I'm Awake

I just finished talking long distance with a friend, than was washing my face thinking that my bathroom stunk like urine. "Did Mac pee on the floor at bathtime? Maybe it's coming from the drain. I need to have Jon fix that, it's been slow recently. Could I make a spiritual analogy about standing in dirty shower water because of a slow drain? I should post that on my blog. Remember when my toilet didn't have the power to flush down a big poop and I thought, God's toilet never backs up; it's big enough to handle all my poop. I should go to bed. But I'm awake."

I have this thing about needing to be in bed if everyone else is in bed. I'll lay there all night sometimes thinking I should just get up, but I can't because I'm suppose to be in bed because everyone else is in bed. I do not understand this compulsion, but tonight I am fighting it. Jon and McKinney are snoring and they'll never know-they wouldn't care if they did. What is my issue with it? Why can't I get up in my own house and wander around and do whatever I want freely? I think I just don't feel comfortable in my own skin. Plus, I value sleep and every minute I'm not in bed will definately not be spent sleeping. I am always on edge. I can be dead tired, but I would never fall asleep if I thought someone might stop by, or if someone is in the next room-even if I'm very sick. I am always on the alert. I have to be ready...for something that never happens..... Tonight I was lying in my bed trying to get McKinney to go to sleep while our group was downstairs talking and I was so tired and knew that no one would mind if I just fell asleepwith my dear little son, but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.
I'm throwing caution to the wind now though. At night I have my best thoughts-or maybe not the best, but the most open-ended, wondering, searching, freeing ability to write all that I'm rambling on in my mind and my heart.

Tonight was our Monday meal gathering. Some people from our church get together at our house and eat dinner and talk and laugh and sometimes focus on something from the Bible or Christian life. It's been a wonderful experience. We look forward to Mondays the most of all days and the people who come have been becoming friends. My friend who called tonight was asking how that happened, and I just honestly don't know. It just happened. We all were looking for the same thing-authenticity and daily living life together and somehow it happened. We're not all best friends-at least not yet-but I trust them and enjoy their company and know that they honestly care about me and my family and I care about theirs. I guess I could just label it grace.

On the matter of friends: I long for a best friend. I should preface that-a best GIRL friend. Jon is definately my bestfriend. But I don't know that I've ever had a best girlfriend. There have been good friends, but no one who I've been completely comfortable and honest with, and who has felt the same with me. I long for someone who lives near me, who can go to the park with me and McKinney, who can see me in sweats unshowered and I am unashamed. Someone to call up when our kids are being so gosh darn funny, and someone to complain too when the kids are being pains in the ....... Someone who questions themselves, fears the worst, hopes for the best, laughs at life, and smiles. I think I'll take out a personal ad. Why has this been such a difficult thing for me? Why have I always felt like the odd woman out? I know they say that if you have one best friend in life you're lucky, but I guess I just want in on that kind of luck. Blogging is a great therapy for me, but it's not the same as a voice on the telephone, or a hand patting mine over a cup of tea. My friends of long ago, and those yet to be, " I appreciate who you are in my life and I don't discount you because we were not bestfriends, but I pray for you and myself that there is someone out there who will laugh with you and occasionally at you-someone who will share the very marrow of life with you."
That is my dream this night.

Side note: still waiting on a job-another chiro position in the works...we'll see, we'll see...Have patience...

Dark night
quiet house
me and a cup of tea
Off to bed

Just sitting here reading about friends, thinking about warn sunny weather and my baby asleep in the other room and realize, "I feel great!". It's been a long time since I've felt this way and the realization was lovely! Whoops-there's the baby awake from his nap. Must go!

Dirt and Sun

I ruffle my sons hair and the smell of dirt and sun rises up and tells me that it's summer and my little boy is growing up. The baby smells have been replaced by backyard dirt and playground sand. We have left the house behind and are discovering creation again. It leaves us tired and refreshed and happy for another day. The weather is invigorating and we're soaking it up. Lots of fruits and vegtables and fresh air! It is good to be alive.
This night is cooling down and I'm ready to find my fuzzy blanket and wrap up with some paperwork. Hum drum, but I read in the sun this afternoon and now resposibility calls. Maybe a cup of cocoa or tea and than I'll slip in cool sheets and listen to the crickets and train whistles lull me to sleep.

I did not take the job I wrote about in my last blog. The vibes I got from the office were not life giving, so I am still looking. Still praying.

