Because There Was Love

The waves of emotions are starting to become more of a slow-rolling tide. There are ebbs and flows, of sadness and of okayness.

They correlate with the strangest things...like the dish soap that sits on our kitchen sink. Shawn got it for pennies on clearance, and he gave me some because it was so cheap (*heart thumps quickly* I guess I like practical thoughtfulness). And some other things even stranger. A close friend getting engaged washed over me, bittersweet. Seemingly person after person starting a family with their love, or growing the family they have with their partner. And me -- I'm tossed in the waves, trying to keep my head up and to learn how to swim again.

Today I found myself challenged.

A dear sweet friend, the happiest of people you'd ever meet, lost her brother yesterday suddenly; this within the same year of losing their father. The thought of it brings me to tears. My being in my own clearly different pain, it seems only something darker can draw out my empathy right now. Quietly but surely, the echoing thought crept in, resonating in the friend telling me the very words on my heart: "Hold those you love close!" (Emphasis mine.)

Then this afternoon another friend shared quite vulnerably on her newborn photo business' instagram account. She had to cancel a handful of appointments with families due to the unexpected miscarriage of her own baby at 4 months along. Again I was stunned and shocked at the thought of such pain. Perspective. As I read, it struck me that she wrote about a very thing that had been salt in my wound. However, instead she had grace that I've been struggling to grasp at with weary hands, let alone voice with such courage. Her very work and passion surrounds her with life and newborns, a potential wave of her pain is around every corner. And yet she said to her it is “a constant reminder that there is still light and still hope.” Those words knocked me over - my self-preservation - and rushed around me, then receded.

Often times to see that hope is alive is a choice. Many of the friends who are getting engaged, married, or having babies and more babies -- they haven't always felt hope and light, at least not the stories I know. So I'm challenged to find it in myself not only to have grace for when someone else's life looks better than mine, but to find a way to take joy in their victories and their joys. If empathy is truly something I value, I can't just turn it off here. It is just as necessary to wave it in the face of brokenness as we dance for joy over the more; the fruition; the abundance; the love.

At the end of the day, it doesn't make sense sometimes: why do dads have to die, babies not get to breathe a breath on this earth, and romances that are sweet be severed? It can feel like we're losing, and at what, - we don't even really know. But both friends spoke something which points to the truth, one which makes the very pain exist, and that is this: we have won everything because there was love. When nothing else makes sense, the love does.

To Be Alive & to Be Human

I think there's something about pain. Pain wears us down, and then teaches us something. It's not always a good thing that it teaches us, mind you, but sometimes it exposes our true selves to us. 

You'd be surprised at the discomfort upon a vulnerable, truthful answer to the careless, passing "How are you?" we so loosely toss around by habit (as if it's any more comfortable for you that that question causes you to ugly cry because the truth is: you're a mess). I found myself with no tolerance for the blank stares, or the weakly masked panic at the realization that they don't know what to say, but they don't want me to get emotional...Get over it. I'm going to get emotional when you ask how I am the week (or 3) after ending a serious relationship.

I am one to be honest with my feelings. They are not invalid or unimportant (and anyone who tells you they are is probably not emotionally healthy), but they also don't run my life. I haven't always been this way, and I'm not always successful in it. It's taken some learning that they serve a purpose as well as some unlearning that they're harmful. Having emotions and feelings is to be alive and to be human. Managing them and listening to them well is to be wise.

In pain, you learn the balance: I am not okay, but I need to be in it for a bit so that I come out the other side healthy. If I brush my feelings aside or pretend they don't exist, I'm not moving through them and processing them - I'm letting them build up and likely trip me up later on, when they rear their ugly head due to life's lovely pressures.

Yet somehow, this is something so many of us fail at, so often. We even create a society where we're so uncomfortable with people's pain, we either ignore it or try to throw a bandaid on a bullet wound, so as to move on from the pain. That's one of the worst parts to me about processing the pain I'm in. I'm not afraid of it, I know I can't ignore it, and frankly the first few weeks of this, I haven't wanted to. Even a little less than two weeks from the great shaking in my life, I got the impression that many people wanted not to deal with my pain anymore, all the while it is still incredibly real to me. I wake up every day to it seemingly staring me in the face, as if the very reality had tapped me on the shoulder and dryly growled, "G'morning..."

Typically, anyone that has known me a while would refer to me as happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, and care-free. I've even had people tell me that with a sting of bitterness, as if envy drove their words out. All of that isn't contrived, and I don't really think it's a secret, what I've found to work to be that way. Really, it comes down to working with my emotions. I find that I am a healthier person when I know how to manage and understand them. Whether that means relishing in the joy of a moment, or sitting in the unwelcome, unwanted pain just to stare it down and say I'm not giving up, -- that is the big secret.

