My Needle in a Haystack

This heart is still sad. Even in the unwanted assurance that I found in my journal, it is still sad. Each of those entries also contained record of the good and the great of the relationship. So as I sat down to process in my journal, another wave of it rolled over me.

Here I thought I'd come to accept that this is where we are, but another bout of reality also came to me: it was something special. I had devoted hundreds, probably thousands of words to the excitement, connection, and joy, aside from the struggles and worries.

Lately, my thoughts and feelings seem to be rolling around in my mind like clothes and one of those rubber ball things in a dryer. Not many people have been able to really understand what it's like, to mutually love and then let go of that in spite of a mutual desire not to. It makes so very little sense, when you're in it. I have the unfortunate privilege of having broke off this relationship once before, myself. I doubted and ultimately reversed my decision, if you will. But in the time I contemplated the validity of that separation, I was honest with myself and a few others about the complexity of everything going on in me, as I questioned giving up what I'd had. My mom has been there. Her and my dad went through a breakup of a few months after years of being together before they were married. She told me that you'll know because you can't live without them. Those words tumbled around in my mind along with all the memories and feelings about all the memories...

I'm an independent woman (shout out: Destiny's Child, I'm throwin' my hands up at ya). Just before I started dating Shawn, I was beginning to feel really, truly alright being single - which now I think of all the times people have said that's when it comes along... I don't really love the idea of feeling as if I can't live without someone, but it is true in an emotional sense. Upon returning to my singledom, it felt as if my life had quickly become hollow. It seems everyone else is paired off, and I'm the creature on land that will inevitably go extinct because I'm not part of a pair. You realize after a breakup, that people fit you in when you're single, but no one prioritizes you. And so I missed it.

I missed him. In revisiting all the stress-points, I also passed by the sweet moments and the giddy infatuation. The type of things I could write about, because they're charming and special, but they were ours, and so I won't. I missed the things I liked so much about him, from his eyebrows, to his giggle, to the way he parented, to when he got choked up, his smile - even the way he so often fell asleep at random times (which drove me crazy)! I missed the ease with which we could be together and talk. I missed waking up to an affirmation. I missed having someone to share every day with, not only that but someone I loved.

At the same moment that I was trying to document my coming to terms with where him and I are, I was feeling, again, the loss of so much good. I thought to myself, how will anything ever compare in my heart and my memories?

It's as if I'd found my needle in a haystack. I don't really expect to find another, nor do I even want to try.

The Threads to Unravel

For the last forty-five days I've been a mess. For much of my life I've been lauded by many friends for being steady...But for the last month and a half I've been the most unsteady I've felt in my adult life.

A normally joyful, hopeful, resilient person, I got the wind knocked out of me. Big time. I spent 287 days investing in a, by then, very serious dating relationship. Of those, 158 were before I broke it off for a month, and 129 were before he broke it off...for good. It was one of the toughest, richest experiences I've had. Long distance is sort of a relational incubator - if you care at all about your relationship. And we did; we texted constantly, talked on the phone for over an hour daily, Snapchat will never be the same - in fact I might have to delete the app because I don't really care about it now. We put in the work of a good relationship, and that's what we got.

So when it happened, a heavy silence and a wave of tears ensued, like an immediate hurricane of feelings. These are the kind that seem to drown you because you can't get out words and the new reality you're ingesting punches you in the gut. Oddly though, I myself had been questioning the very reasons he cited. In fact, just the other day I revisited my journal from the first stint of our togetherness, and found them echoing in a foreshadow that I'd somehow forgotten. The old adage: love is blind...

In the last few weeks as I processed my new reality, I waded through the remaining flood of emotions. I couldn't wait to not feel the way I did, but I wasn't ready to let go of hope. I had spent many of those days and weeks and months with him thinking I was on the road to marriage. This man and I crossed each others' paths and found out we really liked each other, -- even more, we really loved each other. Now, we were ending that thing that I thought was "it".

Something I've been told over and over is that what I'm experiencing is "normal". I have hated that each time I've heard it. Why should anything about parting from your love be normal? I never expected to date and love someone - let alone for them to love me - but that it wouldn't work out. While some may call that naive, (and fine, I don't care what those people think,) I don't think it is naive to hope that love is important. There's a weird paradox I can't fully articulate: I don't regret the relationship, but if I'd known at the beginning that it wouldn't work out I probably wouldn't have bothered. Ah, hypotheticals... Truly, I don't regret it, although it is so incredibly painful to set your mind, heart, and life to the tune of something that suddenly stops. So, yeah, if I'd known...

