When Impatience Becomes My Friend

Same song, umpteenth verse. I sit down to write, and fight to put one word after the next. Crafting any kind of sentence is torture. (and then my inner editor harps yet again about how I write in a passive tone, with too many gerunds and when am I going to step up to the plate and write something good "blah blah blah")
The two combine and equal too many pieces of half finished writing. Story plots scattered in multiple files, 15 unfinished (read: barely started) blog posts. This is the point at which it would be easy for me to quit. To declare that I'm not a writer and walk away from it all. But I'm not going to do that.

One of my major character defects is my impatience with myself. There's little compassion or grace for this to be a journey - whether that this is healing and recovery or coming alive or finding myself and my voice as a creative. My frustration with myself, with my limits sets me up for failure every stinking time. But I don't stay there.

That same impatience that steals my words, fuels my judgements, is the same drive that keeps me moving forward. That impatience, when it's not running my life, it turns into being driven, in a positive way. It means I show up yet again to write, to put one painstaking word after the next on the page. Impatience doesn't allow those story plots and fragments to get lost in my file system. It continues to pull them up, to stare at them, to write 50 words that are complete and utter shit because that impatience it motivates me.

Impatience tells me that this is not all that there is. This is not all that I will ever be. Impatience reminds me that I'm worth fighting for.

Before, In-between, and After

For years I've complained about not having a time before abuse. There's no reclaiming me, because the only me I've ever known was fragmented. Lately though I've been thinking that I don't have an after - at least not yet. I have a before - one filled with trauma, dysfunction, pain, addiction. I have my now - this place of in-between where I'm healthier and still not done working through all the things that linger in my present from my before. I don't have an after yet - an after I grew up, after my marriage healed, after working through trauma. 

I'm in this in-between. I don't have the end of the story yet. I don't know if I get to have a happily ever after. My husband has been wrestling with what he believes or maybe more accurately what he doesn't believe. The writing has been on the wall for a long time, but this week he finally verbalized what I've known to be true for several years - he's done with Christianity. I want to be careful to not tell a story here that isn't mine to tell. This is his journey and this place that he's in, I believe that it is a good place, a healing place, even though it is painful for both of us. 

Once again I feel like I am being asked to open my hands and let go, to stop trying to control my world. This illusion of control has allowed me a false sense of security. The truth is that whatever he believes or doesn't believe, he's mine. I'm proud of him. Proud of him for being honest with himself and with me. Proud of him for being willing to let go of something he's been taught his entire life because it's no longer true for him. 

I'm heartbroken for me. I'm lost, bewildered, wondering how is this too part of my story. The two things I wanted in a husband are the two things that my husband has abandoned. (The other thing was someone who shared my love and passion for music - specifically a guitar player). And in the middle of my hurt and yes my anger (though who I'm angry with, I really don't know), I have this fierce love for him, something that I haven't felt before. I'm holding onto him not in a clingy co-dependent desperate way, but in this healthy passionate protective way. In a he is mine and to mess with him is to mess with me kind of way. 

I love him more now than I did when he was doing the things that I thought I wanted him to do and be. I'm discovering that I love who he is - even when it doesn't look like what I hoped it would look like. I don't know what my after with him is going to look like, but I think that I'm beginning to actually enjoy the discovery of the in-between. 

You Can Move On Now

I had a dream last night. I don't usually put much stock in dreams, other than as my subconscious working things through to a point where I can deal with it consciously. In this dream, I was racing around my home town, headed back to my high school with my older sister. It was just in time for finals and she was going to petition on my behalf that I be allowed to write them, even though I had not attended in years. I followed along, in her wake because I didn't know what else to do.

The school administrator we talked to was no one that I knew, more of a presence, rather than a solid person. My sister was babbling away with all of these ideas of ways that I could be helped to move forward with my life now that I was free. I could finish high school and work part time at this studio. The administrator interrupted her and addressed me. Her authority quieted the flow of ideas pouring out of my sister. "You don't belong here any more. You finished high school. You don't need to come back here again." She faded away, my sister started to protest and I stood up and walked down the two flights of concrete steps that led into the front foyer of the school. I didn't know where I was going, but I was done going where I no longer belonged.

