Respect this Space (Kara)

How long has it even been since I posted? I have written of course, but nothing much comes from it. I am clearly in a period of frustration. I guess I figure who wants to read a blog about feeling frustrated. Who wants to hear my sob story when we all know perfectly well that we all have sob stories.

I don’t talk about my situation or life’s ups and downs to make people feel sorry for me or even to inspire. I just write because it helps me. It is mostly selfish I guess. I don’t have answers that will make things clear or better.  I don't have answers period. Not for me or anyone. All I have is this head full of thoughts that keep coming and going, and if I don't get them out it will kill me. Honest to God it will kill me.  

I have always wanted to write. They say anyone can write a book and we each have a good book in us. All that makes me think is that I am no one special, I don't have anything more to say than the next person. But if I don't utilize what I “enjoy” doing (writing) and what God has “given” me (life experience), then what in the hell am I doing here? I can't continue living this way. Full of questions and worry and doubt. I can't continue to try to make it all make sense. I can't continue to live in a world that is full of seeking our own individual happiness. It is so selfish and boring. It is pointless. Granted I am depressed. We all struggle with depression from time to time, and we all handle that struggle differently. I’m fighting. I am actively trying to work my way through it. Depression alone, is a blog, a book, a debilitating struggle. There are seasons of less chaos and then there are seasons of turmoil that I worry I won't come out of or have the gumption to work through. But regardless of the season I am in, there is always a sense of ...is it fear? Dread? Angst? I don’t know exactly.

Even before we lost Drew I was fighting battles in my head. Turns out we all do. It's just a matter of how hard you are gonna fight on any given day. What’s more, my struggles are NOTHING compared to the struggles of the vast majority of the population. I have food, I have a home, I have people who help me pick up the pieces. What about all the people who don't? I am lucky….lucky. Yet I am still stuck in my head and feel sorry for myself.

I am so sick of trying to live a good and Godly life when I don’t even know what I think about my faith anymore. I want to have faith, but I am afraid I am losing what little I have. I don’t want perfect, I know there’s no such thing. But I do want purpose. There has to be more than this.  And blogging about my miserable life can't be my purpose. Is it raising my kids? Well then I have failed my purpose. I win no award for mother of the year. I am constantly irritable, emotional and exhausted. I rarely cook dinner, and worry that we get fast food way too often. I do one thing right and 10 things wrong. Schedules, dates and rehearsals run together in my mind. I mix up which days are gold days and which are black.  All the while I feel like I just suck. I’m just a shitty parent trying to be both mom and dad.

This house. Oh God this house. I cannot keep up with it.  Broken dryer, chipped paint, cobwebs, piles of unwanted and unnecessary things that have accumulated over the years. A garage full of things I don’t use or want or even know what to do with. This is miserable. I am miserable and I don’t really know how it’s gonna get better. At least when Drew was here I actually looked forward to things. I swear I haven’t looked forward to something in 3 years. Is there laughter? Sometimes. Do I feel proud of my kids? Often. Do I love my family? Always. But there is no joy.

It hurts to remember. It hurts to forget. It hurts to look forward. It hurts to keep living. Start over, Kara. Rewrite your story. C’mon. You can do this. You will feel better after a workout, after you see your shrink. Yes, this is true. I might….until I don’t again and then I am right back to fucking square one. Right back at zero. Nothing but a life existing for no other reason than to pass the time, spread a little love when I can get outside of my own head, laugh a little, cry a lot….bang my head against the wall over and over again trying to understand what is never going to be understood. Trying to find someone who is no more. What kind of a miserable existence is this? It is a prison of self pity and selfishness.

Unless….I let it all go.  Do I have what it takes to push through and lose myself? Where is the balance between self care and self indulgence? If I become all about everything else, will I escape? Will I find whatever it is I am seeking?

At this point I do not have faith enough. I just don’t believe that I can do all things through Christ. I believe I am existing. We have managed to keep afloat because of circumstances and the PEOPLE who help us, love us, rescue us, and advise us. We are here and surviving. It is the GRACE of God, not He himself, reaching down and placing people here and there. Maybe it is God who moves us to be good people who help each other. That is the only God I see. Because of God within me I am able to try to live the way I think we are “supposed” to live. How else do you explain the desire to be good and do good. How else do I keep living? Is it really something taught? The intrinsic motivation to do the right thing has to be God given. So that is what I’m going on. I’m not going on God answering my prayers or curing a friend with cancer.  I’m not going on a God that spares one person on the road, only to take two others. I’m going on a God I cannot see or understand but know to be true.

