the endless do's and dont's that seem to come from left and right field, catching me off guard. A constant state of panic as I try to wind my way up a mountain to who knows where.

Is that what the God that created me would want?

I had an epiphany a few weeks ago. If I believe that God created me and that God is perfect, that He makes no mistakes, what does that say about all of the stupid things I do? How do they fit in with His perfection when I seem to fall so short, struggling to survive a messy world. I took comfort in realizing, if God is perfect, than His creating me only supports His perfection. He can do nothing outside of good, so me living, breathing, just being, somehow that is part of Him and thus I am helping God be more... God. He would be somehow incomplete, less God, without me being me. Like a mother is somehow less a mother without her child. Not that she doesn't have all of the trappings, but that without that part of her within the dynamic, relationship and existence, she is less of what she would have been. God can't be that though, so everything He does is perfect, planned, purposed and part of Him.

How than, does it serve His perfection for me to place myself on the endless cycle of whether or not I measure up? What if that's not what it is about at all?

If I stopped capitalizing refernces to God, am I less faithful to Him? If I decide to go to the gym instead of church, am I deteriorating Him? If I ask the hard questions, break a few rules and struggle through living a life somewhere below 6 inches deep, does that mean I am not as good as others? Do my mistakes determine me, or does my bad attitude, or my wrestling with bitterness, do those somehow make me less, or make my faith tainted? Or, in a beautiful interruption of the predictable, do they make me more of exactly what I am supposed to be: part of His plan, refusing to settle with definitions created by man?

I will admit, I am a sinner. In my fight with the demons in my head that linger from the past, I reach out for the first thing to comfort me, to ease the pain, to relieve the tension in my soul. Sometimes I reach for things that only make it worse, sometimes I find the things that speak to my soul, but choose to look at my relationship with Jesus the way I would look at a marriage. It's a statement of fact, choice, relationship and commitment. He chose me, and I chose Him, and that's about it. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, I don't know how much harder it will get, I don't know how many more stupid things I will do, mistakes I will make, ways I will stumble, things that will push me down, but I know this: I'm not going anywhere. Between Him and I, we are on the same team, partners, two that have committed to each other to be there through the thick and thin. I'm not giving up on him, no matter how confusing, frustrating, angry and unfair he may seem at times. And my hope is that I will learn, I will begin to trust, that He is in the same position with me. I can't offer Him perfection, but I can offer Him the same thing I can offer any other person I love: me.

When all is said and done, it has never been the things someone has said or done that has hurt the most, the thing that hurts the most is when they give up and walk away. Somehow that just highlights every other painful memory adding the final insult of complete rejection. I can forgive just about anything, but when someone severs a relationship, what can I do? That is the worst pain of all.

I can't say I won't lie, cheat, steal or something else bad, but I can say I will never give up. I will always seek reconciliation, understanding, intimacy, communication and effort. I will always fight to the death. When I can offer nothing else, I will at least give you the thing that matters to me the most: committment. I don't give up on those I love, and I will never give up on my faith and relationship with Him.

When every other container has been revealed as what it is, nothing more than an empty attempt to define and predict, the only one that makes sense is the one that means the most: sticking around.

