The Fish

I don’t know if you found me in the open sea or in a pet shop aquarium, but at some point you decided you wanted me for your own. So you put me in a water-filled zip lock bag and off we went. But we’ve been walking so long now and you’re just standing still not sure where to put me. I show signs of panic – I’m quickly using up all the oxygen in this little ziplock bag. I’m so scared that I’m going to finally run out of air before you figure out what to do with me and I’ll die. I’m also hungry – there’s no fish food in this little bag. The water is getting cloudy and I’ve got so little room to move. You pull me close to your chest and I feel your warmth, but unless you bring me to your aquarium soon or set me free either back into the ocean or in some other aquarium I’m still going to die.

I wish…

I wish I could just enjoy the way God is blessing me right now and not think or care about everything else. He just blessed me again this week.  I moved to this city a little over a month ago.  An older friend of mine has a second apartment here for business purposes, but actually doesn’t use it much anymore.  She is almost 89.  She has allowed me to stay here until I find my own place for deeply discounted rent.  I have now found my own apartment and will be moving into it the first week of July.  Now my friend has offered to give her furniture to me.  This is amazing!

However…This is the second weekend in a row that I’ve been fighting tears.  I wish I could stop caring about whether others in my life love me in the way I want to be loved.  My mom did a couple of things that were pretty insulting this week in my view.  She kept nagging me via text message to do things that frankly I’m insulted she thought she had to nag me to do.  One – to call my grandmother on her birthday.  Two: to call my dad before he flew overseas on a missions trip. Incidently, it was physically written on my to do list to call my grandmother this week and I spent 45 minutes on the phone with my dad before she sent me the text.  The third thing she wanted me to do was text my uncle “happy birthday.”  I did it, but just know that me and my uncle aren’t close.  He’s an alcoholic who, on two occasions grabbed my butt when he was drunk at a family gathering.  How disgusting is that?  Also – he didn’t respond to my text.  Did I mention that we’re not that close?  To text me regarding these things was basically saying that she thinks I’m so self involved that I needed her help to be kind to my dad and grandmother.  When we do talk, she’s not even interested in my life here – all she does is ramble on about her side of the family.  I wish that she was happy with the person I am.  I wish I could figure out a way to make her happy with me and still be me.  I wish I could stop spending mental and emotional energy ripping myself up trying to figure it out and just accept things as they are, trust that God can work things out if I pray and move on.  I’m feeling so frustrated and hurt from mothers day still that I don’t trust myself to talk to her.

I also wish I knew how to deal with a certain friend.  This friend of mine from grad school lives in this same city.  She’s having a hard time financially, which I TOTALLY relate to.   However, one night a few weeks ago she invited me over for dinner.  It was a really nice dinner.  Then on the way out at 10:30 or 11:00 at night she said that she immediately needed, what for me was a lot of money to go to visit family in a city a couple of hours away the next day.  She hadn’t seen her family in a number of years so I totally sympathized with that aspect.  It’s just that I felt manipulated by the nice meal and felt cornered by the short notice ask.  This was also coming from my first paycheck in my new job.  I had already tithed on it.  I just felt used I guess.  And also – as it turns out- she is so critical of people not on the same theological page as she is- even as she accuses many people of being racists.  She is hyper critical and suspicious of most churches in our area.  She insisted that I visit her church -which I did and couldn’t even make it through the entire service.  I have found a congregation that I’m 99% sure is where God wants me, but this church is on her “hit” list so I don’t even want to tell her I’m going there.  Honestly, I don’t want to spend time with her and am avoiding her, but I can’t do that forever.  I wish I knew how to “break up” with this friend.  She is sucking the life out of me and now my trust in her motives and spiritual discernment is almost nill.  I wish I didn’t feel guilty about feeling this way – she’s in a difficult spot right now, but I don’t know how to help her and she isn’t open to anything except her own very narrow ideas.  I wish I knew how to deal with controlling, manipulative people better.