I believe there is a God because there is so much good in the middle of all this awfulness. Good that just exists. It’s natural when we listen. Call the person, share the laugh, make a connection...DO SOMETHING! I can promise you I am not a motivated person on my own. It’s not in my makeup. I would rather stay in bed and hide from reality most days. But when I put my own ego aside, I know that there is more to this story. So I drag my bag ass out of bed. I make the lunches, I go to the studio, I smile at the stranger, I write the note...I just keep trying. Not for me. For them. For Him. I am often pissy and I hate everything about the day, but why then do I want to tell the person at the toll booth to keep the change? Why do I want to let the person behind the counter know that they matter? Why do I want to treat others with love and respect? Why do I feel bad when I make a judgement? Why does my stomach tense up when I look the other way and I know I shouldn’t? Well...I’m gonna go with God.  

Do I understand it?  No. Do I question it? Yes. Do I fear that all of this is for nothing? If I’m being honest, yes.  Of course. I want all of this to be worth it. Not just for me, but for my kids, my family and friends...for EVERYONE.  I want the pain to be FOR a reason. If I can be with Drew again, and you can be with your person and people, if war and disease and hate and violence lead to forever...when everything makes sense and all is well...  Then I’m all in. I can do this. I can survive because of what exists in the deepest part of our souls. There is my purpose. There is my peace. There is God and that is the only thing that seems to make any sense.

…

I wrote this last week. It was a miserable week. In the middle of it I did indeed go see my counselor. I am better this week...working on some things to be sure.

At the end of my last session my counselor looked at me and said something that I will turn over and over in my mind for years to come. “Respect the space you’re in.”

Simple...respect the space I’m in.  

I was so down. I was so sad, so broken. This is a space that I despise. It scares me and it beats me down. But it is real. So I have to respect it.  And by doing that I guess I acknowledge that it isn’t forever. It is recurring, but most times it isn’t forever.

And once again I see God…

My counselor’s words.  Her knowledge and her compassion were gifts to me.  

I left her office, walked outside into the hot September air, that I used to love, and looked at my phone.  A message from my sister, Wendy. A sister I don’t talk to enough, a sister I love so much. She didn’t call on the awful 5th day of September, the three year anniversary of Drew being gone. She called the day after and told me how she looked up into the sky the evening before and saw the big, rolling clouds and she thought of Drew. She told me how she pictured him up there in those clouds with his Grandma Nellie and Nellie’s twin sister. (Yes his grandma was a twin.) But in the middle of her memory she was irritated by the fact that she could not, for the life of her, remember the twin’s name. You know how when it’s on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t come up with it….so she jokingly said, “Hey Drew, can you throw that name down here for me…” and sure enough a little while later she remembered. Her name was Mary...of course. So then she gave a little thank you to Drew and went back to the happy thought, now complete. Drew, Grandma Nellie, Mary and so many others…

Wendy’s message made all the difference to me.

And then my soul sister restored my faith once again...how did she know??? She sent me a podcast along with a text message. Her text simply said… “Wait Training.”

Intrigued and always inspired by Stacy’s faith, I eagerly listened.  And I listened again. She told me the podcast was a series of 3...I went back and found the first one and listened. And listened again. There is a 3rd podcast in the series and I’m anxious to hear it soon. In the meantime I can’t get enough of the other two. There are so many, powerful, key words, phrases and thoughts that I want to ponder and consider.

It always goes back to wait training, which is why Roxy came up with our blog title in the first place. This life is a waiting game. Training yourself to wait is only part of the process. We wait always, but we live and we learn while we wait. Therein lies the true “training.” We have to train our minds just like we train our bodies. One experience takes you to the next and builds the “muscle” necessary to get you through the waiting. It’s not that we don’t enjoy what we’re doing while we’re doing it. It’s not that we aren’t living in the here and now, the present.  Rather, we ACTIVELY wait. We WRESTLE while we wait. This is what the podcast message was all about. We wrestle. When life becomes difficult we wrestle and embrace. When it’s tough, and it does get so tough, over and over again, we just have to wrestle with it. We wrestle with the fear and the questions and the doubt. We wrestle when we hurt. We wrestle while we wait.

What is it we are waiting for? It is different for each of us. It is different day to day, relationship to relationship, kid to kid. We wrestle while we wait to get the test results, the diagnosis. We wrestle through the shock and the trauma. We wrestle while we wait to have the child, to get the job, to heal the mind from sickness and addiction.  At the same time we must train ourselves to ENJOY AND GROW our hearts and minds when things are good.

Over and over we wrestle and embrace, embrace and wrestle. We train our hearts and minds to wait for the ultimate peace that is yet to come.

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