Saturday, September 6, 2008

Wanting Life

I am miserable. I know it's my own fault, but yet I can't seem to do anything about it.

Sometimes I really don't understand why my husband is still trying, the psychotic bitch that I am. I make his life more miserable than mine.

In the dark and the quiet the only thing that makes me want to stay is knowing that my son would be lost without me. I am his world.

But what will happen when he's not so cute in a few more years and trying my patience. Will I still want to be here for him?

And then I wonder what the fuck I'm thinking, trying to get pregnant again. How will I handle myself with a toddler and an infant when I can hardly keep it together with one?

I know what my problem is. I haven't really wanted anything to do with God since I was in college. Maybe that's too strong. It's just that I haven't felt like I got anything out of the relationship so it's slowly just gone away. Now I know I should read my Bible and I try to pray, but there is absolutely no desire there. I hate how guilty it makes me feel, but I never do anything about it.

And yet whenever anyone asks me how I'm doing I say fine. Not good anymore, just fine, or maybe okay. But no one ever asks again, no really, how are you? They don't really want to know. And I don't trust them enough to tell them what's really going on.

I don't trust anyone. Only the anonymous internets (what is wrong with that picture?). How screwed up is it that I can't even talk to my husband about this, let alone my best friends. I feel guilty that I even feel this way. I have a good life. I stay home and don't really have to worry about anything. Oh, I "worry" about money, but we will never be hungry or without a roof over our heads. The only pal on my horizon is my father with Parkinson's. Just the thought of that makes me cry. But we still have time with him and he loves me/us.

See? I've got it good. So why can't I be "happy"? Not in a perpetually perky way because that is so not me, but at least content with where I am? Why do I feel like a fake and a fraud and that no one knows who I really am? Why can't I trust anyone enough to tell them what's going on inside me? It's like I want to, but my mouth won't open and let me say a word. Somehow I'm afraid of something...

Why doesn't God help me? He certainly knows what I'm thinking. He knows that I want to do the right thing and be in a relationship with him. Because right now "wanting" to do the right thing is about all I've got going. I don't actually want something that I've only occassionally and vaguely felt in the past. Maybe that's the problem. He knows I'm not serious enough. Yet can't he make me serious about it?

Whatever. That's all philosophy and all I know is that I hate my life, I hate myself, and I'm destorying my family in the process.

I don't want my husband's platitudes (or anyone else's) I just want someone to make it all stop. Tell me what I have to do. Listen without trying to fix it or tell me that I'm really a good person and I should quit listening to the mean people around me.

I don't want to take drugs because, I forgot, I tried that once in college and the psychologist or whatever he was treated me like an idiot. I know the problem is between me and God, but I feel powerless to do anything about it on my end and He certainly isn't doing anything on his end.

This is where I'm compelled to write that, hey, I even have a tattoo on my back of a dove that's supposed to represent peace. His peace. And that I have to give up control for me to get it. Got that in Costa Rica when I was freaking out being in a new place and I got "peace" about it. Or maybe I just got used to the new place.

I'm not even in a new place right now. My son is 17 months old for crying out loud. Nothing "new" in my life that hasn't been there for a year and a half already.

But I'm not content. I'm like the total opposite of content. I don't even know what content is.

I don't know what I want either, but whatever it is, it's not what I have now.

1 comment:

Heather of the EO said...

I hear you. So my heart hurts with yours. Believe it or not, it's true. I still struggle IN DEPTH with the feelings you describe here.

I don't want to feed you cliche statements about God. I have as limited of an understanding of how He works as the next person. But I do know He IS working. Believe it or not, He's crazy about you. And me. Most of the time I don't believe it because he seems silent.

I've recently learned that the reason I cannot see Him working is because I've decided He is not. I also have no comprehension of His love for me. I've never truly grasped what that love looks like. Not the obvious love that's talked about in church, but a deeper love than I could ever accept. Because I don't see how He could. But He just doesn't work the way we imagine that He does.

A verse that I hold tightly to is "When we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself." He cannot leave us. He is faith. He cannot stop loving us. He is love. He cannot quit on us. He is grace. He cannot escape being all that He is. It's just that we so easily assume He can because we hate ourselves so much. We put a human idea of a Father on Him and give up on Him. And He may just wonder why we don't notice what He is trying to work out in us.

Even your struggle is a part of His love, believe it or not. Because if you truly didn't care, you may never discover it. Your struggle is pulling you to Him, right where He so badly wants you to see Him. Next to you.

Maybe you've heard of this book, "The Shack." I'm currently reading it and it's bringing me to a whole new understanding of God.

One last thing. It wouldn't hurt to ease up on yourself. Becoming a mother is HUGE. A long hard struggle of adjustment. It's taken me much longer than 17 months to even start to kind of sort of find a groove. We are so impatient with ourselves. But even our hormone levels can be all screwed up for much longer than we think possible.

If you'd like, take some time to read and research on God's love. Just that. Nothing more. No doctrine. No extra stuff. Keep it super simple. Just ask Him to show you what His love really looks like. It may help you start to love yourself, one little bit at a time.

I am just at the very beginning of this journey myself. And it looks like there might be hope.

Peace to you,
Heather