Family Ties

For the record, I was right. I said some would have a hard time with me adjusting my perspective, but even I wasn’t prepared for what I would encounter. In a short sighted prophecy, I was unaware of the truth I was speaking. Heart wrenchingly so.
When the scales began to fall of regarding one aspect of my life, it was like seeing colors I hadn’t ever seen before, tastes I hadn’t ever tasted, feelings I hadn’t ever felt. But unlike the blessing this is when you fall in love, it was an awakening I still wish I had never had to face. The tastes were bitter, the colors ugly, the feelings painful and awkward. It was a second birth into the rude reality of betrayal, evil for no reason, loss with no rhyme, pain with no purpose. It was a life I didn’t want to have to know, it was easier to assume everything would work out, people were basically good and I would be loved no matter what. In a basic word: denial.
I had been raised in a family, a school, a community, and life where denial is the unspoken truth. Narcissism rules, there are those that get to have feelings and those that don’t. There is a distinct line between “have’s” and have not’s” of relational power and manipulation and I have always been a “have not.” Example: I was 13 when my first nephew was born. Now it goes without saying that my nephews are my treasures. I remember waking with them at night and feeding them and changing them and all of the amazing moments of their lives and I am moved to tears when I see them succeeding and growing and developing. I feel very maternal towards them. And why wouldn’t I? I was there for their birth, for their first steps and words, their very moments of personhood. What a treasure it has been, but that treasure did come at a price. The price for me, was an adolescence. It was my place in my family. They came in, and at the tender age of 13, I went out. I have no resentment of this fact, except that it has never been talked about. My family, my sister in particular, if I bring any of this up, will call me selfish, silly, or immature and mean. My loss is met with anger, a sense of betrayal and great shame. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Subconsciously I have always known my place. I am to be seen and not heard. I am a stage-hand in the second act of someone else’s play. Mostly, to be real, any one of my family members or old friends. No wonder I am so damn loud. The only attention I got in my family was when I wasn’t giving them what they wanted or needed. I was selfish for not babysitting more or for having soccer tournaments on the weekend. When I was 13 I had mono. My family didn’t find out for a year. They thought I was faking. I still don’t sleep because I’m so stressed at night remembering waking up in the middle of the night, listening for the boys because my mom was working and my sister was wearing ear-plugs.
So I found narcissistic people to be with. Friends that treated me the same way. I remember a friend I moved in with after I divorced was mad at me because I was depressed. This same friend betrayed a confidence of mine once, and when I found out got mad at me for getting mad at her. Another friend once yelled at me for 25 minutes because I wasn’t a good enough friend to her when she lived in southern California and it was the year after I got married. That same friend would later move into my old apartment, keep most of my things, including my bed, couch, pots pans, knives, TV, coffee table, lamps, linens and towels along with a myriad of other items and only pay me a portion of the $1000.00 we had agreed to. And it was my fault.
All of these things came to a head this last week when I got in a fight with my sister. I was telling her about a break-through I had in my life and heart, and because it had something to do with someone she had once known, she flipped a lid. This was a significant moment for me in my life and she flew off the handle, ostracized me from my family, shamed me and proceeded to find every way she could to humiliate me, get my family involved and destroy me. That was the last fucking straw.
One question: are you kidding me?
No wonder I am struggling so much. I have spent 25 years surrounded by people that could care less about me unless I am somehow fulfilling their need to be center stage. I am nothing more than a prop, much less a person with a heart, feelings, needs, desires, goals, hopes and dreams.
At 26 I am struck by the very sad reality that I have no clue what I want, how to define myself, or who I am because I have never been allowed to. There is a sick little sad realization the deep instinctual anger someone feels when someone hurts them that I have never been allowed to voice, is going to going to explode one day and I’m slightly afraid of what it is going to look like. Although, I now understand my dark fantasies of beating the crap out of people that have betrayed me more. And ironically, I feel a little less guilty about them. They probably deserve it.
No one has ever expected me to do anything more than them, to have anything more than them, to be anything more than them. I was never the pretty one, the smart one, the nice one, I was always just filler space. A funny wise-crack every now and then. Fuck that.
I guess now I understand why there is such a big gap between the person I want to be and the person I am. I may understand these things, but I can do nothing about the scars they have left. All I can do now is figure out what I was supposed to have known all along. Heart breakingly I now realize this will never happen until I start to redefine me based on me and start stopping certain other factors…. Such as the crappy treatment I have received to this point.
It sucks realizing your family is a dangerous place, that the sister you idolized really isn’t that nice, that the father you thought of as your hero cares more about someone else with no relation, than you. It’s hard to realize, I am nothing but a support system to dysfunctional systems and I will be the one to pay when I leave it.
But there is no other choice. If I am to thrive in a way that is more than just survive, I am going to have to keep jumping off cliffs. I may hate what I was born into, but either I learn to move past it, or I will spend the rest of my living days dying under it, never really feeling what is supposed to be mine.
Hopefully, as I learn to capture some of the heartbreak that went on under the surface, giving myself away will become easier, rather than painful. Hopefully, as I disengage of shaming people, the shame I wear will come off, a piece at a time.

Inaudible melodies

I want to say I understand. I want to say I accept. I want to say my faith is stronger; but I can't.

It was such a pretty evening. Cool in the shade, warm in the sun, too temperate to be summer, to early to be fall, it seems suspended between times. As I drove home with the windows down, not caring where my hair was blowing, as long as I could see, I tried to let my mind go blank, to just enjoy the moment. It's never so easy is it? When the rose colored glasses come off, there is moment when something dies and it can't ever come back to life.

