This plant has seen better days. It is a cyclamen. It stands for diffidence. Timid Hope. 

That might be the most perfect thing ever.

Test

A few weeks ago I sat with a friend and chatted while our kids played. It felt weird, wrong in some way. Why? Because this friend is a he. I am friends with his wife too and our kids love playing together, but I was self-conscious. What if someone saw us and thought something else? Was I being too forward to sit and talk with him for a half hour, only being "chaperoned" by our children, not our spouses. I enjoyed his company but had that lingering feeling of self-consciousness.

The next day I met with my counselor and mentioned it to her. She pointed out the judgement in my self-consciousness. Who gets to decide who I am friends with? Obviously the answer is me.  

I go to church every Sunday to beg for forgiveness 

I don't want to think about it, I'm not that person anymore. 

I had to leave so many people behind

On this journey

I miss them. 

I miss me.

I don't even know me.

I Disagree

I disagree. Two words I feel uncomfortable saying, or even thinking. Disagreement was rarely tolerated with kindness in my home growing up. People who disagreed with my parents' line of thinking were judged, so why would I dare to disagree with them? That might not actually be fair to say they judged others, but as a child I remember feeling like I shouldn't share what I think if it's different.

Why does God allow suffering?

That first Monday

 That first Monday

My home was empty

We were in our own homes

We didn’t gather

We were out on our own

My home was so empty

My couches so empty

My dishes all clean

The silence was

Deafening 

What do we do now?

I’m in my house in grief

A grief my family

Doesn’t seem to share

Some still there

Some have gone

Now it’s been so long

Who even cares 

Anymore

I wasn’t ready for that empty nest

For the ten years of distance

For the pretending everything is okay

I went off and did my own thing

The “right” thing

I stayed in the fold 

I worked for the shepherd

I distanced myself from those who had walked away

I abandoned my friends

I abandoned myself

And when shit hit the fan

And more shit hit the fan

And even more shit hit the fan

The ones in the fold

Folded

Crumpled

Unable to withstand the depth of my despair

Even I couldn’t stand the deep, drowning waters

But those who had walked away

Listened to their bodies and 

Heard the request for rest

They were ready to really care

To see my exhaustion 

To just be there

Not fix it

Not excuse it

Not minimize it

Not say empty words

Just be

Maybe there will come a time 

When they’re exhausted by me too

But at least the supports are multiplied 

Not divided as 

We once thought they were

Anxious/Avoidant

 Anxious/Avoidant

I am feeling anxious in a friendship, again.

I think I might have messed it up, again.

I think I am too much, again.

How did we go from 

Random reconnection to 

Daily conversations to

Why do I suddenly need this attention

All the time.

I’m trying to be cool about it 

But I am struggling to not equate 

an answer with acceptance

Has a boundary been drawn and 

I don’t know about it?

Am I in trouble and

I don’t know about it?

Have I made a mistake and been inappropriate and

I don’t know about it?

What is this anxious-avoidance?

I think I must have scared him off

My female mental problems must be 

Too much for him

My honesty and vulnerability must be

Too much for him

Every single wave crashes over me like a marching band’s cymbals clanging over my ears

Enveloping my senses in disorientation 

Which way should I go next? 

The friend, the important one, has gone away and I am

Disoriented

I look to others to validate me

But they are gone and 

I have to validate myself.

My mother, my friend, my validator. 

But she would leave and I would be

Left alone to wonder if I’m 

Worthy.

Wonder if I’m safe

Am I safe here? 

Without someone to reassure me that I am, I’m not sure 

I’m left to

Guess

“I may become more avoidant as you become more anxious”

Is he working me?

Is this his treatment, for my good?

Maybe.

He has no claim to me

He is not my husband or

A family member

He is a guy who knows a lotta stuff and is 

Letting me be his friend.

His withdrawing may have a

Perfectly reasonable reason

Like when my mom would go to work

She was gone and I had to wait

Will she come home? How can I know?

And it’s okay for an adult to have a reason or no reason to be distant.

