Order. Disorder. Reorder. What next.

A Studio full of friends and fellow creatives makes my heart swell

I sat in my studio Thursday afternoon on that couch over there in the corner by Noreen in the green shirt. The workshop was over Monday afternoon, and all that remained as evidence of it's vibrancy was a few bags of trash to empty, tools that had yet to be returned to their proper place, and a glow from the creative energy and sense of connected community that each person who was there contributed to so willingly. 

Spontaneously, I posted an image to Instagram, sharing my thoughts and ending with a series of hashtags, including one that said "everythinghappensforareason" and as soon as I posted it, it bugged me. 

I don't actually ascribe to the mindset that everything happens for a reason. I see it as a cruel dismissal of real people during real seasons of horrific trauma and pain. How do you explain away to a young mother without her baby in arms that there was a reason her child would not grow to see it's next birthday? How can you say everything happens for a reason to a widower who lost their beloved spouse to a tragic accident?

No. Just no. Sometimes there are things in life that just happen. Hard things happen because the world is home to both beauty and brokenness. 

I do, however, believe that there is something for me to learn from most of my experiences in life. Maybe it's about resiliency. Or maybe the situation is teaching me to have patience with someone I find challenging. Maybe life is helping me to shed false beliefs about myself. Or the cycle I find myself in over and over again is removing something from my heart that keeps me from connecting more deeply with another. Like a woodworker's block plane gliding across the surface of an invisible scar. Removing layer upon layer of tissue through the repetition, until I can once again feel love and be loved without defensiveness. 

But I also believe that without reason, we lose hope. That believing everything is arbitrary and random allows for chaos to have no redeeming quality. It just is what it is and no outside force is going to save me is a belief I used to have. It led me to some pretty messy decision making because I had no hope that something greater then me would step into my circumstances. 

That randomness of everything left me feeling like a victim. I joked about being the court jester in the theater of life. I threw in the towel and thought really terrible harmful thoughts like "it's all up to me". And let me tell you, when you are a woman who grew up in a home with an alcoholic perverse man as a father, and who got pregnant at the mere age of 15, gave birth to your first child at 16 and moved into your first roach infested apartment with your husband and two year old child at 17, thinking that there is no one you can rely on but yourself is a pretty dismal prospect in life.  

Eventually, and through a series of unfortunate events, I began to see that this truth wasn't the truth. Life began to inform me in a way that allowed a crack in my heart for God to step in. 

My story with God isn't tidy. And this post really isn't about that, except to say if I had to stand up and give you my testimony of that time that saved me, It would be more than a few hours long. Messy people (aka - most humans) often need saving over and over again. And there was the kind of saving where I knew without a shadow of doubt that a hand over my life had led me to that thing. But there also has been the kind of saving where that hand was simply leading me to discover what I already contained within myself. Not as "all up to me", but as a strength and ability that came through the newfound confidence of knowing I am really not alone. Somebody does have my back. 

I hear those protests. I spoke them aloud to myself and my kids for years and years. I know all the best arguments and all the irrational logic that can come from the belief in God, or the belief in no God. I've walked on both sides. Many times. I've swung back and forth in the process so completely that my life might be described as a pendulum. If I were a politician, you'd accuse me of being a flip-flop. Swinging from belief, to unbelief, to different versions of belief, to various ideas and philosophies. Or what Father Richard Rohr describes as the typical believers process - Order, Disorder, Reorder. 

Order is a season where everything has to happen for a reason. It is a tidy belief where God has control of everything and my job is simply to put on the sweater set, the pearls, get a sensible haircut, stop swearing, and smack my kids on the back of the head when they roll their eyes too much or fall asleep in the church pew. 

Disorder comes next. Tidy doesn't stay tidy very long. Kids rebel. The dog of life runs through the mud and tracks it all over the clean kitchen floor of your heart. There is no way to explain away the terrible thing you are going through with the belief that everything happens for a reason without winding up hating God, or believing that God hates you. Or your neighbor. 

Searching for meaning that is tidy and fits these things can make an even bigger mess of it all. In this season, where I am still walking fairly consistently, I haven't stopped believing in God. On the contrary, my belief has become stronger. I stopped going to church, but not to God. It's been a different experience then when I dropped out just after I was "saved" as a teenager. It's not a rebellion, but an expedition. I am forging my way through the jungle of my heart and the lies I've believed. His hand is that carpenter with the plane, shaving away what isn't serving me well. Not that shaving thing that happens when you are in a season of order, and the sweater set, pearl wearing version of yourself throws away all the Metallica CDs. Quite the opposite. 