Lord, where are you? In these moments, when I want time to stop so I can catch up with my life, so I can gird and be ready for battle again, when I need a moment for the world to stop spinning so I can catch my breath, where are you? I speak you out, but I hear no response besides the beating of my heart, the tick-tick-tick of my keyboard. In the death of all my fairy-tales, it would seem our happily ever after has ended as well.

And maybe it should have. As much as I have wanted others to be, more than anything I have wanted you to be my knight in shining armor. I wanted to be saved by you. Don't get me wrong, I know the theological sense I am saved, but don't hate me if for a moment I get off the Christian merry-go-round and speak to a different sense of saving. I guess the better term would be rescued. I wanted to be rescued by you. I don't even know how, or in what capacity, but I wanted you to come into the blazing battle, sword drawn, swing me onto your trusty steed and take me away to live in complete happiness forever.... whatever that means. I guess I just wanted you to make it better. Somehow, someway.

Like a little kid that feels better just because of the band-aid, I wanted a kiss and a hug and a promise everything would be alright. Instead, I feel as though I was going 90 miles an hour and hit the wall, no warning, followed by intense silence. I need someone to scoop me off the pavement, set something right and help me put the pieces back in place, but it feels more as though slowly, painfully, haltingly, I am scraping myself off the wall. Where are you? I don't want to do this alone. Not anymore. I need you.

I hear you. Sometimes. I think. But I'm so jaded now, so torn, so exhausted, if there is a faint whisper, it disappears again and still I'm left with shadows in the night and dreams that keep me tossing and turning. My anchor has detached and I feel as though I am floating, hoping to hit land by accident. I never learned to read the stars and my compass has proved broken. I wish your word was more than dust, more than ash, more than stories of the more faithful than I.

My life was a fun-house mirror fest and now, I am starting to see what is real and what was distorted before, but in that, I have lost how to define so many things, and to be sure, you. I don't know how to relate to you now. I am not the little girl I was, struggling to understand, I'm not yet a mature woman, weathered by life, but instead, somewhere in between longing to find sure footing. Who are you, who am I and who are you and who am I in relation to each other? You have not shown up in the ways I wanted, I desired, I expected. Nothing has been as I wanted or expected, but I guess that is the ultimate tragedy of life. What now then?

I stand facing you and for the first time in my life, I have no words. I'm fresh out. My desperation is gone, my anger somewhere just above simmering, my wounds bleeding, but no longer gushing and with a touch of defiance, I ask, "What now?" I am obviously not who I thought I was, and neither are you, so where do we start? If I cannot expect a knight in shining armor, what can I expect? How would you wish to redefine... everything?

Maybe this is as you say; biting into solid food after having been nursed on milk for so long. Maybe I got it wrong and the milk isn't just fuzzy feelings, but the real deception is in thinking theology and words of wisdom are solid food. This can't be such since those things have left me high and dry. They are nails on a chalkboard making me shudder with disdain. I have been brought to silence, to foolishness, to humility by my utter and complete inadequacy, my temper tantrums, my addiction to the appearance of love and my draw to the definable. I am ruined by falsehood, humiliated by the immense power of pain. I shudder again, but not at a sound, instead at a memory of my own belief in the power of understanding. I trusted the path of knowledge and it lead me to my own demise.

So now, once again, empty of anything besides distrust and fear, I just ask one thing: Have you left me too? With every false image shattered, where will you stand? My naivete betrayed me, will childish faith now as well? As Job once shouted in indignation, I fairly whisper in fear, "Show yourself to me." And even if it has, even if you are to speak to me as a woman instead of a girl, please, I beg you, just speak. Melt a heart that never wanted to turn to stone, but is doing only what it can to survive. Re-teach me what I long to know.

Open my eyes, my mind, my soul, but mostly, open my heart. I am subject to this mystery of pain and life, hoping not to understand, but instead to accept. I am asking for no material gain, no blessing of quantifiable measure, but I ask for the immeasurable, the impossible, the unattainable, I ask for peace. I ask for hope, real hope, true hope, you hope. I ask for presence. It's lonely here. My pretty dresses and fancy shoes only betray my need to feel adequate when my insecurities are so close to the surface. Most look closely and see right through. Tell me I'm not alone. Tell me you're here. Still the memories, the fears, the betrayal, the truths and lies that collide for one night. Do what nothing else has been able to do, and for a moment, take the weight from my chest, stop the quivering in my hands, quiet the voices and for one night, let me rest. Let me sleep through a night, ease for just a moment what I carry everyday.

