Not Quite Done

Words matter in how we use them and how we remember others using them on us.  I have had a poopy couple of weeks.  Yes, there has been some self infliction.  Please raise your hand if you have never self inflicted an emotional wound?  Do I hear crickets?  I thought so.  Combine that with fighting a summer cold, home responsibilities, work  and trying to plan a few sets of days off over the next few months  (which is probably the most stressful thing ever) and I'm certain my pleasantness quotient has dropped to about a 3.  

Some friends and loved ones have taken this particular opportunity to point out where my life goes wrong.  Oh-kay, fine.  Thanks for that and I'll take note.  But right now, really?   I have listened, rallied and supported through everyone's bad days, medical problems, goofy parents, divorces, broken hearts, pregnancies (don't get me started because at least you can get pregnant; stop complaining and be grateful), child rearing years, drunken mistakes, idiot boyfriend and girlfriend choices, car accidents and bad latte orders.   I have never called them complainers.  I understand the need to vent and I've always felt honored that it was to me, even though a few things would make me roll me eyes and think, really?  

But the new feeling I am getting is not a warm and fuzzy one.  Not a feeling of support or understanding.  It has been more along the lines of me needing to keep my mouth shut, in most situations, with a very few exceptions.  This is partly because I don't always have something uplifting to say and partly because I don't care to hear the judgement.  This is difficult because I love talking to those I know about anything and everything.  It's just who I am. Of course, there have always been some people that I know I can't converse with any more than nail polish and shampoo.  You know, generic, non emotional, no-room-for-gossip, conversation.   To top it all off, talking and listening to The Lord has been a struggle for me because His voice seems so small right now.  It's because I am struggling, not because He is.  

Sadly, this lesson comes during a time when I was just beginning to find myself again, branch out a little,  and make a genuine effort towards well, anything, since the passing of my mother.  I have chosen to be closed off, quiet and emotionally alone for the majority of the past year and I don't think anyone can understand what it was like to lose her. I have felt like a wounded animal in a cage and, rather than snapping at people who come at me, I stayed cowered in the corner.  Those feelings have no timeline and they don't go away two or three months later.  You never get over it and the pain never goes away and some days I am still overwhelmed with grief.  She was everything to me.  We lived in the same house, went to church together, read our Bibles together, shared clothes and shoes, had coffee together every day, ate almost all of our meals together and talked about everything without limits. In the times I was quiet and not talking to one person, it certainly didn't mean I was talking to another in their place.  I just wasn't talking to anyone.  If the truth be told, some days I just couldn't.  On the journey to embrace my feelings, there have been times where I have snapped and swiped at others because anger is a feeling along this road.  I will apologize but guarantee this will continue to happen again as I remember what it's like to feel with and for others.  But no one else has done that, I'm sure.  

There are levels between the depths of my soul and nail polish and I will figure out where each person I contact fits.   I am a work in progress.  We all are.  Some days my progress is slowed by rain and some days I am on total shut down by an internal hurricane but I always get back up.  My Heavenly Father always gets me back up.   He's not done with me yet.