Disorder.

It's the part that begins to grasp that there is something beautiful in the mystery of not knowing. In the lack of explaining. The lack of the dualistic black and white thinking. And the lack of being able to explain it all away with a cheerful glowing God has a reason blah, blah, blah. I begin to understand there is something more. Deeper. Wider. More free then I can imagine.

It is in the chaos that comes from breaking free of the rigid restrictive rules of order that I meet myself. In that old place, I am ever in jeopardy of losing my ticket through the pearly gates. One wrong move and it's over. Disorder helped me see that I don't have to walk that plank. 

In this place called Disorder, I find the green valley at the foot of the mountaintop. I can run. I can walk. I can lay down in the grass. I can read different ideas and explore my own thoughts, and find my way through each story I encounter to find the shining glimmer of truth it contains. I am learning to let go of my fear. If I talk to someone who believes differently, I don't have to be afraid that their beliefs will overpower me and invite something horrible in. What a closed door that would be to connection. But I also see that I don't have to allow every toxic person to have access to my life. It is not my job to be present for everyone and anyone who crosses my path. I don't have to prove anything for God's sake, or my own. 

Yesterday I heard a woman on the radio talking about the difference between safe spaces and brave spaces. Safe spaces are places of protection for the traumatized person to recover, to recoup from the trauma, in whatever form it came for them. Safe places look like havens for the lost and abused survivor to allow their reactive adrenaline driven response system to stop firing every time a car backfires. When I left the world of order, I needed safe spaces to regain my equilibrium. Some people make fun of safe spaces. They're probably the people in need of them most. Order says if you follow the rules you are safe. Disorder says sometimes the rules are harsh and extreme and unattainable. Or just flat out don't work for us all.

Now, I'm on the verge of finding my place in Brave spaces. I've been practicing. Very deliberately allowing myself to state my truths in places where I may meet opposition and backlash. Feeling uncomfortable letting myself be known and seen by people who may very well not like what I have to say, or what I believe, or even just me as a person. Letting myself feel that discomfort and resisting the urge to run away and hide is my training for being brave. I don't know if it ever gets easy. If it felt easy to be brave, I am pretty sure it would mean there is something inside of me that is still in hiding. 

That thing that cares about what other people think of me isn't going away, it's maturing. I want to be known and liked for who I am. But I also want to live passionately into the causes that I believe in and for the purpose I see for my life. I'm more and more okay if I'm not seen, known, understood by all. I'm okay if someone of the same belief disagrees with how I walk, if other artists think I'm weird when I talk about God, if I'm judged for the near constant coffee or toothpaste stains on my shirt. I want you to like me, but I'm okay if not.

Reorder. 

Reorder looks like freedom. I get to choose. I get to follow that glimmering trail of truths and not be afraid of where it might lead. I can toss out the ill fitting sweater sets, the pearls and the self-flagellation. I can embrace all of me with the understanding that the way I see, the way I am wired, the experiences I've had and the stories I contain are not flaws. They are my strengths. They are what enables me to be brave. 

Reorder feels like calm. Not from outside circumstances, but from inside that place that knows I've walked through the valley and now I'm ready to follow the trail to the mountaintop. Father Rohr says most Christians get stuck in order or disorder. I see that. The narrow path is the place of reorder.  

Reorder brings me to a place of walking bravely into the future and it begs me to ask the question, what next? It's not a formula. Of all the things I thought I'd be doing, all the places I've been, all the information I've gathered, I weed through it all and life starts to inform me. What is my next? Reorder is a restructuring. It's an inside job. It can't be done through outward appearances. And it's impossible to do without tearing down that old foundation called order. That old foundation could have never supported what Reorder is bringing me to. 

Now that is informing my hope for the future!

So really, what is my next?

I sense it. This place of transition I am in. Where I begin to live more on the side of Reorder, than Disorder. I feel that confidence rising in it. But I feel somewhat lost. Because it is time to make decisions. My body is reminding me that it has been through more in the past year than many people deal with in a lifetime and it can't be pushed anymore. So I sit quietly and ask important questions. Of myself, of God, of the universe. What now? What do I do next? And then those little glimmering flashes of truth begin to shine brighter. I open the mail to find a royalty check from the new publisher who bought out the one that published my book.