But if you don't. If you choose to let the noises rage, the unsettling tumult and the weight crush; if you choose to remain silent, to let the distance remain and the distrust to exist, what can I say? The mystery remains.

It was such a pretty evening. Now it is a pretty night. There are stars in abundance reaching down to the horizon, a cool breeze picking up pieces of stray hair....

The death of idealism

This disillusionment of idealism is probably one of the most difficult things I have ever dealt with.

Somewhere along the way we get fed a line that says, "If you work hard enough, if you bear down long enough, if you just hold on another day, things will get better." We dream of what things will be like "one day" when things are different. The different job, the right husband or wife, enough friends, the great house... the happiness will just appear around the corner. When this changes, when we get through this stage, when this tragedy is over. Almost there, we are almost there. Just another few attempts, just another few years, just another few months, days, years.... It's an endless cycle.

The heartbreak comes when you realize, that's not even close to true. No matter what you do, there will always be some other major catastrophe to survive, some other heartbreak to fight through. The scars we incur don't go away. They just get older, just as we do. We will always be relearning our childhood, healing from wounds suffered during innocent wonder years. We spend a lifetime two natures fighting each other, neither able to completely win.

I built houses on sand and they were washed away by the storm. I'm starting over again for the 150th time, and it's exhausting. I'm fighting uphill battles against bad theology, bad teaching, bad learning and bad wounding, and I'm losing. The idealism is gone: shitty things happen to good people. People lie, cheat and steal and at one time or another, and maybe more than one at a time, we will all be subject to the victimhood of this truth. And I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

If your still waiting for the punch line, the hopeful silver lining, well, join the club, so am I. I am still waiting to hear the hopeful wording, to see the moment of clarity that makes this all worth it. I hate that loving people brought me so much pain, so much suffering, and I don't know how to rise again. I hate that I saw something in front of me, a path, a plan and I loved it, and I was excited, and then it all showed itself for what it was, just a pipe dream. I would never want to go back, I would never want to be apart of something shallow and false, but I'm pissed it turned out that way. I'm angry and frustrated that I should be excited about all that I have: an amazing job, an opportunity to buy a home, a few strong and true friends, a family that while imperfect, loves me, isn't enough. For better or worse, I will be that person that has dreamed of nothing more than loving and being loved and it's the only thing in the world I have no control over.

I can relearn finances, I can climb the corporate ladder, I can learn new things and strike out, those are all great and wonderful things, but they matter little to me. I was deliriously happy when I thought I had what I wanted, and in my mind, I did. Finding out it was all mirages and heat waves, nothing more than convenience and lies, everything shattered with it.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. It's not okay, and it never will be, but I will, because I have to be. No matter how tired, how discouraged, how wounded, how angry I am, I can do nothing but pick up the pieces and move on. I'm right, this shit sucks, but no one pays for it besides me.

My therapist looked at me today and said "You're changing patterns here, going against what you have learned. It's not going to be easy, but your families ways are stopping with you." I know it was supposed to make me happy, but it just made me cry. I'm so tired. I don't care. I would have preferred the illusion if it had just lasted forever. I wouldn't have changed anything if I didn't have to. If it hadn't been my only choice at a last ditch effort at happiness and peace.

Years of heartbreak, of failing without knowing it and here I find myself. It feels as though my dreams have passed me by, my opportunities are gone and I wasted my time on that which served to only wound me farther. It makes me want to scream, and so I do, loud and raging at a wall that can do nothing but stare blankly back at me. It's about as feeling as the people that have so easily turned off the parts of them that promised to love me. This feels like the false reality and yet everyday it sinks in more that it is the truth. Still, still I wake up wondering if it was a bad dream. Everything is going to be back to the way it was, right? No, I'm still bleeding, still screaming.

I stop in hopes that a portion of the anger, the frustration, the powerlessness will be drained away with my vocal chords. It's not, but at least I'm tired enough to not care.

At the end of every session, I look at my therapist and ask her if it will always be like this. If maybe I'm not just some overdramatic women that can't get over a heartbreak. She says no, that this is what happens when you combine a person of passion with a person of faith. They collide and don't know how to just accept ignorance and anything besides everything. The peace they find eventually is deep and real, but hard, hard fought. She says she wouldn't expect anything less from me than to face these things straight on. It doesn't help. Instead I rip off my check, sigh and ask what time next week. I don't care anymore what kind of person I am, I just want to feel again like there is hope on the horizon. I just don't know what that hope is supposed to look like.

