Between Peace and Pain.

At 3:30 am I woke up out of a deep sleep because of pain. What is it about 3:30 am? It's the witching hour. I was flat on my back legs drawn up like a frog and every inch of me hurt. It struck me funny, a frog in a sea of pain. Words started flooding my head. I could have rolled over and gone back to sleep. Go to the medicine cabinet and pick a pill...but when my head is full of words, that's a good time to write and just let it flow.

Yesterday a good friend picked me and my lounge chair up, and we went to the reservoir to just sit by the water and be soul soothed.

It was a great idea. It's been very windy and a bit of a nip in the air. Our last taste of coolness. I could have been looking at Monterey. Yeah, I know that takes imagination but I let myself enjoy it like that.
The cool wind, the pretend peninsula, and that vacation feeling rests me.

Sitting in the chair I notice a teeny patch of wildflowers at my feet. They are almost invisible with the dead grasses,  new grasses and that dark shadow in the corner. It looked like my life.  The tiny sprouts of joy are being threatened by a dark unknown shadow, the weeds, the dead and the living. The flowers are tiny, tender, and outnumbered.

My daughter is darkly angry. I said out loud those words. She hears judgement, condemnation.  What is spoken and what is heard, not communicating. What matters is the wounding, sometimes wounds heal and sometimes they drive wedges.

The mothers words blurted out.... now that dark hole looms like an abyss.

How far will we fall? How much distance? Will she withdraw again?
My heart can't take it. Little flowers of hope and peace threatened by overwhelming fear of the looming shadows....

I spoke the words.
I regret it. I would rather put the beast of my tongue back in the closet and leave it unnamed. Shove it back and slam the door.
Let her have it her way. I want her. I want her more than naming.
She can have her life the way she wants it. It's hers .

But how do you take back a spoken word?

The tension is so thick it could be cut like a knife. Polite words, full of distance as she races by me as fast as she can and hurry to her room . There is no house big enough for people who want to be away...

My heart rips open. Old too familiar pain with new cuts. Fear of losing. It's a fight. More than just the fight between the mother and the daughter. The fight for the peace. The fight for that space that I am finding, the place of resting in the now. Enjoying moments and freeze framing little joys to say thank you for. That's the secret for me. Blessing what is here instead of wanting and wishing for what is not here.

The enemy knows how to rob, steal and destroy. Even while sitting here in this gentle place of rest, anxiety looms quietly in the background.  Will she leave me again? Eight long years I placed the knowledge of a daughter in the bottom of my consciousness. I did not let myself remember  that at one time I had birthed a baby girl. Instead I just lived with buried sorrow.

Then she returned. With loving arms and heart embraces and brought me from the pit. Her love brought healing. Oh the things we do, the things we say, blurting out what needs to be unspoken!

Sometimes something is just so - in your face. Sometimes the elephant in the room is so big... you just say, "there is an elephant".
Why do we as a group of people, our culture,  or is it just me  why do we feel obligated to fix everybody else?

 I have bought into it, gone with the whole idea of conforming every one into Barbie and Ken, fit, thin and free. Having a wardrobe full of fashionable clothes, accessories, and a pink convertible. We are all supposed to be jogging around on our long dimple free legs, eating like rabbits and not having any neuroses.

In your dreams. 

Humans are never going to be like that. We are mess. Humanity is a mess. That is why we need God. We can't fix ourselves. We can't fix each other. The only thing that really does help is to come alongside and give love. Love is patient, love is kind, love does not keep a record of wrongs.

Jesus told us to take the log out of our own eye, before we tell our daughter about the speck in hers.
Maybe keeping quiet and praying about both of those things is a better way. My log and her speck.

I do not know how to restore the peace.
Call it any name you like, codependency, denial,  whatever, I don't care.
It's not my problem to fix. If it's not a problem to her then so be it. She is not my little child anymore she is grown. It is her life. She can wrestle with her own choices.

I just want her. 
I want her sweetness, her arms, her kisses. I want to hear "mama" as only she can say it.

  She is the only one who can say mama.


I refuse to fall into that dark hole of grief again.  I feel like Gandalf facing the balrog in the deep mountain. He stood his ground with that devil and yelled, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"
Sometimes we just have to stand against the devils that would kill our loved ones.

Maybe that is part of the lesson of my own life with RSD. Every day is so unpredictable. I cannot plan for anything. I don't know what is possible in the future. I only know the present, from one moment to the next. That is the real truth for everyone but for me it is in my face. MaGniFieD.

Simple things like planning to weed a small patch of ground. I have not been able to play in the dirt again, not yet. (Yes Chris I love dirt)
 Another good day will come. I had hoped to do a little every day, but it won't be like that.  I cannot focus on the weeds. Those "things" that make my life not perfect. I cannot focus on weeds the literal and the figurative anywhere.

All my life I have strived to make my surroundings perfect. To make beauty, to improve, to make it better. An endless supply of ideas to make this home better. It drives my husband nuts. He longs to be content with what is. When I get a glimpse of being "there" content with what is, I understand.
Wanting is a peace robber. Wanting something different than what is. Wanting more.

What I deeply crave now is peace.  The peace that passes understanding. The peace of God. The peace that can fill a soul in the middle of any situation or difficulty. Peace when there is no solution. When my peace is robbed my coping with my pain falters, tumbles, and spills away. I wake up in the night with frog legs drawn up, back aching, hands on fire, every inch of this body in pain. It amazes me that it is possible to feel so much.

Jesus taught us that some demons cannot be driven away without fasting and prayer. I have a host of them to drive away, not by my efforts but by His.

That is the answer, fast not fear. Now I will go back to sleep.
I will pray in my dreams.
Lord restore the peace, and send the robber away. In the midst of this life just as it is, restore my peace.
Cradle me sweet shepherd, soothe this fearful anxious sheep. Carry me across your shoulders so I learn and know the sound of your voice, the smell of your garments, the touch or your hands.
Teach me your ways.