The thing is, I did know. But I had that optimism, that fight. All the more confusing that that's the stuff it takes to make a lifelong relationship last: hope and persevering in love.

Then there's the natural progression of relationship which makes things all the more complicated, well in Christian dating anyways. If the relationship works alright, it will continue on its trajectory toward marriage and without an honest, critical eye it may go that way when really it shouldn't. In my case, the same breaking points that were there all along somehow didn't deter me from mentally and emotionally following the foreseen trail to a wedding - and I'm so not that girl. I pay attention to things, and to myself. Yet, when I read through the journal entries from our beginning and well into serious conversations, the threads that would unravel it all were dangling there throughout. It's just that I am the girl that sacrifices for the most important relationships in her life.

In fact, now I'm a little scared of it all. How do people do this over and over? I'm left with all these lessons of experience, and the feeling that I don't ever want to use them. I won't try to say I'll never bother to be in love again, but the reality is that this wasn't something small and simple. It was an all-in, go for the gold type thing. So no, walking away and falling apart doesn't feel normal, nor should it. But maybe I can just settle in, with my piles of unwound, tangled thread, and that will be okay. I'll be okay. Just me.

He is Mighty

**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.**

Today, I woke up angry and hurt. I hated the silence. I hated that even though we broke up for what seem like good reasons, they also seem like crap ones. It was the first thought in my head yet again, as it seems it has been for weeks now: I hate this.

Last night I'd been mulling over and writing about how I feel like I'm settling into it; starting to come to terms with this reality. After sleeping on that, I woke up mad. I silently moved through our kitchen, my roommates and another good friend there, going about their morning. It's awkward feeling discontented and out of sorts, when everyone else is moving about in life... On to the office for Wednesday morning staff prayer and devotional time.

There was a turn. It seems that today God wanted to remind me that He is mighty.

I walked into work, and on my desk was a little card with a chocolate heart attached:

It warmed mine, it's a favorite verse in my family (my dad's personal anchor, which I'm also letting become one of mine).

We prayed together over many things as a staff, and then delved into a bible passage, 1 Corinthians 1:20-25. It talks about how the Jews and the Greeks have the different things they'd trust in, but that the Christians were preaching neither of those things -- rather the power of the Cross. The section embodies how it's not our doing, it's not our planning or catering to a certain school of thought. It is simple but mighty Truth: Christ crucified. As we discussed the passage, we collectively arrived at that place; it's not about us and what we do, but simply about Him and His Spirit at work! What relief there is in that, it nearly brought me to tears.

Right now, I'm struggling because there is nothing I can do. I am stuck wading through persistent, taunting, confusing pain; a shift in my daily reality. I saw things that needed to change, and perceived the way that if those things shifted, then everything would be good. I had true hope for all of that, hope I thought was founded. Now I am challenged; forced not to put my hope in those ideas because the exact opposite of what I wanted seems to be happening.

This morning brought a quiet, peace-bearing reminder that He is mighty and His Spirit is at work in powerful ways. I have to trust in His character, not my perceptions even if they are of an accurate reality, and even if that reality looks hopeless. Neither my plans nor my unbelief diminish the power of Christ on the cross and that Spirit at work.

I don't write this to say I've arrived at that place of steady comfort, but to say that He is speaking. He is whispering to me amidst the noise of my circumstance, the deafening silence between my friend and I. God is teaching me something - gently, quietly, even subtly. I can only revel in each whisper as it sustains me.

I Settle

I slowly settle in
to the reality
that has been the engine
of my pain all this time.
I wearily loosen my grip
on the dream I held
even so tightly still
And there's so much silence
but I have so many words
So few places to entrust them.
There aren't as many tears now
yet the same heavy sadness
burring on in my chest.
Even I question
if I'm just being dramatic
but
they say
the amount of pain
in healing
signifies
the amount of love
in falling.
My arrival in love
wasn't much of a fall,
more like the jog
that turns
mysteriously to a run.
Yeah, clumsy even.
It wasn't all easy
but it was good
and there was joy
and there was love.
Now
I sink in.
Speak of it
as something that has gone
though it hasn't at all
only sunk in
trying to hide
and pretend it isn't there
but I know.
So I guess
If I pretend too,
maybe one day
it will just
be gone.

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.