The happiness isn't always there...but neither is the pain. I think we each have to come to realize that our emotions don't dictate the value of our moments. Some of the most painful moments of my past, are now considered some of my most valuable. And some of the most happy and free, are bittersweet distant memories that only slightly glimmer. Still others make me cry with joy at their very thought. 

I could be proud and attempt to shield that I am in fact human and have emotions that sometimes lay me out cold, but that would somehow suggest that having them is weak, instead of that having them is human. It's funny - though not "haha" funny - how some of the most proud, seemingly strong people I've known, have had the most walls up and likely feel the most alone in their struggles. I even find myself in that sometimes, and so when I am confronted with it in someone else, I strive to choose and show grace. I, if even only faintly, hope that they might lift the veil ever so slightly to let the light into the darkness.

I can't help but to say it again: Emotions are not weakness, they are human. People in pain don't need pity, but they don't need to be ignored or placated either. They need validation that indeed what they're enduring is difficult; they need assurance that they don't go unseen in their struggle; they need another to look on them with empathy and compassion, to slightly lighten the burden and isolation of pain, by being present in it with them; they need to not pretend it isn't happening or call it good to make themselves feel better; they need someone to cry because they're crying. Sadly, pain is a part of this life. As much as it'd be easier to go on intentionally blind to it, we are more likely to have better connected families, better functioning societies, and all around healthier relationships, if we stopped running away from other people's pain, stopped trying to fix it, or explain it away, but embraced it to move through it. 

Wading through emotions and especially pain isn't always the easy road, but it certainly is the high one. Our minds and bodies are reacting to our shifting realities in an effort to guide us to process and adapt. We need to allow this not only of others, but also of ourselves. Let yourself feel the emotions that come, but let them wash over you, not steer you.

Hope Amid Pain

Written 2/10/2016

I have no hope. 

I have no hope
to ever get over this.
I have no hope
to ever find this.
I have no desire.
I have no desire but
to have you in my arms.
I have no desire
for anyone else.
I have no desire
to remove you
from my heart.
I have no desire
to risk this very pain again.
I have no desire
to look this pain in the eye.
I have a void.
A void sits heavy
in the middle of me,
A weighty emptiness,
a crushing lack.

But I have hope.
And it eats at me, taunts me.
It toys with my sense of reality,
And gnaws at my sense of security.
It seems to deceive me,
And far from relieve me.
It dances in the empty place, the void.
Driving my stomach to knots.
It struggles, as a dying flicker in the darkness.
Hope.
I had hope,
now it teases me.
While the pain pulls me down,
And the doubt steals the very air.
Hope,
It allows me to breathe,
And yet takes my breath away.
A thing ever so sure and yet fearsome
wrought with risk of the very heart.
Hope.

To Run Freely

I'm a few years into being a runner. Yes, me. Something I never thought I would say, and after a while of separation from this new hobby you could call it, I miss it terribly. The catharsis and the sense of accomplishment that could come from a good run - even just the mental self-pat-on-the-back after a bad one, it's addictive. One minute you think you're a lazy sack of potatoes who could never like running, next thing you know you have a whole separate wardrobe of moisture wick clothing and the most expensive pair of shoes you'll ever buy in your life.

(Even if you couldn't care less about running, stick with me here...)

I even used to have knee pain, well lo and behold, it went away when I became a regular runner (don't worry, science supports this "anomaly"). Well, that is for about three years until this summer. It was July, after my move into my current place. I was trying to find a new route, I was slowly sliding away from a regimen because I missed my run over the two prettiest bridges in this great city. Now I was getting cat-called and dodging traffic, running boring square blocks which make the distance more agonizing. So close to home one day, I planted wrong. I wobbled, recovered and finished my way home.

Fast forward past a lot of painful movements and boring rest, I started working with a trainer. My goal was to try to correct the running-only imbalance I figured I'd created in my leg muscles by adding other exercises. A few weeks in things were going great, I was enjoying getting strong again and accomplishing more things I didn't expect (hello, single leg walkout, you're a beast). All it took was one wrong deadlift (and honestly, probably not enough stretching...guilty!) I tried to rest. Apparently I'm resistant to good reaction to injury, because regular icing and compression were not of interest to me. I just went on babying that leg, and gave up deadlifts along with all other exercise. The effects were nuanced in ways I won't bother to explain, but the kind of things that if you know your body, you can spot if they're off.