Penguin Random House. In all my years of dreaming, I never thought I would be able to say I am an author under Penguin Random House's umbrella. I want more of that. Writing keeps pushing its way into my dreams and I know it's time to listen. I am determined to write. To begin to draft that next book, the one I keep calling my book without pictures. The one I didn't think my old publisher would see as a good fit for them, but wasn't sure where else to take it. Now I have a little glimmering light shining on a new possibility. I am going to follow it. 

And the studio. I thought when I moved to my new home that I would have to let the big studio go, because I couldn't afford both. I knew it would change the way I work, but didn't know what else to do. In the process, I realized I wasn't ready to let go. It wasn't just about how my work has changed because of the new space, enabling me to work large and messy, that made this space outside my home appealing - but the way that it serves to bring people together. I started seeing new possibilities to create stability in my income and life by keeping my studio, not letting it go. And in the dreaming about what that would look like, new glimmers of truth and light presented themselves. Once I allowed myself to follow those flickers of promise on the horizon, things started moving rapidly. 

That is as much as I can share with you about that. Soon enough I can share more. But it is in that place of letting go of what I thought I was supposed to be- order, what I had to shed- disorder, that I found my way again- reorder. The old dream about a gathering place. People working side by side. Community. Connection. This much I can say, sitting in my studio listening to the sounds of life, watching connections being made, creating together works of art and true belonging. That too is part of my next. 

Reorder. It looks like truth and life. 

As If

Brene Brown has a phrase for that feeling, the one that we get after we bare our souls or reveal something we've held close for so long, it's called the vulnerability hangover. Admittedly, this isn't my first go round of waking to this discomfort. As an introvert, I tend to pull back, go inward, and sit with it while it has its way with me. It rolls over as a wash of accusations, shame, system shock, and embarrassment. Did I really just say that out loud? Imaginary faces swim to the surface, nearly cartoonish in their looks of horror, laughter, rejection. It's the backlash meant to silence-- that tried and true, albeit broken response, meant to protect me from ever feeling that raw and exposed again. 

A few years back, I sat around the dining room table with a group of friends taking turns reading descriptions of each number on the Enneagram. We each took the test to determine our number and spent the evening laughing and bemoaning the fact that we were so easily typed, recognizing ourselves in these numbers. 

My number was a six, fear and anxiety driven, security and stability seeking, and divided into two subtypes, it is one of the most complex numbers on the Enneagram. And in spite of my moaning, I recognized myself in the pages of that book. In everything I do, anxiety is my constant companion. Fear driven scenarios play themselves out in my head and tend to cripple me before I can take action in whatever thing it is I'm facing; A direct result of the learned hypervigilance, and too often, rapid firing of adrenaline growing up with an alcoholic in the home. 

On the flip side, the more healed version of being a six, is a strong sense of intuitive discernment, a knowing within, a way of seeing that is a bit deeper and more nuanced than the average bear. A bonus to our friends and loved ones, we are loyal to a fault-- though often to our own detriment. And we always always have questions. We sixes need to know what makes the world tick in order for it to feel safe. 

We want to understand what you are thinking so that the wool doesn't get pulled over our eyes, or from under our feet. 

An Enneagram 6 has one of the strongest senses of justice of all the personality types, we want and need things to be fair. It is the only way the world makes any sense to us. We feel things deeply. And often for a girl growing up wired to be sensitive, it is the feelings of others we can more readily identify then our own. 

Constantly at war inside, are these two distinct qualities; that need for feeling safe, while the sense of injustice is being challenged. On one side, I am the pleasant, goofy, loyal companion, always ready with a helping hand and a supportive comment. Whatever you need me to be so you'll like me. On the other, I am outraged when I see injustices happening and feel a responsibility, nearly a compulsion, to speak up and lend my voice against the oppressor. 

Waking a few days ago, I felt a blanket of depression hovering over me. Depression has paid me a visit many times in the past and I know how easily I can get lost in it. Manifesting first in a heightened sense of anxiety, whence I can see every potential scenario resulting in my own doom, and that of the world. The long slow descent grows more rapid when I turn on the news. The world is doomed. We are all doomed. Everything is broken. This is when depression really sets up camp. I don't know how to fix it. Fix myself. Fix you. Fix the world, so I pull inward. Deep deep inside and pull that blanket over me, where I can remain detached and insulated from it all. It can be so welcoming and tempting at first. 

