Solid Ground

So...my last 2 posts have more than alluded to me having a hard time right now.  In fact, they were pretty clear on that point.  But that's not an entirely accurate picture of where I am, because generally, I feel inspired to write when things are particularly difficult and not in the better moments.  Most of my time is spent in better moments.  Better mothering, better health, better happiness.

When someone dies or when something bad happens and it does not absolutely bring us to our knees, we feel an obligation to grief, or at least to the appearance thereof.  "Shouldn't I be more upset?", or something along those lines.  But I trust that what we feel is generally what we ought to feel in that moment, and that when we feel what we ought not to feel, rage, for example, it's an opportunity for us to work through that feeling, and arrive at the other side having learned something from the experience.  In fact, all of it is about learning.  Every experience we have in mortality is an opportunity for us to learn - to refine our skills and talents, to grow in self-discipline, faith, love, and in understanding.  I am learning about faith right now.  Faith that my kids will be okay.  Faith that I am not doomed to failure and misery.  Faith that in this space, when I am alone, I can grow to be more than I have been before, rather shrinking and withering under the weight of aloneness.  I am not lonely.  The depth of my gut does not cry out in anguish or fear and I am not compelled by need as I have been in the past.  This is a revelation in my life.  I have spent my life wandering from need to need, and always needing more.  Contentment and happiness have not been included in my emotional vocabulary.  Yet here, right now, living in a tiny little house that doesn't have carpet, with an absolute minimum of furniture, without someone to hold me at night, with my 3 small children who demand so much care, worry about bills looming, my credibility and competence threatened, I feel genuinely happy and at peace.  I am standing on solid ground, and I am not afraid.

Breathing

I wake up in the morning, or in the middle of the night, and it feels as though I am holding my breath.  The tightness in my chest, the weight of anxiety, the waiting for the other shoe to drop - it holds me captive.  Until I hear "Mommy...!"  And I ask "what do you need?" and I receive my marching orders for this moment, this space.  The activity, the need keeps that weight and breathlessness at bay.  And when I find myself laughing, laughing because I just dumped milk on the baby's head while holding the phone up to my ear with my shoulder, a can of formula in one hand, a bottle and lid, both, in the other hand, and the baby looks up with his beautiful blue eyes like "what?  I already had a bath today, and it was warm!", and my six year old is standing there, looking at me like I'm nuts  - then I breathe from the depth of my gut because there is no room for anxiety in laughter.
But now, sitting at my computer, the kids gone for the day so I can work, I read an email from him and I want to run.  Run to a place where the world makes sense, where I am not forced to choose between 1) arguing over semantics because the lies are so clever they can't be clearly exposed or 2) swallowing my defense and hoping that eventually "by their fruits ye shall know them" will vindicate me.  Not because I want revenge or for him to suffer, but because I want to carry only the guilt that is truly mine.  
He wants to take my kids away from me, and it appears that he intends to do that by shrouding me with the label of mental illness.  He's telling our friends that I have Borderline Personality Disorder.  He told my son that the devil is making me do this, and not to tell me he said that because it would make me more angry with daddy.  My son can't decide if I'm a bad guy or not.  He's six.  I am thoroughly enjoying trying to parent a kid who thinks I am evil, and because it was his daddy who told him that, also thinks I no longer have authority over him.  Really.  Because this isn't hard enough on my kids already.
So I take a deep breath.  And I look forward to a time and a place where the custody is settled, our life has a routine, and I don't have moments of wishing I could just go home.

I can live with that

My one reader left me a comment 5 days ago saying something along the lines of "Hey, you haven't posted since October, why am I a reader of your blog again?". 

Truth is, I have plenty to write about, but I'm short on guts.  I have moved out.  I am divorcing my husband, and likely facing the battle of my life over custody of my two youngest children.  And this blog isn't anonymous enough for me to feel safe describing the day-to-day, or even the overall picture of what these circumstances are doing to me.