Skip the other boring stuff to land at today: My first physical therapy appointment to treat the mysterious knee-ish pain that has died to a very mild discomfort. I felt a little silly explaining to anyone that I was starting PT for what seemed to be a perfectly healthy leg. But I can't run, and well, that is a problem. As the therapist examined me, he compared my unaffected leg with the injured. I learned that my feelings were not unfounded, but some muscles had compensated to alleviate the hurt one, which was likely injured because something in other muscles elsewhere were too tight. In just one day's treatment, I felt a difference. Not only could I see how weak my leg had become all due to one injured muscle, but I saw the hope that it will feel right again.

As I'm in the midst of a great injury to my heart, I can't help but see it in everything right now, and my wonky left leg is no exception. Injury is very real, and pushing through the pain is not actually healthy and no one is impressed when you try. Weakness is sometimes a part of life, we can't always be strong. In the very act of participation, we are vulnerable to hurt. With my knee, I eventually gave up doing certain movements altogether, for fear that it would aggravate the mostly dormant pain. I waited unnecessarily long to truly deal with the pain, and the pain informed my life.

Often old injuries inform our lives now. The actions we take, the words we say or the way we say them can be determined by pain that has dulled to a subtle ache, but still twinges when we revisit the action that hurt it in the first place. There is often a temptation to baby the area, which might only create a dysfunction of another area that overlaps or borders the injured one. In trying to ignore the pain, keep a stiff upper lip, and wait for it to go away, we don't realize we are creating habits that will only continue to hurt us, in a different way.

This is something I'm passionate about, acknowledging our past pains so that in the present we can act based on relevant factors, not based on fear. I know many of my past friendships even have changed the way I move in my relationships today, sometimes in an unhealthy way. In the aftermath of a breakup, there is an immediate temptation to react by declaring I will never embark on romance ever again. If I decide that and baby my injured heart, I'm fairly certain I never will embark on that endeavor again.

What physical therapy aims to do (at least in my case) is loosen the tight spots, and retrain the weak muscles to do their part. It's an uncomfortable and inconvenient process and my leg is slightly sore from the muscle work I did today, but it's completely worth a shot at running in a few months! This is what we often need to do with our emotional and relational hurts. Find the triggers and work toward changing things so that there is more balance, and less dysfunction. Stretch out self-reflection and grace for others; retrain actions, reactions, and priorities; set goals that you work toward and then assess after some time.

It will not be easy, it won't be pain free, but the end results are worth the work. It all depends, where are you inhibited, and do you desire to run freely?

All The Loves Before

Maybe I needed a wakeup call.
Though, I don't know what to.
What reality is the aching of my heart
revealing to me?

In one way, it's my hope...
Maybe it was too high,
or maybe I'm giving up too easy.
Maybe ... it wasn't true at all,
and the impending reality of it all falling through
causes me to grasp
at any shred of true hope left.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic,
and this is just a part of life, - loving and letting go.
And it's terribly too soon to say,
but it makes me scared at the thought
of ever trying again.

I thought I was in love
with every passing fancy over the years, 

some close and some distant admirations.
And it seems you might not fully know
the weight of your love,
til it's pouring out in endless tears that fall.
And see,
all the loves before
were never love at all.

Heart Unguarded: Worth It

I wrote this soon after, and while I can't say I'm in such a state of clarity and peace now...I'll honor the place I was:

Christian culture has a lot of holes in its theories and practices. Lots of things are pulled out of thin air and placed as doctrine of the faith, without true foundation. Relationships are messy, and while you'd think that people who have Christ as their example would know how to do relationship well -- we often suck at it. 

From the start early last spring of my recent relationship, I was told from about a million angles "guard your heart" (which is completely taken out of context, if you ask me). It was well-meaning, but felt ignorant and fear-driven. Now, here we are, at the end of this relationship as we know it. A relatively amicable end, painful nonetheless - or rather more painful because of that fact. One of the first things I said amidst a wave of tears and sniffles was, "I love you", another via text in the aftermath being, "Worth it."

Apparently we (the Church, not Shawn and I) are fearful of the repercussions of love. I sort of ran into this relationship with abandon. And after nearly crying myself dry over it, I still can't find in me regret. There is pain, certainly, as to why after investing months and months, hours and hours of conversation and driving, why would it all be for naught? To love and let go, that pain is very real. 

While this was my first romantic relationship, this isn't my first rodeo. I have loved deeply and let go a few times before in my life, usually far less mutually. Okay...not at all mutually. It's always painful. In those other situations, immediately I viewed the history of each relationship in a painful way, a sort of regret. And this one, while it's painful I have no regret for opening my heart up to someone who absolutely deserved my love. 