But that blanket is heavy and once it settles, it is hard to take off. Life continues all around, but I'm watching it from a great distance. Like a tv station with an undercurrent of static, or the way sound comes to you more slowly underwater. 

Having succumbed to it many times before, I know that depression is a liar. It doesn't offer me the security I desire. It isn't a safe place to hide until danger passes. It simply makes me want to vanish. Be invisible. Depression isn't the source of that message in my life, it is merely the vehicle that delivers it. Clutching at my throat, reminding me it is better to be silent. It is usually accompanied by a hefty dose of shame.

Don't be loud. Don't speak up. Your voice doesn't really matter. It tells me that showing real feelings is bad. Anger is dangerous and unbecoming of a lady. Don't be mad, it's safer to be sad. Don't talk out loud about the unpleasant things. Don't tell someone they hurt you. Be positive and happy and upbeat. Just give it to God. Nice girls say nice things. Don't you want people to like you? 

This is the loop I so easily get stuck in. Anger and a strong sense of outrage over the things that have been done to me, to you, to the world, rise up and I get close, so close to being able to identify the truth of it. To name the thing doing the harm. Then the backlash, the vulnerability hangover, the lies, come out swinging, pushing me back to my safe place of compliance. Having an opinion isn't an option. When you have little sense of your own worth, it's easy to believe nothing you say really matters. 

This year, something pretty amazing has been happening. Suddenly I am feeling emotionally stronger. More resilient. Better able to identify my own thoughts, feelings, and needs. I have been able to look at myself with more acceptance and grace. Loving the parts of me I once felt ashamed of and hoped you wouldn't see. Feeling empathy for the things I have done and the decisions I had to make with little in the way of mature guidance. When I see old pictures of myself, or watch myself on video, I've had this profound sense of compassion. I don't hate myself! Wow! A totally new revelation! 

I actually don't hate myself! I like what I see in the mirror. I am not bothered by the worn out and frazzled parts of me. I love the strong voice that compels me to speak. I am starting to think I actually matter. When I get the pushback that almost always happens when I start feeling too comfortable in my own skin, it hasn't been taking as long to come out from under it, and I'm recognizing this comes from allowing myself to be heard even when you might not like what I have to say. From allowing myself to say things even if they aren't polished yet. Standing in the face of potential rejection. 

Fear of rejection has been a crippling force in my life, born of that childhood wound of abandonment, skewing the unique qualities of my wiring, coupled with all the mixed up, upside down signals and cues that a girl can gather over time. So waking a few days ago with that old familiar blanket beckoning me to retreat, whispering its fears of a world gone mad and problems so large nothing I do possibly matters, left me in a state of confusion. Was my awakening too late? Was none of it true? Did I step out too far? Did I make a mistake? A tunnel of darkness formed in the peripheral, the way an old black and white movie announces the end. Anxiety drove a series of everything is doomed, I am doomed, everything is pointless, texts to a few good friends. 

Then a fork appeared in the road before me. 

One direction I saw the tried and true, the comfortable, the safe and the familiar. The other direction looked wild and dangerous. Uncharted territory. I don't have a map for this new path. I don't know what will happen if I continue down this way. What will happen to me if I get lost? 

I sit looking forward, I turn to look behind, voices rise and tug at me luring me to come back! come back! Then something inside begins to rise. A memory of the old days working as a project manager, needing to assert myself to lead a team to get the job done. Unnatural behavior to me, so I learned to act "As if". As if I had confidence. As if I weren't shaking in my proverbial boots. As if I had something to offer. I took the advice I so frequently offered my children when they faced a challenging situation, other people can't see your insides, act as if you aren't intimidated or shy and they'll believe you. 

Acting as if isn't the same as trying to fit in. It isn't pretending. It is acknowledging what I know to be true and what I am trying to nurture inside of me, walking it out even before my legs are fully developed. Acting as if is a way of owning my own power. Of shushing the fearful voices and saying no to that heavy blanket of depression and shame. No! I will not cover myself and hide any longer! I will not give way to the old familiar, dysfunctional, comfortable patterns! No! 

