, …… hello, again.

Hello, Again. 

You know, this blog used to be one of my most well-maintained interests. It goes without saying that I've been dormant for a long stretch now, but even this - an outlet - needs to rest.

And here I am, after several failed attempts at telling myself it'd be easy enough to just start again - the daily updating and entries. Looking back over a couple of random entries throughout the past couple years, it's clear that on some days, I really didn't have anything to say.

And that should've been ok.
Don't expect daily updates, from here on out.

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So let's start again, as the adage goes: "It's never too late to start (again) (over) (new)." 

So, …… hello, again. 

My daughter turns 9 tomorrow. September 1st. I remember 01 Sep 09 like it was yesterday, right down to the color I'd painted my toenails that morning - a nervous task I'd set myself to because I was home alone and strangely sure that I wouldn't safely make it to the hospital on my own accord if I'd tried. My labor and delivery rang in at a whopping 18 total minutes, and a nurse after my delivery complimented my nails; they were a rustic shade of burgundy, by the way. The center of my world shifted that day, embodied in a living 90's glowworm doll - that tiny little burrito over whom I would proceed to cry for the next day, out of both raw joy and the onset of terror that the number of clues I had as to what I was doing equaled zero. And partly, I think, because I was sleepless, caffeine-less and had just expelled a human. Who knows. 

AAANYWAY, I took a picture of Sydni (aforementioned daughter) yesterday, decked out in new club soccer gear, and we shared a joke about photos in general. It's a bit I'd borrowed from the late Mitch Hedberg, a response to that thing people say: "show me a picture of you when you were younger!" The joke goes on to point out that every picture of us is a picture of us when we were younger. ("Show me a picture of you when you are older, and I might be impressed," is the tail end of that - Mitch). For a split second, Sydni had a tough time wrapping her mind around that, but eventually thought it was funny, and rattled off a short list of friends with whom she was immediately going to share it. I mean, it's middle elementary: one of the most competitive, over-saturated markets for unheard joke material. (Go get 'em, kid). 

That was yesterday. Now it's Friday night and I'm coming down off another full week of work, workouts, soccer, life group, birthday preparations. Tomorrow's the actual birthday party, but for tonight, I have the liberty of stretching out on my couch, alone in the stillness of my own home with an acoustic playlist and a laptop at the mercy of this babbling blog. It's 31 August 2018; we're 2/3 through the 3rd quarter of the year. My daughter turns 9 tomorrow, and I am…….. older even now, than I was when I wrote the paragraph preceding this. *sigh. 

Over the past eight months, approximately 839 separate voices convened for a bracket-like tournament in my soul. They were each vying for pole position there, in the driver's seat, wrestling to control my actions, my choices, my words, my priorities. These rival thoughts went head to head, and much like any elimination tourney, there were some easy winners and some underdogs. There were some calls too exhausting for even me to make, the re-matches, the tough losses and the occasional invitation for the cast-offs to return just to stir the pot. Okay, so it's more like a demented hybrid of a legitimate tournament and a reality show, when it comes the thoughts that root and rule me. Human heart versus human mind versus God-governed heart & mind, versus external influences, other people, conflicting advice and learning from experiences. 

One team of thoughts, aptly named APATHY, has a lot of very well-trained players, expertly conditioned to attack me when I'm at my weakest and exploit what they find. Seems contradictory to call them thoughts of apathy, given how aggressively and actively they engaged me, but that's what they created. That's where I lived - in a floating abyss of apathy. Apathy by definition is the absence of interest, enthusiasm and/or concern. 

My relationships were suffering. 

My work was suffering. 

My faith was being strained.
My physical body was exhausted and weak. 

My heart was running on a cobwebbed reserve of muscle memory.

I was re-becoming depressed. (Re-becoming? Sounds good, let's go with it)

And I was there because the things I'd come to compartmentalize and/or attribute to that 'well that's how it/he/she is' junk drawer, eventually poured over all showed up on my doorstep at the same time, demanding my undivided attention. And what's the human response to that? Shutting down. Avoiding the ugliest of the things, the ones that cut the deepest, because what - because we don't want to get hurt. 

The team captain for Team Apathy is Fear. 

Fear temporarily ruled my heart: a wolf hidden under the cloak of self-preservation. I saw that the relationship in my life's foreground: my marriage, was not just falling apart, but should not have happened in the first place. It's not to say he was/is not a good person (on the contrary), but adults are well-versed in the idea that a good person is not inherently the right person. And world, I feared the repercussions of walking away from that. I feared the judgment. I feared that the tug deep in my heart to get out, was somehow misguided. That I'd end up following a siren to my inevitable undoing. I feared the big picture. I feared the conflict this had against the grain of what I believe in, re: marriage. I feared that starting over would wreck me, render me unreachable, unlovable, unacceptable. I became afraid that I couldn't trust anyone again, and that would only aide in warding off anyone who was brave or blind enough to give it a shot. I feared myself: knowing that after trauma like that, I shut down and internalize. I lost sight of why we'd even arrived at that place. 