I kind of wish everyone would just quit with that line - guard your heart. Okay, maybe not everybody can handle loving only for a time - hell, I can barely handle it... Maybe some people need to be told to guard their hearts and be careful what they give away. But I consider it an honor to have loved that man for these months. Sure, like any relationship it had its hardships, but that doesn't mean I would rather have gone without. Even now, with it so painful.

I think that's what we ought to be hitting people with: the idea that we can love with abandon and yet open-handed. That if Jesus is our example and our supply, we can love well, without worrying that we're giving something away that we can't get back and that that's bad. That's a lie straight from the enemy! I'm not recommending serial daters, but can we stop being so afraid that loving someone will break us beyond belief? Instead, can we lean into the idea that loving someone even when it might hurt later because of parting, -- that that is really just a way to love someone like Jesus? Not with self-preservation in mind (and again, I'm not advocating for riding out abusive situations, or throwing boundaries to the wind, certainly don't do that!), but with fullness. 

I think if I didn't love fully, and let myself into this relationship fully, then it would have been futile. But because I did, I don't regret it. I have no regret for not treating my heart like something this man had no shot at. Even though such vulnerability proved painful, as it wasn't fruitful in the way we'd hoped, that doesn't mean that him or I have yet fully seen what fruit was there. We loved openly, quickly, and I'm certain that was exactly as it was meant to be. 

My dating advice won't consist of "Guard Your Heart", but instead two other words of God: "Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will make your paths straight," and "Love your neighbor."

And it might hurt, but it's probably worth it.

Righteous in Our Warm Beds

**Disclaimer: This piece was written pre-deconstruction of religious beliefs and faith system. Many of these beliefs inform the sentiments of the writing and are not in alignment with my values. As this is a part of my journey and an extensive blog over years, I have chosen not to remove a majority of my posts written on faith. Please as a reader, take this into consideration and take what works for you, leave what does not. I also apologize for any harm my words from this past perspective may cause to any readers.**

I'm curled up in my bed, down comforter layered with a fleece blanket and another knit one on top. I have a wool one wrapped around my shoulders. After complaining a little, as is my good American right and duty, our landlord visited the attic to discover no insulation in our 1950's house. The basement where my roommate sleeps is warmer than my room!

A few weeks ago I caved and bought a space heater. One that has a timer setting so I can schedule it to heat up my room a bit in the morning before my alarm. $30 for a wee baby space heater!

At work, we're gearing up for our partner churches to help pack and give away wool blankets with toiletries, and a few warm items wrapped up in the middle to homeless people. We call these, Homeless Care Kits. 

It was quite sobering when nearly a year ago I started working for this amazing organization. I learned about things I'd been pleasantly ignorant to before: one being the pain of homelessness. But I'd also never truly paid due attention to the way God's love was meant to intersect that pain, just as it does all others. I spent the first few weeks at this job, learning about what the bible says about how we ought show compassion to all, and especially the "the least of these," as Jesus called them.

The most startling realization was in Matthew 25. Here He tells us that if we do not do these things, we have ignored Him; we have not fed, clothed, or quenched the thirst of our Savior. This passage couldn't be more clear, I dare someone to try and water it down (though not really, if you read it that way, keep it to yourself) and yet we have so many other concepts in the bible we'd rather hang our hat on. Jesus clearly laid out, both in word and by example what compassion looked like. 

Compassion doesn't resemble judgment. Nor does it resemble fear for our supposed safety. It does however get referred to here as an act of the righteous - biblically meaning those who are in right standing with the requirements of God. That means Jesus was saying, this is part of what it means to be in right standing of me. 

The beauty and the tension is that it still needs to be done from the heart. Serving and giving needs to be done out of love. Jesus isn't saying it's the righteous who do this because He wants us to fall in-line out of obligation. See, in the Old Testament, based on our standing with God being measured by the old Law, we would've had to do things to earn that standing. Flash forward to Jesus telling us this, it was shortly before His atoning death where mere acceptance of His sacrifice is now the mark of our righteousness in God's eyes. That righteousness should then inform our actions, compelling us to show compassion to the ones that society rejects and overlooks, this by love not penance.

We're too busy trying to battle the worries of the world with our own might, slapping the label of 'Good Christendom' on it, in spite of the very contradictory nature that Christ himself lays out toward such Pharisaical ways.

I can't say I've mastered it, and I can't say I'm void of my own blind spots, but I do think this generation is in need of a reality check with what Christ called us to. Since my heart came alive to Jesus' sacrifice, I've never been able to see it as anything other than an act of love. Love was defined to the fullest in those hours.

Kind of makes one question, what are we living and dying for? And is it what we've been called to?