Acting as if allows me the strength to show up and be seen. Only this time, instead of acting as if in order to convince you that I have something to offer, I am acting as if in order to affirm it to me. 

Seeing My Reflection

Acre Of My Soul - Detail shot,   Encaustic Collage Assemblage by Crystal Marie Neubauer

Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years

In my own voice,

before it was too late
to turn my face again.

~David Whyte, The True Vow

This is going to be one of those posts...

The Face She Shows detail - shield series by Crystal Marie Neubauer

I'm having a bad day and I need to process it. And you may wind up unfollowing me as a result. I kept telling myself to get out my journal, but here I am writing a blog post instead. 

This is going to be one of those posts I warned you about- not my usual bubbly, optimistic, always a lesson to be learned, or a moral to the story, kind of posts. But one where I'm in the midst of it all and don't have a resolution yet. The kind where I may not make you feel good with the stuff I write. The kind where I might just sound like a victim, or an angry woman, or someone who has not got her shit together. Yet.

I posted some pretty art here to cushion the blow. Like one of those chipper songs on the radio that lures you in with it's upbeat tune and then smacks you between the eyes with morbid lyrics. 

You have been warned. *resisting the urge to use a smile emoji here, you know, so you might see me smiling and not as an angry hostile woman. 

The Face She Shows- detail   by Crystal Marie Neubauer

It's not one particular thing. It's a lot of particular things all at once. It's everything. Or maybe it just feels like it. It's one thing that happened on top of these things.

I woke today with runny eyes and snotty runny nose, all achey, and chilled, and fevery. Masto symptoms flaring from a reaction to something in my house that could still be mold. Or it could be the enzyme the landlord just used to fog for mold, fingers crossed. 

On top of feeling pretty damned crummy, I got some unwelcome news with one of the labs that just came back from the last round of tests. It wasn't a complete surprise because I knew this particular thing was a thing I'd be dealing with eventually, according to one of my lupus doctors who nonchalantly mentioned it years ago. There have been symptoms lately, so I knew it was flaring. I just didn't know how much. I'm not really ready to share too much yet. I'm still rolling around with it. Rolling with anger and sadness. Why now??? There will be other doctor appointments and another specialist and more meds and doubling down on eating clean - well okay, I haven't been doing such a hot job with that lately. Since it's been so hard to find foods that don't trigger me, I've been a bit permissive in some of the choices I've made. 

Don't judge. 

Or do. I don't think I care anymore. 

Okay, I don't want to care anymore whether you judge or understand or not. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. In my own choices and decision making. I'm getting there. 

I need to be well. I have a new grandson set to make an appearance any day now. I have the privilege of getting to stay with my granddaughter when mommy and daddy are at the hospital. I'll get to be there when baby brother comes home. I'll get to see my daughter and her husband have the joy of introducing him to big sister. Can life get any better than that?? 

I can't be sick. I've been hanging low on the couch today willing myself to be well, giving in to the feeling of defeat. With the housing situation. With the health issues. With the overwhelm of trying to drum up enough work and sales to pay my bills when just getting out of bed is a major accomplishment most days.

I've been posting things on facebook to make you laugh and to give you a lift. To make you stop and think about things bigger then you and me. It's what I do. It is the face I tend to show the world. Humor is my default. It feels good to laugh. 

And also you won't think I'm such a loser. 

I think we all do that on social media to a certain degree. We want to see the pretty and the polished lives of others. It gives us something to measure ourselves against. If one post makes us feel like a shitty person, we can keep scrolling until we find another post that helps us feel better about ourselves. 

It's not all that bad, but we do that so easily, don't we? Compare our insides to other people's outsides? 

And boy howdy do we all love a victory story. 

I love a feel good weepity weep victory story too. I watch them on tv and the movies. Read them in the books I choose, listen to them on podcasts. We just love to be inspired by the overcomers. But we are so uncomfortable when there's still so much to overcome. We don't want to watch the struggle. We want a two second version of the mess that comes between the challenge and the victory. And we want our victory stories to fit in a tidy box. 

Sometimes the chipper, positive vibe, prayerful, well meaning people can make it so much worse. When I first talked about my diagnosis I got the gamut of responses. It has been an eye opener to all the ways I've blown it when I was the one faced with being there for a friend going through hard times. I am as guilty as anyone of trying to "fix" the other person's problem with helpful suggestions without being asked for advice. I have also been guilty of being too chipper in the face of another person's crisis. Like that neighbor on The Simpsons - boy how diddly doodly, turn that frown upside down - everything's going to be just fine!