Team Apathy co-captain: Guilt

By May, I'd found enough gumption to sever that toxic relationship. The signatures on the lines came and went, and in their stead came two competitors: relief & guilt. They less fought than debated, one taking center stage for a while and the other stepping in to contradict. One deep weight had been lifted, dissolved. The cavern it left became prime real estate for guilt to settle in. Guilt that I'd let my family down. My friends. Guilt that I'd both allowed things I hadn't seen but should have into a life involving my daughter, and then the guilt of taking away the good parts that I'd worked so hard to filter just for her. The distraction of the steps involved in that severing had taken a toll on my work - so even my life in the office felt strained. I'd let fear unravel my confidence so evenly across all my endeavors, that I'd adopted the idea that I was just failing to pull my own weight, along with the guilt that was birthed by not doing it. I'd let myself down. In my self-deprecating mind, I'd let God down and there was nothing I could do to undo it. Guilt, guilt. guilt. 

The other players on Team Apathy: Doubt, Resentment, Envy, Lies. 

K, I know none of these things so far sound like apathy - on their own, they aren't, but when they compound and feed off each other, their goal of shutting me down is usually achieved, and everything becomes both overwhelming and bland all at once. Am I the only one?! (I've recently re-discovered, with unending gratitude that the answer is NO, I am not the only one). But seriously - anyone?! Something (or somethingS) happen, and instead of washing the proverbial dirty dishes in the sink, you let them begin to let them pile up, and pile up, and pile up.. and every single time you pass by them, you're reminded of your inadequacy and inability to tackle something that everyone of your (age) (position) (gender) (training) should be able to do in their sleep with a hand tied behind their back. You doubt you're ever going to see the bottom of that sink. You resent every dirty dish that's there, and the person who put it there, whether it was you or not. And you think of someone you know (or even past you!) who has/had no issues at all knocking out a mess just like this one. But there you are, a mountain of mess in different shapes and sizes before you, and that weight is so heavy that you buckle under it, and instead of rolling up your sleeves to stick your hands in dirty water, you turn a blind eye.. just one.more.time. You believe the lie that you can't. You become apathetic. I BECAME APATHETIC.

BUT HERE'S THE *GOOD* NEWS

And WHEW, is it GOOD.

Just as Apathy was a top seed in the battle for my loyalties, there is no competition without a rival. And where Apathy rallied its strongest players, with their deceptive agenda and loveless core, it's adversary had actually already been there waiting to be recognized… again. 

I'll let the sports bracket analogy go - we get the point. But seriously, you guys - GRACE. 

GRACE, by definition as it pertains to my context here (faith): The free and unmerited favor, love for us, through and by God. 

^^ I may have just lost a handful of you, who maybe didn't know before you got to this part that I'm a treacherously broken and self-damaged human whose only hope in this world is to rely on the saving Grace of the God who created the heavens, the earth…….. and little blip-on-the-map me (I'm a Christian). Understanding the depth of faith's true potential is something none of us may ever fully accomplish, but it's a conversation I'm happy to have with you outside of this blog, if you want. It's an entry for another day, but it's been an arduous journey with a feet-dragging, water breaks and black-outs, if I'm being honest. 

Anyway, back to my point here: GRACE. 

Do you ever go through something, and whatever (or whoever) that is, forces you to a place where you - maybe against your pride, even -  become reliant on something or someone else who in reality has been there all along? That's exactly how it is for me. How it's always been. I take the grace I've been given for granted, until my feet are in the fire (usually because my dumb self put them there?), and I reach back desperately and instinctively for an anchor. And it's always, always there. 

Where Apathy umbrella'd fear, guilt, doubt, resentment, envy… they pale next to the legions of Grace: 

Forgiveness

Confidence

Patience

Truth

Love

Hope

Anyone who's ever done something they regret, can tell you what that wave of guilt feels like. How it presses into your core and makes you wish you could wash it off, but you can't. Turn back time, take it back or do it differently. Instead, we fixate on something else - something untouched, unrelated.. safe. For me, I compartmentalize. The junk drawer becomes a junk box, becomes a closet, becomes a storage unit ever-increasing in square footage. All the hurt, guilt, shame - all of that goes into that storage, where it stays and occasionally leaks back out when something happens and I'm forced to stare one of those feelings in the face again to process it. I then either shoulder it or project it onto someone close to me. Or I just shut down all together, become a full-functioning exterior encasing the inner work-in-progress (which is sometimes a quick add-on, remodel, full demolition & rebuild, or something brand new). 