There are many things in this dream that are actually relevant. I was kicked out of high school with an assault charge, finished by correspondence and paid my debt to society. My life shifted away from the usual high school, college, career path and even though I can look back and see the good that came out of it all, I still have this lingering feeling that if I had done it the right way, then my life would be better. It's utter crap and irrelevant at this point in my life. I've gone to college. Physical illness put a stop to any career I was hoping to have and now I'm settling into this discovering of who I am as a creative.

What I loved about the dream though was that I stopped letting someone else lead me around. I walked away. In my quest to belong I will follow others, hoping that they will one day include me. I have this model for friendships that's built on television shows, books, and high school. No wonder I'm messed up socially.

Today I'm looking for the places I've been haunting where my presence is no longer required.

Becoming Me, Even With My In-laws

There's nothing quite like getting together with some of my in-laws to spark my insecurities. I don't think that they quite know what to do with me. They are good dysfunctional people, and I come from a different world. We don't see eye to eye on just about anything, so topics of conversation tend to be quite limited.

Because it's strained to have conversations about anything other than the weather and gardening, I tend to walk away from these occasions wondering why I bother showing up. My negative self-talk pops it's ugly head up, informing me that this is just more proof that I don't belong anywhere, that I'm such a misfit, that nobody care about me, that I don't matter. The last several times I've vowed that this would be my last family get-together. My heart cannot take being ignored and dismissed one more time.

I wasn't going to go today. I had decided last night that I would make other plans my priority. I woke up this morning for my Story 101 meeting. Having that space where I was seen and heard mattered. I still walk away from every meeting second-guessing myself, but it's not stopping me from showing up and sharing. I'm learning to trust that my voice matters beyond just mattering to me. That maybe I have something to offer other than my brokenness.

As I was talking through whether to go to this thing with my in-laws or not, I realized that I could be the adult that I'm becoming. I could show up, make polite conversation, or at least listen. I could bring my camera and use that as a way to reframe the experience of being with a group of people that I don't get along with. I could find beauty even there.

It wasn't awful, it wasn't pleasant. But I handled it differently. I had been seen and valued already that morning. I scheduled to go to coffee with a friend afterwards so that I could be seen and heard again. Today I realized that I could make different choices with this too. I don't have to continue to hide at these functions or not show up at all. There are ways that my heart and my voice can be protected without it being toxic or negative.

Piece by piece I'm learning. I'm learning that when I invest in the places and relationships where I am valued, I am less devastated by the places where I'm not seen or heard. I'm learning that I have a choice other than not showing up. I'm learning how to be true to me, even in the most uncomfortable situations.

Story 101 Prompt: Why?

why bother?
why care?
why fight?
why push through?
why keep going?
why God?

why haunts me

At times because it's the only word that gets close to the depth of my grief, that give legitimacy to my anger.
I remember being told to stop asking why.
For years it was all I did.
Why God, why both, why stop, why live?

Most of my whys have been quieted - hush did that for me last year.

Why is never a question that needs an answer. In our culture, it's the only safe expression for pain.

Why marked my years of despair, the years of hopelessness, the years of death

I don't seem to need it now - not the way that I used to.
It's still always an invitation, to dig deeper into my own heart, into the hearts of others.

Now why opens the door to more. It can be despair, it can be accusation - it's also an invitation, an opening, a way to ask for the piece of story that is hiding in someone's eyes, begging to be called out, needing to be seen.

Why is a gift - a heart question, a pleading. I forget that when my women ask "Why does he do this?" they don't want my experience or explanation. They are asking for my heart. They need my heart to see them, to see their pain, to open myself up and offer to bear a burden that is too great to be borne alone.

Why is a sacred calling - a glimpse into being hands and feet, of living His heart.