I guess that's really what the death of idealism is. It's somewhere in between visions of false grandeur, and settling for anything. It's giving up dreams of being saved by love and recognizing people suck and no one is ever going to make things better. I can't live in the clouds anymore waiting for "someday" to come knocking, but instead I have to accept the reality that life is going to happen and what makes me, what determines me, is my response to it. My faith will always be pushed to its limits, my heart wounded, my hopes and dreams crushed, but I guess the only question is, what will I do in those moments? Will I continue to believe? Will I keep loving? Will I let new dreams rise? Right now, no one all accounts, but I guess I also know, the story isn't over. The fairy-tale sure as hell is, but there may be room yet for a romantic comedy, maybe a drama or even a foreign film. For now, living another day not plotting someone's demise, or curled in the fetal position is a day of progress.

Maybe one day this will all make sense, but I doubt it. Instead I just hope I can find peace and some energy.... and maybe, just maybe a really, really hot husband.

Square

I've said it before, but I never realized how true it is. I've spent most of my life trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

There is a certain amount of fear/anxiety/nostalgia that exists when things have to change. There are a few things I've been holding onto, and now finally, it's time to put them away. Hurt, sadness, mourning, just to mention a few. New things beckon whether I am ready for them or not.

I was driving around yesterday, windows down, pondering the truth of something my therapist had said to me, when it hit me: sometimes where we are isn't where we belong no matter how much we want it to be. I had gone in Tuesday with a heavy heart. Not for the reasons you would think, but mostly because my life isn't what I want it to be. I had gotten great news the week before, but it had done little to really change my perspective. There are things in life I want that I know I deserve, but for some reason don't seem to materialize in my life.

I stopped at a light and watched people roll by. I thought about the places I have been in my life. DC, Concord, So Cal, Paris.... across the country, globe and beyond. I'm 26 and I feel like my life has ended. Why? I loved and lost, I've grown and changed and healed and morphed and learned and on and on it goes. Why is this the end of my line?

There is a big ass world out there. It's full of people and opportunities good and bad. It's beautiful and ugly and hard and wonderful and scary all at the same time. Why do I feel like a failure because I don't fit here? I went to a small school, lived a small life and the happiest I have ever been was living a bigger life in a bigger place with bigger goals and here I am feeling stuck and depressed because every one of my dreams isn't being fulfilled in the tri-city area of Contra Costa county.

I loved friends, lovers, places and things that I have lost. Those are the same people that went to the same school, lived in the same place and have spent their lives here. Their view is as small as mine, the difference is, I have spent my life feeling frustrated, searching for more, restless, wanting more and feeling hurt, rejected and disappointed when those people don't catch my vision, feel the same way, or value anything beyond what they have always known. My therapist was right, I'm going to have a hard time trying to make myself fit here.

Life is like that, if you don't jump into the stream, you sit on the bank watching it, building a city that is small and refuses to see what is a little down the way. We end up letting fear and distrust win, never reaching for more.

I want what I can't have here. I want people that care about society, politics, religion, depth, relationship, community, I want people that understand the value of risk, being broken and rising again, that are answering the call for more than just the average, whatever it looks like for them. That's going to be hard to find in small town USA.

Growing up here was great. We left our doors unlocked every night. I knew everyone at my school, I see people I know everywhere I go, but if I stay here, if I let this be the end of it, the most there is, I will never really know what else I have to give. I'm going to end up doing the one thing I was always afraid of doing: settling. I was already doing it. I was going to settle for a man that cared nothing about what I cared about, that had no compunction for lying, that had no problem abandoning me when I needed him most. No ambition, no desire for honor, for righteousness, for real depth, for relationship that was more than just lust and happiness. But that was all there was. He was a "catch" here. It's a small pool I live in. No wonder it's hard for me.

But to move forward, to leave this behind, I have to do it without a net this time. No one holding my hand, no one loving me along the way. This time it's me and God and no one else. There really is nothing left to turn back to. It's scary. It's frustrating. What I wanted isn't what I am getting.

I wanted to think it would fit. I wanted to be able to just fit into the damn round hole and be done with it. I wanted safety and surety and no risk, but here I am knowing I was born such that it was never going that way. I can't make this world fit for me, or me for it. So now my small dreams have completely died, shattered and in no way can be repaired.