But to really embrace the grace (I'm sorry that's a cheesy rhyme), I have to download the pillars that hold it in place over and in me: 

Forgiveness, of others but seemingly harder sometimes - of myself. Recognizing what I've done and asking forgiveness either from the person(s) I wronged, and then of myself.. is no easy task. Not everyone says yes - and more often than not, it's not other people turning me down. 

Confidence, that the next try will yield at best a completely different turnout.. and at worst, an opportunity to learn and grow. Confidence in the process, and in myself and others to realize that disappointment is part of the natural process, but it doesn't have to be a home. 

Patience. This one's easy to spot, because I'm not at all wired as a patience person (ok, sometimes, but more often… not). It's hard to exercise because I'm conditioned to see results of efforts, usually loooong before God has intended me to see them. 

Truth. I just had a discussion this week through life group, regarding the difference between being Nice and being Loving. While there's an overlap, the clear difference is that to be loving, we have to be willing to speak truth to ourselves and to others, however difficult that might be, or how much the human nature in us wants it to be false. Being nice is catering to the agenda of appeasing everyone, whereas a gentle truth will always carry more weight than a half-hearted compliment. 

Love. Suuuuuch a loaded word, with all of its possible contexts, forms and versions. For me, I view love - real love, as the manifestation of my vertical relationship. When I'm in line with what I've been called to be in Christ, I am confident. I am patient. I feel love, not on a surface level, but in the way that we feel it from good parents - where we want to make them proud and when we do AND when we don't, they speak in truth but still love us exactly the same. For my life, that means loving my daughter unconditionally. Loving hard-to-love people exactly where they are, and keeping a leash on my own agenda. It means forgiving others and myself when I don't want to, and allowing the girl in mirror to breathe deep, and understand that she is not perfect, but she absolutely is worthy. 

Hope, because where are any of us without it? Where do I go, if I don't believe the hope that my daughter will grow into a young woman who values herself and other people? What do I do - what do any of us do, if we lose hope that the end hasn't come yet? We have ALL seen the damage done by people who lose hope. It's not a road I want any of us on, ever. 

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End of 2017: 

I'd lost focus, lost sight, misplaced hope. I'd forgotten about grace, and gave into apathy. I became this weird kind of limbo-ey shell and I knew I couldn't stay there. FORTUNATELY, and I cannot stress this enough: I half found (half was found by) a small, yet varied network of people who took the time to pour into me. To pursue me. Gently persistent because they loved me exactly where I was and knew that I needed help. Their words weren't always nice. They weren't unkind, but they weren't spoken out of a feel-good agenda. They were spoken to me by people who loved me enough to say the things I didn't want to hear, see, feel. Eight short months ago, the pot boiled over, and those people who intimidated me with their honest love that I felt I didn't deserve, were the people I needed the most. Not all of them agreed with the life changes I had to make to get back on solid ground, but not once did they stop loving or accepting me. 

To fill the gap: yes, I found solid ground. It's solid, blooming and surrounded by fresh air, water and people who invest into me for my own sake. I've regained my footing and dismissed Apathy and its team of sore losers. My relationships have recovered. I'm back on the field at work. Literally back on the field & in the gym for soccer. Connected with my daughter in a more intentional way than maybe ever, before now. I have room to grow, mountains to climb. But grace will win, every time, even when the outlook is bleak. 

And now that I'm almost two hours older than when I started this entry - if you're still with me here - I hope that if you've gleaned anything from this, it's that it is NOT too late for you to turn the page in your book, take a deep breath, and just… start, again. 

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Final thoughts…. 

I had a conversation a few years back with a friend about trying our best to raise kids in a broken world, and she made the comment, 

"I mean, at this point I'm not even worried what he wants to be when he grows up, as long as he's not the bully or the snob." 

Despite other areas where we don't always see eye-to-eye, I couldn't help but want to agree with her on this one. I mean, how true is that? How many parents can identify with that, at its core? Moreover, how many of us became - even if just momentarily - one or both of those, and would be proud to say it?

The bully or the snob? The one who attacks other for his/her own self-gain, or the one who can't be bothered with the perceived menial problems of anyone deemed below whatever threshold dictates worthiness? I know for a fact that I've been both, and that I'm not proud of it. I know that I'm working my hardest to instill a spirit of confidence and humility into my daughter - to equip her to be aware of the world but still compassionate.

So tomorrow, the center of my earthly focus turns 9. She is everything a mother could hope for at this stage: healthy, intelligent, social, energetic, with eyes that light up when she is happy and give away when she isn't but says she is. She wears her heart on her sleeve and isn't afraid to cry when it hurts. She comes back the next day ready to give it right back to the world. 

She is everything I hope to be, when I grow up. And when I do, I'll know that maybe I got it right after all. It's never too late. 

So hello, again. 

xo | cmd