I wish I didn’t have employment PTSD.  I know – its a bit overly dramatic.  I’m in a new job – my dream job, actually, but after seven months of un and underemployment I’m terrified of losing it!  If I miss a phone call from a co-worker or my boss, I break out in a cold sweat and my heart starts pounding! My previous job was in a field that I was absolutely passionate about, but I was treated very badly by the organization.  My boss touched me in ways a boss shouldn’t touch a female employee, was a very angry and critical man, and was fooling around with another coworker’s young wife.  I finally got up the nerve to report all of this to senior management and he was merely slapped on the wrist and I was moved out of my job into a different position – and not a good one.  Then another coworker – a very large Sri Lankan man- lost his temper during a special event and tried to strangle me.  He physically put his big hands around my neck and cut off my air supply.  Two men and one woman had to pull him off of me.  His punishment:  he had to say “I’m sorry.”  Prior to this experience, I was very confident in all of my previous jobs, but after being treated as the problem child at this last organization I’ve somehow lost my confidence.  I may just have to ride this out for a while.  If I can just get through this first year,  I’ll find my place in this organization and feel more secure. I just wish that my emotions would catch up with my mind and spirit that knows that I’m in the place God himself has placed me.

I wish I didn’t care so much what happens with Jay.  Right after the last incident, he flew across country for a week on business.  We texted back and forth a lot – everyday.  I had no idea when his flight back landed, yet somehow I instinctively did know.  I spontaneously sent him a text Thursday night asking him if he was back.  His immediate response?  “I JUST landed.” Given our constant chatter back and forth all week, the normal thing in a normal relationship would be for him to stop by, but he couldn’t.  And I haven’t seen him yet.  I probably won’t see him tomorrow.  He lives a block away.  We’re both out of town next week.  I’ll be in meetings in one city – he will be at a conference in another.  I understand why he can’t spend time with me Friday night and Saturday, but I don’t understand why he can’t find time to be with me on Sunday.  Yet, he insists almost to the point of tears that he wants to see me. Like with my mom, I wish I could just pray and trust that God will work this all through in the right way.  Given the facts, I should just break it off – but 1) I just can’t bring myself to do it 2) I feel like he is supposed to be in my life somehow.  Even before we were involved – years ago-when I would pray for or about him, I saw certain things that in all of these years haven’t gone away.  Either I am very, very deceived or I just can’t see the whole picture, because like the rest of mankind – I’m not omniscient.

 

Spiderwebs, rotted roots and tangled vines…

I woke up with Gwen Stefani’s song “Spiderwebs” in my mind this morning.  This is really unusual – especially since I haven’t heard that song in forever.  As I was sitting and drinking my coffee, I remembered what a friend of mine told me once after praying with me about something.  She said that when it comes to my issues with men there are many, many roots that need uprooting.  I can kind of picture myself walking around with all of these roots attached to my back keeping me from moving forward.  I’ve also seen myself in my mind’s eye in a dark forest tripping over these big tangled vines – it’s all kind of Alice and Wonderlandish (Tim Burton’s that is).

Recent events are forcing me to acknowledge that I’ve assumed some things about men that aren’t true. These are things that I take as givens without really realizing it in all of my dealings with men.  Last week, a couple of friends of mine were in town.  I had never heard te story of how they got together, but it blew me away.  This man so genuinely loved this woman.  He truly sought the Lord to understand how to help her through a lot of very difficult issues from her past.  His love with God’s direction healed her heart and changed her life.  I’m not sure I believed that a man could or wanted to really love a woman – not like that.  I always thought that a man would run screaming from a woman if he found out she had issues or was hurting in some way.