Is he letting me “complete the stress cycle”?

Is he letting me process on my own?

Even at dinner, a rushed dinner, I didn’t want to talk about surface things

I didn’t want to talk about funny stories

I didn’t want to talk about light banter

I wanted to be real

Be true

Be myself

Not some put-together version

But there is less freedom in a crowd. 

I am safe. 

I can be neurotic.

He will tell me when to stop.

He will. And he has. 

And I am safe.

He won’t ghost me

Gaslight me

Make me feel

Crazy. 

He won’t.

He promised.

And I know in my soul that I am safe here. 

Kindness

 He handed me a spoon

It’s stupid.

He handed me a spoon. 

It felt really gentle.

I didn’t have to do to myself.

He was closer.

I had pushed the water toward him.

It was closer.

He didn’t have to do it.

There was kindness in that gesture. 

So simple.

It’s crazy how the simple things are really

Meaningful.

I didn’t expect it.

I don’t deserve it.

I

Want

It

.

He had some stuff on his cheek.

It didn’t bother me.

Didn’t disgust me.

Maybe a little uncomfortable,

But

Not

In a bad way.

Maybe the way I’d look at my son

But not

In 

A

Bad

Way

.

What if this kindness is really

Love?

But not the love we’ve been sold. 

A better love.

More sustainable.

More enduring.

The love of Jesus.

Which is weird because he says he doesn’t believe.

It turns my world

Upside 

Down.

Alone

A woman sits alone. She is crying, silently. She has an air about her but there seems to have been beaten out of her. The curls in her hair are loose and frizzy. She is done. Her family is gone, her husband walked away, or perhaps she from him. One cannot tell anymore how it all started. After a certain time no one knows what caused what. Hope the woman knows is that she's alone. 

Why did it have to happen like this? I dramatic exit stage left. Jimi Hendrix departure. Dramatic, astounding. But now, the drama has passed and she is alone.

There is so much to mourn the woman feels dwarfed by it. The self-destruct button backfired and here she sits, alone. Her silent weeping it's like the silent condensation on a coffee cup – one full of hot black liquid, the steam appearing and vanishing in an instant. We are like grass, like steam – here one second and gone the next, taken away by the softest breeze. She thinks, her brow furrowed and quizzical. 

How did I get here? What cost what? She thinks. A domino effect – black and white ivory temperate tumbling down, but with no sign of the original offender, the original cause. Only sadness, morning, loss. It goes against all she's tried to build her entire life forced to grow up too soon, before the necessary maturity was ready. Handling adulthood while having not finished her childhood.

It wasn't her fault, she knows, but at some point it has to be her responsibility. Mourning must be the first step. Acknowledging that something was lost. She knew it briefly years ago but stuffed it down into a deep place – get it like a squirrel hides food for the winter. "Oh maybe need this someday "a place to put her soul whispers. Today is the day. Alone. Quiet. Peace on the surface, but sadness that must be felt. The only thing at her side is a breeze. Something one can see only the affects of and feel. Her mind wanders and she hears at whisper, "Come to me, ye lonely and weak hearted, and I will give you rest." The voice is audible and comforting, like a memory of her mother long ago. Yet it isn't her mother. It is a new voice. It is a man's voice, one with authority and strength, a comforting straight. She closes her eyes in the voice comes again"Come to me daughter and place your burden upon my shoulders. "She has heard this voice before it is the voice of her father, not her earthly father – he has never spoken this kind me to her house this voice. It is her heavenly father, her true and forever father.

And yet the loneliness presses in on her and she fights for centerstage. She embraces the aloneness her heavenly father by her side. The comforting preschools her from the possibility of overheating.

And she is free. Free from the pain, the shame. The breeze brushes away the hair covering her face and dried her tears. The breeze pushes her toward something she has only seen from a distance - she is surrounded. Alone but not lonely. There's no shame in the solitary existence as there was before.

The breeze

The peace

The fresh breath encompasses her like a blanket swaddling an infant.

Wrapped and protected from whatever may come. Even if it is herself.