A few things I'm learning - 1) righteous people throughout the ages have been persecuted not in spite of their righteousness, but because of it; 2) having my credibility with my kids challenged is far worse than being judged in the court of public opinion; 3) now is not the time for me to say, "I can do it all".

Still, much of the time, I feel a sustaining and powerful peace.  I have hope for my future, I am sleeping more, eating better, and I have more patience and more fun with my kids.  Things are hard, but better.  I can live with that.

Help, help, need help!

Help, help, need help!  I said as I slapped my hand, in uneven rhythm, on the armrest.  The gravelly sound issuing from my throat reminds me of a downshifting Mack truck.  My husband is driving fast, but cautiously.  He tells me that he may seem calm, but he is pretty freaked out because that was the sound I was making right before our first child was born.  We are on our way to the birth center, and my son will be born 45 minutes later.  

This morning as I prayed those words ran through my head - "help, help, need help!".   I wasn't asking for the pain to go away, because pain is fundamental to the birth process, it is not an unfortunate side effect.  And pain in life is the same.  I do not ask for help that the pain might be erased, but there are a few keys to birthing without medication, and without walking away believing it to be a horrific experience - we need help to cope with the pain.  My childbirth class taught that the keys are rhythm, ritual, and relaxation.  Perhaps the most troubling times in life are when events disrupt our daily rhythm, throw off our rituals, and when stress prevents relaxation.  I could not settle into rhythm and ritual, I could not relax in that stressful ride to the birth center when the contractions were coming hard and fast, and labor had seemed to arrive out of nowhere.  I needed someone to settle me down, to guide me to my center where I could devise my own comfort.  Today I feel trapped in my life, hemmed in by circumstances, some in my hands, but many that seem to be out of my control.  And I want help, need help, need a guiding principle like listening to my breath, or focusing on an object, or slapping my hand in time with my vocalizing to get me through this disrupted, painful day.  Labor progression is stopped when mom gets too cerebral, too tapped into thinking and worry, too distracted to allow the primitive part of her brain to let the natural processes of birth take over.  Life progression gets stopped when too many factors crowd my mind and I cannot see a clear path ahead of me.  When I cannot take the action that makes the most sense, that fixes the problem, because there are other worries, other factors to address, other agencies to respect.  Today I cry, help, help, need help.  Not to take away the pain, but to settle me down, to guide me to my center where I can devise my own solution.  

Writing my blessings on the wall

I went to Seattle yesterday, the Left Coast, and I was away from my bucolic little town and my happy little family for 20 hours.  It was too long.  When we moved here, I immediately loved our new town, new ward, new friends, new house, new and different life.  But it took awhile for the slower pace, the peace and calm and family world to sink in and change me.  I am now fully converted to my small town life and it was a jarring, shocking, painful reality to be back in the world I once thought I was made for and would miss.  I was all business there.  I was on the ladder and I was climbing.  We left in part because my wise husband knew that the politics, the work-focused life, the frenetic pace, the competition - it was toxic, particularly to me, because I thrived so well in it.  I could not see how disconnected I was from being a mother and a wife.  I thought I was one of those women who is "not cut out" to be a SAHM.  Now, I work from home and that is a blessing that I cannot be grateful enough to have, but I wish I could have it all.  And having it all means something very different to me now.  I wish with all my heart that I did not have to turn on the computer every morning and tap back into that other world where my value is measured in IQ points.  I wish with all my heart that my kids reaped the benefits of all the talent and capacity that make me so valued in the working world.  I wish that I gave the best and the most of my energy to the job that is mine by divine design.

Looking back over the day, I can see that I did not fail either world; I kept my standards, and I did a good job.  Yet this morning I feel injured and afraid.  I want to just sit with my children and hold them.  I want to spend an hour with my husband holding me, reminding me that I am still the person I have become, and that my brush with that other world has not turned me back into the person I was.