Then as if to underline this new revelation something else happened.  I’ve had an issue with the man in my own life.  This relationship is well – as we say on Facebook “its complicated.”  I don’t want to go into the details of the complication – we’ll get to that eventually I’m sure.  It just isn’t relevant to this post.  Anyway, I was upset with him and was feeling really hurt. It is terrifying and nearly impossible for me to share negative feelings much less cry in front of a man.  In the home I was raised in, we weren’t allowed to cry or share negative emotions – “Dry up and get happy right now or I’ll give you something to cry about.” The men in my life after that were fine as long as I didn’t get too deep, too upset, and played it casual. Over the years, I’ve come to believe that if I share my hurt with a man, he’ll ditch me.  I’ve been absolutely terrified this last week because my emotions have been so strong that I didn’t think I could keep them bottled up if I saw or spoke to Jay.  I tried to delay returning calls until I could “get a grip.”  He was persistent, though.  I finally responded to a text with a bit of an outburst.  We spoke and I was a blubbering idiot.  He didn’t run.  He was honest that he was struggling too, but he didn’t run.  He affirmed that he does care and he enjoys being with me.  I’ve also always been hesitant to initiate communication, because I didn’t want to “bother” him.  It’s not just him – I always feel like if I contact a guy too much I’m bothering him.  Jay said that he wished I would text and call more often.

I also realized something else – I’m completely inept when it comes to expressing my feelings well – at  least, the negative ones.  My tongue was all tied up.  I felt like a 3-year-old trying to find and use her words.  Thankfully, Jay is a patient man who is not so bad at expressing his own feelings.  I think my tangled brain needs to be rewired when it comes to what I believe about men.

Confession: OCD

About a year ago it came to my attention that I have some form of OCD.  I count things – all the time.  Everyday has a number – tomorrow is 4.  The next day will be 5 and the next 6.  All the way until 12 and then I will start all over again.  What does this mean?  It means that the number 4 tomorrow morning will determine how I get dressed and get ready for work.  I will take 4 steps in getting ready – put on my bra, my skirt, my shirt and wash my face.  Then I will go to the living room and pick up or clean 4 things.  I will go back and forth until I am completely dressed for work.  Today is Sunday so I prioritized my work  for the week – both personal and professional.  Planning is a good thing and so is prioritizing.  Today is “3” so this was taken into account in my planning.  This means that as I put together my to do list today (a 3 day), I plan to spend 3 hours on each of my listed projects this week.  If today were a “12” day, to goal would be to spend 12 hours this week on each project.  Of course, “12” lists, are rarely completed.  I’m not married to it – it’s just a guideline.  As nuts as that sounds, I’m not nearly as bad as I used to be.  For example, while I do have wardrobe “rules” now, when I was a kid I made a list of every single bottom (pants, shorts or skirt) and every single top.  I had a very detailed list of each bottom and each top and how they all coordinated. I couldn’t wear the same outfit twice until I had completed every possible combination.  I have no idea why I did this, but I did.  Eventually, I put together a much simpler system, but I still have a system.I’m not sure how my bizarro rules came into being.  I know it is my attempt to simplify my decision-making process somehow and bring order to life.  If I went against my system what would happen?  I would possibly become immersed in a particular project that I enjoyed and ignore other things that needed to be done.  I might wear the same thing over and over and miss out on a cute combination I hadn’t thought of before.  I don’t know.

These aren’t the only two systems I have – I have them for almost everything: grocery shopping, movie watching, everything…I apply somewhat arbitrary rules to many, many aspects of life.  It had never occurred to me that this might be OCD type behavior until last summer. During my quiet time one weekend, God gently mentioned it.  Not sure what to do about it or if I need to do anything.  It doesn’t interfere with life – it’s just weird.  But God did show this to me last summer for a reason.