One person's first words were a chipper "wow! What an opportunity for God to get the glory!" 

Ahem -let's all have a crash course in empathy, shall we? First words when someone shares life altering news, or any news they feel upset about? Maybe just start with something sincere like "I am so sorry this is happening to you."  Period. You don't have to say anymore. You don't have to do anything. But if you feel like offering prayer or help or support. You can simply ask them if you can offer them prayer, or help, or support. 

You can listen to what that person says they need. It is probably something they really need. Like when I asked you all to help me pack and you came. You packed. You laughed with me and made me feel loved. Or like how so many people sacrificed financially in a really big way when my friend started a gofundme. She graciously waited until I had a chance to be more comfortable with it before she did it, and you graciously responded. That made me realize how very many of you are out there. How many of you actually feel connected to me in one way or another and wanted to show the love in this really amazing tangible way.

It's hard to remember, I know. I have years under my belt of getting it all wrong. Of saying all the wrong things when I really wanted to be there for a friend. I just told you a bit about that. 

There have been implied between the lines judgements that I have not prayed hard enough. That I am resistant to trying the right treatment. There have been quick change artists who are masters of talking about any subject other then the hard one you just tried to share with them. 

Damn this post really is turning into a pity party. It's not too late to walk away. Go now! I'll be fine, I promise. Save yourself! Run!

Oh, still here? Okay. Here's the real story. 

This week out of the blue an old "friend" texted me to say she's been thinking of me and praying for me and just wanted me to know that. Isn't that an absolute sweet thing to do?

Friend is in quotation marks, because 5 years after the last conversation with this person, I am able to look at it with more clarity. It was not a friendship, it was one of those weird situations where someone comes along and takes an interest in you precisely because they think they can save you. Because they think you need saving. The dynamics were never equal. It was always as mentor to mentee that this person would respond to me. I might have an amazing revelation or insight on my own and there was always some sort of correction to let me know I wasn't quite seeing things right. And there was encouragement. She was great at encouragement too, but it always felt like a teacher to her student, or big sister to the daft but loveable little sister left in her charge. But 5 years ago, when the long slow unraveling of my marriage began in earnest, I hadn't been able to fully acknowledge that yet. I was trying to shift the dynamics of this friendship to an equal peer to peer relationship, but we both had a load of toxic waste from our pasts getting in the way of making that transition happen. 

So just when I needed my friend the most, this person decided to ghost me. She didn't like that I was leaving my husband. Didn't believe I had reason to as a good Christian woman. Because you know in some of those circles it doesn't actually matter how the husband behaves, the onus of responsibility for keeping that marriage together is typically on the wife. So I was in process of making that decision, to leave what was a very unhealthy situation. And to make a long story a little shorter, after several conversations and many tears in which she tried to convince me I was making the wrong decision, she just ghosted her way out of my life. 

It didn't start that way. It was one of those honorable situations where good Christians tell the wayward sinner that they are on the wrong path and try to warn them to turn. (I was the sinner in this scenario). Then they bring two more friends to put in their two cents about the error of your ways - because verbally abusive toxic apathetic underfunctioning men just need their wives to be kinder, and more loving, and compliant. That's how they are shown Gods love -by their wives standing in the face of the unfaceable, no matter what. Don't even think about protecting yourself by leaving. 

You know, I sat in a tiny church service once and listened to the pastor tell a story about a good woman who was being beaten by her husband. She didn't yell and scream back- she stood silently and took her beating. She just stood there and took it and her loving demeanor afterwards actually changed her man. Her silence allowed him to see the love of Christ. And if Christ didn't run from his beating, then by golly who the hell are you to think you should? Yup. I shit you not. I sat there in the basement of that place knowing that this sermon was pointed my way, my shame pinning me to that seat. I wanted so badly to be a good christian woman. And things weren't so bad. I wasn't getting a physical beating. 

I tried. I worked hard at getting counseling for my own problems. Came to some hard reckonings about my life. And little by little I was healing. But this thing that kept me trying in this marriage, taking all the responsibility to fix it - that was a hard one to let go of. And I'm not saying he wasn't trying. He just hadn't come to his own reckoning yet. 