I am grateful now more than ever that I am able to strike something of a balance.  This life is not exactly as I want it to be, but I know that the Lord is not unaware in the least degree of our circumstances.  Perhaps if I was not divided between both worlds I would not appreciate how truly blessed I am that most of my life is spent in the life I want.  Opposition in all things, right?  I once visited a dear and sweet 90-something woman in the hospital.  She said that between visitors, she would lie in her bed, and with her finger in the air, write her blessings on the blank wall in front of her.  For the rest of my life, I believe that the best phrasing I can devise for the feeling I have right now is, "sitting in the hospital, writing my blessings on the wall".

God bless you, every one.

Sisters

I wasn't prepared for the show the audience puts on.  I had forgotten that people use public events as an opportunity to put on their finery and to watch and be watched.  To judge and be judged.  The girls wore skinny jeans or daisy dukes and a tank top, or a dress.  They wore high heels or flip-flops or cute little slippers.  I looked at their faces as they paraded by, confidently and strutting, or meekly and mincing, and I saw that every one had a beautiful face.  Some more beautiful than others, but all possessed of some delicacy, some turn of feature, that made them a pleasure to look at.  And I wondered, as I often do, how it is that they have overlooked their beautiful faces, and think it necessary to uncover their bodies.  One girl walked by and I stared at her clean and pretty face, ignoring her immodesty, and as she passed, she gave me the up and down that said I was beneath her and no competition.  I had forgotten to compete.  I had forgotten that girls measure each other constantly, gauging their beauty against each other, gauging their value by how skinny they are, or how perfect their smile.  I had forgotten that it is an effort to join together as sisters and to put aside our rivalries, even when the contest is won, and we wear a man at our side.

I want more than this.  I know that we are better than this.  I have seen women engaged in powerful, if small, acts of service and I know that there is a way of being women together that is beyond the catty and spiteful and into the divine.  Let us be sisters together, and no more rivals and enemies.  Let us encourage each other, and lift each other up.  Let us not judge each other, by whatever standard.  I am reminded of the hymn "in the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see, who am I to judge another, Lord, I would follow thee".  We can be powerful in doing good together, let us not be weak in tearing each other down. 

Humbled

I have been in the whirlwind.  The devil has sent forth his mighty winds, yea his shafts in the whirlwind, his hail and mighty storm and I have remembered my foundation, the rock upon which I have built, which is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  A foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.  I kept running into the wall in my mind - I knew that my testimony was not in danger, my testimony is solidly built upon the Savior and I do not waver in it.  Yet, I could not resolve in my mind that I should feel so rudderless, so unfounded, so desperate, and not waver in my testimony.  How could I feel this way if I have such confidence in the power of the Atonement to heal, to strengthen, to make clean?  And this morning I have my answer - I have lacked faith.  I have neglected to repent for my pettiness, my pride, my lack of compassion.  And these sins and weaknesses have stood in my way, they have blocked the comfort of the Spirit and the blessings of the Lord through humble prayer, obedience, even the comfort of offering service has been withheld.  I am reminded of my humility before the Lord God.  Reminded that I am small and weak of myself, easily beset by temptation, and powerless in the face of it - except for the power of a loving Heavenly Father, through the Atonement of His Son, to bless His children.  To bless me to be more than I am.  To bless me to be patient, long-suffering, meek, loving, gentle, faithful...to bless me to be more like the Savior.  As I acknowledge my weakness before Him, I am made strong.  As I exercise my faith to repent, to rely on His loving mercy, my faith is strengthened.  One eternal round.  I rejoice in the glory of the Lord my God, and His magnificent power to make me better and more than I am of myself.  Truly, I offer these thoughts in worship and praise to my God.  These small and inadequate thoughts, these small and inadequate words, my small testimony, I offer to Him these small things, and know that He accepts them from my honest, if imperfect heart.  What measure can there be that will show His greatness above me?  I don't have words to explain what I have seen this morning, except to say that I am deeply humbled before my God, and I can only be grateful to Him to see myself so clearly, to understand how profoundly I need Him.