A rememberance: Once, when we lived in PA, I decided to look for a job (this was before McKinney). I was a homemaker at the time and getting pretty bored up on the mountain by myswlf in an empty house 11hrs a day. I was talking to an older woman about it and she looked at me(mind you this is in November) and says, "Renae, what you need is a garden." In the simple life of PA, a garden fiexed all your problems apparently. I think I must have just smiled, because she truly thought I beleived that would cure my woes. I still think back on that with a smile. I do like to garden, but it is not a substitute for socializing in my life. A garden is in my summer future though.

Brooding

So I have to decide on whether or not to take a job. If the opportunity had presented itself before McKinney I think I would have taken it. Although, I may have gone for a more cushy, less, money job. But, most likely, I would have taken it. But now, when I look into the face of finding and deciding and paying for childcare, I want to jump back into my hole and shout "no way". It just feels like so much work and such a huge impact upon our families life. Still, the numbers don't add up and more money needs to come from some place and I truly am ready to go to work and I truly believe McKinney will be great with other kids and new opportunities. I just get so afraid of making the wrong decision. I place the weight of the world on my shoulders and demand "Jump this high" knowing I can never make it. Most of the time I just jump back into my hole. I hate risking. I am very calculated except when it means discipline. Anway, someone please give me the right answer. Do I take the job? It is not a life or death commitment. It's just life with so many paths and ways and turns and ups and downs. Why am I so afraid of failing the world and myself? I've already won in Christ right? Still, I feel like a failure and that that is what I will continue to allow my self to be. God have mercy on me a sinner.

Check your socks

I feel like such a heel. This morning McKinney was his bright smiley self, until an hour into the day. Then hell came to earth. He was screaming and fussing and wouldn't be put down. Nothing could distract him, not even his toothbrush or telephone which are on a spiritual level in his world. I'm holding him and trying to get ready to leave for an early childhood class thinking everything a mom thinks when their child turns into a nightmare-is he sick, do his teeth hurt, are these growing pains, does he have an earache, is he still tired, hungry, wet, constipated? We go to class and he cries in the car, seems better at class, but still fussy, cries on the way home, when we get in the house, as I change his diaper......finally, I pull off his sock. On his little foot is a deep impression from a thread that had gotten caught around his little toe and pulled and pinched it. My poor baby. The worst thing, is that I thought about the sock. A little voice said, "Maybe the sock is bothering him." I even grabbed an extra pair as we were running out the door thinking I could check it when we got to school. But it seemed like such a minor, silly little thing, that I didn't follow the premonition. And for that my child suffered needlessly for two hours.

How often has this happened in my life? How often has the Spirit prompted and I've said "No, that's too simple to be the solution", or "That's silly", or "where did that thought come from" and ignored it. Many many Many Many Many Many times. And sometimes I've suffered for it and other times I've felt like a fool for it. How long will it take me to trust in and listen to the Life inside me that is so much wiser and gentler and kinder than myself? How long, Oh Lord?

On another note, a friend asked today how another friend of mine is doing who was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer. I have been running so hard from Life Emotions that to respond has brought tears to the surface. I spend so much time evading the reality of emotions that are simmering in my soul.

Emotions make me uncomfortable and I have a difficult time making time for them because they seem to me uncontrolable and irrational and I don't now what to do with them. They feel wrong which is likely a result of growing up in a home where my parents didn't respond much to emotions. If I was really happy, I went to my room. If I was really sad, I went to my room. I didn't express my emotions to my parents because they didn't seem to know what to do with them-they would get upset or ignore tears, and downplay excitement. "Don't rock the boat" would be a good expression for my house. This is a BIG issue for me at thereapy. Changing my perspective about my emotions and allowing them to be whatever they are is a challenge and takes work...and I have been putting it off with busyness the last three weeks.

Betsy, who has ovarian cancer, is doing well. She has had 3 chemo treatments and although tired, has not gotten sick from them. Her body is respondig very well. We don't know what the future holds, but she has no fear of death. I truly believe that she is content with whatever her fate is. She lives in the present and is thankful for her past. She is Grace to me. I cannot think of this world without her; it hurts too much. I feel as if I need her here to keep me steady. When life is pressing in and I don't know how I will take one more breath, I stop at Betsy's and I gather enough stillness and thankfulness and love to go on again a little slower, and a little more steady. She is Christ to me. When you think of her, please say a prayer, that God's will would be done.

There is much more on my heart right now, but I this is all I want to bear right now.
Rainy Monday.