So coming to that place 5 years ago of actually making the break, that was something of a major victory for me. Yes it's true that I gave it another whirl after a couple of tough years on my own. I told you it was hard to let it go. It was hard as holy hell. And I needed support and I needed love. Not the tough love of a church that had told me often I was family, until they disagreed with my decision. And especially not the tough love of a friend who thought that she was on some high spirit led road following scripture by putting this lowly sinner out of the circle in order to bring me back to the flock on my knees. Fuck that.

To this day there hasn't been one iota of ownership from her. Not one peep to indicate she felt bad for her decision or had come to realize she errored in abandoning me. Nothing to indicate any sense of remorse for the way she handled it so shittily. so very shittily. Oh did I mention how they all, her included, rallied around poor pitiful him after I left? They poured out their love and support and their prayers over him for the abandoning thing I did. Good women just don't leave. They don't even dain to talk about what goes on behind closed doors with their husbands. It is up to us to protect our mans reputations at all costs. 

Do I sound angry? God it feels good to let it out. This is not my dirty secret to keep anymore. Toxic relationships were my specialty. With my church, my friends, and my marriage. 

Sidebar: Because I still do care a little too much what people think, and I still have my fair share of insecurities, let me stop here to defend myself a bit...

I've never walked away from my faith. I have a freaking amazing counselor who has been helping me to heal all of the wounds that kept me in very sick and very unequal relationships. And I have finally come to understand that my walk doesn't have to look like yours. I have a different audience and different circumstances then you. If I have any sort of testimony that Jesus wants me to tell, it speaks to different people than you. They get it. And I'm not disqualified because I swear or left a toxic relationship or have a fucking illness that God has not healed me from. To God be the glory - indeed. But He gets to decide what that looks like in my life, not you. So if I am not getting a miraculous healing and if I haven't had a perfectly hey-diddly-oh chipper attitude about every single thing I have on my plate right now, it doesn't mean I am lacking in faith. Good Lord have you even read the bible? Not everyone escaped their circumstances scot free. You are following a prosperity gospel if you think every sick person in your life just hasn't found the right way to pray or wants to hold on to their illness for some sinful godforsaken reason. What a terrible thing to think about someone.

Also you are a bit of an asshole. You hurt people with that attitude and that plain sucks. God doesn't need that kind of representation. Thankfully for both of us he has immeasurable grace.

God that friend liked to warn me about taking advantage of grace. 

Back to that "friend". Let me just give you all a bit of advice from my indignant and chaffed perspective. If you have ever ghosted a friend for any reason - disappeared out of their life for years on end because you couldn't deal with it, or you judged them for something, or like my story, you thought that some tough love would help bring them back to their senses, and like that parable of the prodigal son, you've likened yourself to the father waiting with open arms for your friend to return dragging her mud stained pig slothed self back to beg for your mercy, do not send random texts out of the blue to let her know you are praying for her and just wanted her to know that. You only made yourself feel better, or more righteous. Just go out and get a can of salt and pour it into the wound, why don't ya? 

No, do everyone a favor and go get your good self into some counseling and figure your own shit out. Then when you have a little humility and can actually own up to your own wayward way of handling things, and if you really think that person you ghosted needs to hear from you after all these years, start the conversation with I'm sorry I abandoned you. Own your shit. I am not the only one with wounds that make me do stupid or ugly things. 

Don't skimp on the counseling. The world needs you to be healed too.  

Gah - I warned you it was a bad day. Don't worry, I won't stay in this pit very long, I'll be able to tell this story with less vitriol and more grace one day. This is just the messy middle. I'll wind up on the other side of this with a deep appreciation for the new perspective I found in the midst of it. I always do.  

Shield Series L-R; The Eyes Have It, Selah, Tell Me No Lies, The Face She Shows
Encaustic Assemblage Shield Series by Crystal Marie Neubauer

To Get To The Center

Have you ever had that feeling you've been someplace before? 

You know the feeling, same experience, different circumstances. Or exact same circumstances, different life stage. Or exact same life stage, exact same experience. 

How many times do I have to go through this? How many times do I have to learn this same lesson? Am I ever going to get this right? Will this thing ever stop tripping me up?? Why do I have to deal with this again??

Why am I here again???????????

You know the feeling. When you're lamenting to God and he simply says "look up".