Some people love the idea of take ahold of something different. Me, I'm just pissed. They would be excited about dreaming about a home in San Francisco. Me? I have a mini panic attack just thinking about it, but there is nothing I can do. I'm not going to find what I am searching for here. Maybe I will feel differently someday, but for now I'm grieving realizing for at least a while, this place can't be home. I wanted it to be, but it wasn't ever going to be. I guess that's the thing about life though, to find the place we do belong, sometimes it starts by finding out where we don't.

Finding what I want at least starts with not trying to shove myself into a mold I will never fit. I want what most people can't give me, but at least with a larger population, my chances get better. Hey, maybe I'll even find another square peg to join in the search.

I guess that's the thing about hope though. At first it's all fairy-tales and romance. Dreams of something happening later, but then you grow up and that has to go. The story lines change and hope starts to look different. It isn't about waiting for something to happen, it's about having the trust and faith in God and yourself to move forward, to push against the grain and get better in spite of the terrible. It's not about things always going well, but instead it's knowing we have the power to change, to be okay when bad things that aren't okay happen. Real hope lets life break you because it knows the breaking is good. Hope lets your mind change and perspective shift, looking and waiting for more. It challenges you to not settle and it frustrates the plan. Hope gives breath to move when fear when keep me rooted. It doesn't take the fear, it just helps me not always listen to it. I guess that's at least part of me finding the shape I am... at least part of me is formed to hope.

A Wing and a Prayer

Life is evolution, as they say. It's one step to the next, hoping adaptation will occur. Sometimes I do it better, sometimes I do it worse, I never know. There always seems another way to screw it up, but I guess that's the infinite possibilities to speaking.

I keep wracking my brain trying to understand why this particular break-up got under my skin so much. I've loved and lost before, but it has never been so impossible, so frustrating to move on from. Even knowing what I know now, it doesn't seem to help too much. I guess knowledge never can replace experience.

Small pictures come together now and then, as another part of the wound opens, gasps for air and begs for release. This week it has been a concept that should have been easier to see, but only came together upon more understanding of my own heart.

I don't trust easily. I know most people don't, but for me, it's not for lack of desire, but instead for lack of trustworthy people. I have been trained for a life where any sort of need, desire or emotion is much less important than others, if important at all. When you're a kid, or a teenager, adapting to becoming background noise is easy. Just keep things to yourself, worry about making sure everything is okay for everyone else and when you really need something... scream. But other than that, do what you can to just survive. So I did. It's hard to be joyful, carefree, happy, when everyone around you is drowning. You become a life-preserver. In my inept and young way, I struggled to do my best to save the lives of those closest to me. I fell pretty fair down the scale in importance. It was never much of a problem though.

The older I got and the more chances I got, I fought to change it, at least for myself. I did what I could to grow, to learn, to rise above. Through many ups and downs, I was getting there, but the relationships I had, my family, my friends, they remained the same. My only place in their lives was to keep their systems going. To have my own to feel my own, to believe in my own, that was all based on whether or not it fit into their system.

When I was first divorced I moved in with a friend. She couldn't understand and got really frustrated with me because I was so depressed. My whole world had crashed in, but clearly I was an inconvenience to her. So I kept my chin up and tried not to be too much of a burden. When I was in high school, my sister got pregnant. My normal childhood disappeared before my eyes. No one ever asked me about how I felt about it, I was just expected to babysit. I got two jobs and played sports to be out of the house as much as I could. I just didn't want to be a burden. A fresh newlywed, one of my best friends at the time ripped me a new ass for a good twenty minutes because I hadn't been there for her enough. I didn't even know she was upset with me until then. My parents told me two weeks before I was supposed to go to college that they didn't have the money they thought they would. I knew my place in my friendships and in my family. I was taking up space, a filler. The fun friend with a "great personality."

So when a man came along that seemed to really care, it was a breath of fresh air. He asked me about me, listened to my story and told me how strong I was. He was dedicated and attentive. He came charging up on a white stallion and I bought it. He was so believable, and I had always hoped it would look like this.

