Riding the wave, and my sick love for analogies

Some days waking up and getting up is really difficult right now. Moving around with the anxiety that my body could betray me.  But hearing "Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma!" yelled sweetly from the crib next door just melts it all away and my feet get moving and my attitude improves and my spirit is lifted. There is no medicine better than the love of a child.

Second to that right now is the ability to sit down and type. Knowing that there is this empty box to type in and that I can fill it with my words and ideas, no matter what anyone else thinks or feels about it. It reflects part of my aching soul and seeing it somehow looking back at me helps me to heal a little more each time.


Recently, I was at a friend's house having yet another moment of word vomit. I call it word vomit because it's so rare that I am around adults to talk to that I feel like I get started talking and I literally cannot stop. It's like word vomit that flows.  Ok gross.  I guess scratch that...here's a better analogy because now I feel like Chunk from Goonies and I'm gonna be sick.

 (Once again, for those who don't know this reference Kelly Lawler, go watch it.) So, here's the better analogy, I'm like a wind up doll.  I sit at home and think a bunch of things, if I don't go anywhere or have anyone to talk to or go to therapy - yes therapy, I actually have two therapists (I need A LOT of help!) then I end of talking people's faces off when I actually get a chance to talk to REAL LIVE PEOPLE.  It's even worse if they don't know what's going on with me, I turn into a classic older sick person (no offense please) complaining about goiters and kidney stones--both of which I hear are painful.  But, I take every opportunity to melt people's faces off with my health issues or discussions on growth or accepting change.

I always feel so dirty afterwards.

Ha.

Like I've stolen something from them.  Like I've taken time from them that they will never get back and they are covered, just covered in my word vomit and their faces are laying there melted on the floor.  And once I've left the party early, they have to wipe it all off, pick up their faces and take a deep breath and wonder, "What was that tornado of crazy spouting all sorts of insanity?"

But I will qualify that with a few nuggets of hopeful realizations.  Not for them. I cannot speak for them. Ha! I don't think I am doing anyone else any good at all. And if by and stroke of crazy luck I am - great. But I feel dirty because because I need them so badly for my word vomit, they help me get  it out SO much.

But a an absolutely MAGICAL thing happened (for me) the other night when I was describing my faith.  I've had a really difficult time thinking of how to describe it through this ordeal.  I really like analogies, if you've been reading my blog at all or even this entry you've probably figured that out by now.  And if you've been my staff at any point in time, then you absolutely know my love of analogies to be true.

Let me start by saying that it takes me an incredible amount of time to write these blogs. I'm literally on brain-numbing medication.  Sometimes I write parts of these blogs over the course of several days pieces at a time.  I cannot focus for very long and I have to re-read them several times looking for spelling mistakes and grammar errors and I know I still miss a  ton of them-so sorry for any grammar loving fiends. I'm okay with it, well because it's a blog and it's mine.  But, I'm seeing things a bit more clearly now because I'm on a new medication that makes me a bit less like a zombie and instead just more ADD. I'm explaining this only to let you know that there really isn't any way I would have been able to describe my struggle with faith in the past.

I don't know how or why but the word vomit - er the wind up started up the other night and I started explaining about how much control I felt I had in my life. I tried to control a lot of situations. Ok, I'll be come clean, I tried to control MOST situations.  I've flashed back to a conversation I had  with a friend during a tough time during my past over and over throughout my life and in my mind's eye-I could still see him standing there saying the same thing to me "just be." It's a lesson I have struggled with understanding ever since he made the statement. Each time I went to hot yoga and they do the runner's pose and they mention that you have to be uncomfortable in the stretch to grow, I would always think of his statement, because it made me so uncomfortable just like the runners pose. I could never really figure out why.  And I always fought the stretch.

Flash forward to the word vomit and the "get together" and my conversation about faith. During the course of the past several months that I've been struggling with poor health,  I've been angry.  I've been really angry. I've been hurt. I've felt abandoned. At times, by family, friends, by coworkers, by God, by doctors and even by myself. And by God's grace something just fell out of my mouth and in conversation it poured out of me, and it helped me.  And, if you don't believe in what I believe, that's fine, I'm not trying to convert you but maybe you can relate to the control part.

I told the women sitting next to me that I've let go of the anger and the feeling of abandonment.  I'm not angry and I don't really feel the need to forgive anyone because I don't have any control.  And that I'm not really angry at God anymore because I am trying to ride the wave. And I saw the look of confusion and wrinkled brow. I explained. I said I've spent so much time trying to control everything, I felt so much like I was on a surfboard trying to control everything, the wind and the wave and my balance, that once I let go and just rode the wave, everything fell into place, I let God be in control and just stopped trying to manage everything. I finally understood what my friend had said years ago. "Just be."  And I explained and sort of admitted maybe even confessed that there were days I still tried to control, well everything, or got angry, those were the bad days, the days I fell off. But there were still the good days, the days I'd get back on the board and let Him be in control, the days He would provide the perfect wave to ride and I could let go, feel the sun on my face and hold my arms out to the side. Que the music from Titanic - Kidding.

 I'm thankful for the lesson.  It's not easy to have faith. I'm not going to sugar coat it. I don't have an easy time with this. And I have struggled for a very long time, years and years.  But, like I said, I'm looking for teaching through this because I think there are lessons through pain, just like there is growth from that runner's pose no matter how hard I fight it and I'm still hoping to get there or somewhere, maybe where ever the wave takes me.