Confessions:

Mothers’ Day Cake crop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently remembered something I did as a child – and the reasons behind it.  This was when I was as young as 5 or 6 years old.  I would wake up and be terrified.  I had nightmares of snakes (cobras) over and under my bed.  I also saw skulls staring at me from outside my bedroom window. I was terrified – cold sweats, the works.  I wanted to be comforted and there would be a doll or two that I  wanted to bring from my closet to sleep with me.  It took a while, but I would finally get the courage to run quickly to the closet and turn on the light.  I saw the dolls I wanted, but I had A LOT of dolls.  I was so afraid that if I only took the one or two I really wanted, the others would feel rejected and their “feelings” would be hurt.  To avoid hurting the feelings of my other dolls, I would take every single one – there were probably  20 or more-to my bed.  My mom would come in the next morning to see my bed covered with dolls. But at least no one got their feelings hurt.

Rejection is something I’m really sensative too.  I thought it was something I developed a little later in life, but this memory revealed that it has been with me for some time.  I’ve been through this a million times with ministers and prayer partners.  The story is that one of the reasons my dad thought my mom was the perfect woman for him was that she thought she couldn’t have children.  Two years into the marriage she got pregnant with me.  Surprise!  Even worse, I was a girl.  He wouldn’t come near her throughout her pregnancy and she spent a lot of time on the back patio in tears.  One month before I was born my mom’s dad died.  The doctors were afraid she would go into labor early, but she didn’t.  I was actually late  and the labor was awful – it took more than 24 hours.  When I was born, my left eye was screwed up likely by misuse of forceps.  I had to have 3 surgeries before I was 2 years old.  The disappointment continued throughout the years.  I wasn’t athletic (like most in my family and community) because of the lack of hand/eye coordination, but I was artistic and a bit of a geek.  I remember mom always saying how clumsy I was.  When my love of theatre and broadway surfaced at around age 11 or so, my mom actually broke down in tears because she felt we would never have anything in common.  Fast forward to Mothers Day 2013:  she finally admitted what I have known for so long.  This mother who LOVES kids, has taught Sunday School her entire adult life, and loves to babysit my cousins’ kids.; This mother who thought she was barren and prayed for a child, which God gave her (2 in fact – I have a younger brother)- regrets having given birth to me.  This was not said in anger or in the midst of an argument – just as a matter of course as if it was something we all knew.  My dad was there and didn’t say a word.  I myself wasn’t exactly shocked – I’ve known this for a while.  It’s just out in the open now.  My mom desparately wanted a daughter – just not me.

There’s a Snake under the Magnolia Tree

Not sure why I titled this first entry in this way.  It’s based on something that happened at my parents’ house that struck me as poetic.  They planted a magnolia tree in their yard when I was a little girl.  It has grown to be so big and beautiful over the decades and is now one of the largest magnolia trees I know of.  The flowers smell so sweet.  Yet, they just recently had to clean out from under it because a rattle snake was spotted at the base.  This is their little min-pincher’s play area so its pretty dangerous to have rattlers in that particular spot – not that its a good idea to have rattlers in any area of your property.

Maybe I somehow relate to that magnolia tree.  I am the planting of my parents, but there is something at my foundations that seems to poison everthing and I can’t seem to shake it. By all appearances, everything should be fine.  I am well educated, well traveled, have an amazing job working with a project that will bless multitudes in the years to come, and for a 40 year old woman I’m fairly  attractive, healthy and have stayed in good shape.  Yet..something is really, really wrong.

Upon the recommendation of a friend, I am starting this blog to at least try to be honest with myself about the yuck inside of me hoping that by shining light into the dark places of my soul all of the cockroaches and other creep crawlys will have to flee.  My fear is of getting so introspective that I get lost in the darkness and preoccupied with myself as opposed to moving forward with life.  I’ve seen others get stuck that way.  They revel in sharing their pain because their insecurities are salved by the attention they get from therapists, pastors and other well meaning people. On the other hand, this yuck as I call it isn’t going away on its own and I don’t know of another solution.  I don’t trust other people to help – not counselers, pastors, or anyone else – for the most part.  Maybe by writing honestly (if I am capable of being honest with myself), hearing the input of those who read, and, of course, with the help of God’s Spirit, this “yuck” – my “yuck” will finally be expelled.