Over time, he would tell me I was his prize, his angel, his blessing. Slowly I let my walls down. It was almost involuntary, a sort of reaction to believing someone truly does love you. I let him into my bad days, my good days, my routine days. How would he handle this? How would he handle that? He was everything I could have wanted and more. He wasn't perfect, but he gave me what no one else ever had, true place in his life. I was important, at least that's how it felt. I felt valuable for the first time, not just a backdrop. I wasn't under someone's shadow with him, or vying for attention. For once, someone came along and saw me as special in and of myself.

It opened my heart in ways I had hoped love would do. Everyone says someone shouldn't be your everything, and he wasn't, but I was a love starved woman, and after enough time, I became drunk on having someone consistently love me with no strings attached. I opened up, I blossomed, I felt unbroken for the first time in my life. It was more than I had hoped for. I had searched for the heart of God for so long, I thought the way this man was loving me was part of God loving me. It awakened excitement and hope and colors I had never seen. I felt things I had never known you could feel toward someone. I hadn't ever known what it was to trust someone until him. To me, it was the most beautiful thing in the world. I felt incredibly blessed. Maybe this was the consistency my chaotic life had been waiting for. Over two years this all came together for me and in the last moment, when I jumped off the cliff of forever, not more than a week later we went ring shopping and not more than another month later, he left me.

People who have a hard time trusting don't let their guard down very easily. We are afraid you will come back and say "There's something wrong with you." We are afraid everyone else will see us as flawed as we do and it will scare them off, but still, there is hopeful moment before the answer to the question is given, when we hold our breath, wondering if we need to brace ourselves. Do we put up the defenses? Or do we drop them and risk. I dropped mine with him and offered him the only thing I had: me. He turned and walked away.... with disgust on his face.

The only person I have ever really trusted and he rejected me at the core of who I was. I wasn't good enough. I was too difficult. The greatest fear met and exceeded. The whole time I was bit by bit revealing myself to him, he was more and more turning away while never letting it show, but instead playing at a future with me.

I've spent a lifetime perfecting my defenses, thick enough to not hurt, not so heavy to carry, and never ever able to be seen. They fell with him. The girl that had always lived in the background, used to disappointment had hoped, had trusted, only to find out it was all a lie.

Sort of leaves me with the feeling that I was reaching to high. Back to square one. Defenses up. Flower returned to the state of hibernation. More lost than before, my one and only quest now is for peace. Nothing grandiose, just simple life, hoping to recover from having my hopes brought out from under. It's like a hurricane has torn through and the places that were strong before are now weak and the places that were weak before, are destroyed. The hopes and dreams I had before the hurricane have been whipped along with everything else.

I know it's not his fault. I won't blame him for the others that have let me down, but his part is devastating enough.

For now it's just getting back to normal, whatever that is. It's trying to let light through when I can, it's crying when I have to, laughing when it's really funny and getting to work in a good mood. It's dinners with friends, it's beach days, shopping days and margaritas. It's books and therapy and glasses of wine on a warm night. And it's learning how to love myself the way I should be loved in the absence of those that choose not to love. It's a wing and a prayer.

Miss Me

Here’s the one question that has not been asked until right now: What kind of man that claims to be so “good” spends two years telling – no convincing – a woman that he loves her and wants to marry her, when that was never really the intention and then to top it off, never apologizes, but instead just shrugs and says, “Sorry, my bad.” Um, fuck yeah “oops.”

My heart was worth more than that. I was falling deeply, madly, truly in love, investing more and more every day, trusting him to be what he said he was. I believed him and I acted on that belief, within my heart, my spirit and my decisions, all the while, he had no intention of ever being what he was claiming. The worst part is, when he decided it had come to its convenient end, instead of taking responsibility, he turned around and blamed me. My heart broke and couldn’t even accept the reality that he really wasn’t what he said he was. I didn’t want to have to grieve not only the loss, but the loss of my trust, my vulnerability, my dreams that turned out to be ash. It was a big fucking deal for me. It still is.

Who you marry is supposed to be the biggest decision you ever make, and who would know that better than me? It was serious, it was a big deal and to him, it was just something to turn and easily walk away from, no second thought for what he was doing. He wasn’t upset he was hurting me, he was upset he got caught in the net of his own making. Never though did he ever comprehend what he had done to another human being. For all of my faults, I was still a woman, vulnerable and trusting, having cautiously opened herself to someone only desiring their love and honesty in return. For everything I did wrong, I still loved with every bit, trusting and believing the best. I was shocked, confused and completely open to his cutting and destructive words when he chose to turn on me. He had the power and he knew it, and he used it and it’s not okay.

It will never be okay. Not because I won’t be okay, but because treating someone like they are your personal pedestal is never okay. It’s not okay to trifle with a woman’s heart, her future, her hopes, her dreams, and her trust. There is no part of me that thinks God is okay with that. In fact, I know He’s not. Every moment when my heart was laid so bare, so open, completely ravished with a love that was half imagined. How foolish do I feel now? I remember quiet moments, feeling nothing but love as he held me peacefully, imagining a future, dreaming of what our children would look like. I felt beautiful and special and so hopeful.

Yeah, people get together and break-up every day. I know how common it is, but when did it become okay? Those were the deep places in me that he worked so hard to get to. Through defenses, as I let him in I trusted him with more and more of me. My bad days, my hurts, my fears, my insecurities and as he kept the story line going, I believed him more and more. Why wouldn’t I? I was learning to trust that to someone else, for once, my heart and mind mattered. I had never been very important to anyone, never a first priority, or something to treasure and for once, I felt someone saw me that way. Something missing in me, something always slightly hurting started to unravel. The tension of holding it all together on my own loosened just slightly. And I felt every second, every moment, every breath, every kiss and touch. For the first time, I felt it from the top of my head, to the souls of my feet, straight through to my soul.

It never dawned on me that it could be anything less than the same for him. I know the ability for me to love that much, to trust and feel so deeply is something that is in me, apart from anyone. And I know no one can control that or determine it, and I’m grateful for that, but that doesn’t mean someone can’t rip it apart, make a mockery of it, and shame it.

And maybe that’s the worst part. When the moment of truth came, it wasn’t just that he couldn’t do it, it was that I wasn’t good enough. He wanted more, I was too difficult, whatever it was, the message was clear, what I had let him into, the places I had loved him, what I had opened to him, was unacceptable. My flaws, those very parts that I risked showing, he determined were not only worthless, but disgusting. Eventually, the way he felt was received by his friends, family and eventually, me. In any women’s greatest moment of risk and hope, giving her heart for a lifetime, he turned around and shamed me and who I was. It’s the difference between cutting yourself when you are wet verses dry. It may be the same wound, but your skin splits and bleeds so much easier when ripened by water. Who knew his fingers were crossed behind his back?

His heart may not have been able to feel what I felt, in complete vulnerability, but I couldn’t have known. All I could know what was he presented me, and his façade was so flawless, so complete, so impenetrable. Those moments of complete abandon are beginning to fade like heat waves on the street, slowly dissipating with time and the cover of night, but their effect, they linger. It was all an illusion to him, but to me, it was so real, the sort of thing you bet your life on. There is no way to staunch the flow of betrayal and humiliation when that happens. Everything I gave became a literal joke between him and his friends as they congratulated him on getting away from me. Why? I’m still not really sure, but it hurts all the same.

See I don’t miss him, though. I miss me. As I sit here, angry, hurting, feeling the weight of someone else’s actions, wondering what his end game really could have been, I miss me. I miss the woman that trusted, that believed, that wasn’t at all suspicious, that hoped for a storybook ending. I miss feeling soft, vulnerable, beautiful and special. I know the goal is to learn how to be this without someone, but we all know that is a lifetime chore.

People’s hearts are not meant to be screwed with. It’s all over scripture, spelled out in the heart of God. Promises aren’t meant to be broken, respect, honor and kindness, compassion, empathy and responsibility to others, these are the cornerstone to relationships, and not ironically, they are the cornerstone of the heart of Jesus. Every person’s worth, value, feelings, dreams, hopes, concerns, they were honored and appreciated by Him. The very things that hold us together, the very ties that bind us, that make us human, that make us His image, those are the very things He died to preserve. He Himself bore our grief, and though we can’t do it the same way He does, it’s His death and resurrection that allows the beautiful exchange of true and deep love. To walk on the gift of someone else’s heart, to treat it as common place and give it no caution, it is to trample on Him and the very thing He died to preserve. I know He grieves with me, is as wounded as I. My heart was His creation as well as others, why would I deserve any less treatment than honesty and goodness? I wouldn’t. I may not be perfect, but I am still my Father’s daughter.

I know one day I will forgive him for the wounds he caused. One day I will release him from the cost I am still paying, but for now it seems appropriate to say what my heart longs to: it wasn’t okay. It won’t ever be okay. I will, but it won’t and that is the truth.