Awkward…

Sometimes life is just awkward.

It may be an unusual family moment, a response to a situation out in public, or just how things fit together in life.  There’s lots of different forms of awkward.  And frankly, I’ve been feeling like I’ve had a lot of them lately…

Nothing I have ever come across has ever “looked” like I felt, however.  That old saying, “between a rock and an hard place” just doesn’t do it for me.  But THIS picture… well I almost could just say “Yeah, what he said”.  

Lately I’ve been hanging on to bits of branches and various outstretched arms to keep my head above water.  This guy made me laugh at myself.  I’m the same as he is!

Right there on his scrawny little body, which is awkwardly straining not to fall into the water below, are wings that could give him flight.  We all do it though… we forget we can let go and stop holding on to the very things that can make us fall.

I could get all personal about this… but I really dont wanna.  It’s sorta yucky, boring, and really, in the end, who cares?  It’s just mucky stuff.

I’ll just cut to the point… God gave me wings to be able to fly above it… the ability to soar if I’d only believe.  Yet I hold on, awkwardly, to what is seen and known.  I don’t want to trust… because it not only takes effort, it takes faith.  I’m a bit scared and frozen in place.  “Awkward” begins to settle in like rigamortis.  I seem too stiff to raise my wings and flap them around a bit.  But just over there sit’s God, patiently waiting for me to stretch them out wide enough so he can get the wind beneath my wings.

In order to fly, you have to believe… and in order to believe you have to have faith.  With only a drop of faith – you can close your eyes and stretch open your arms and allow HIM to fill them with what you need to get off your ratted perch and fly.

And flying is not at all awkward when it’s done with the breath of God breathing life into you.  For he has great plans for you!  Plans to give hope and a future!

Jeremiah 29:11

Just hang on…

The last few weeks I’ve been perched on a tiny tip of an iceberg … all my energy solely spent just keeping steady… not moving forward or back.  

I don’t do “holding steady” well.  I want to make grand sweeping steps of progress, but just keep on “keeping on”?  No.  That I just do.  But this time I’ve made an exception.  I am even a bit proud of my non-leaping-movements.

I was given some very bad medicine choices by my doctor, and it’s sent me spinning.  They are toxic to both my body and mind.  So much so that I have begun to loose whole blocks of hours and days from my memory after just having lived them.  So I am trying hard to wean off the meds, one day at a time, so slowly it feels like I am not moving anywhere positive at all.  I actually feel I am plunging backward into the icy hell more days than not.  Withdraw is my evil companion.

Withdraw stinks… and I dont want my kids to see nor be affected by it.  I could detox elsewhere and be a bit more free to go with the flow… but I’m a mom.  My kids dont stop needing a mom just because she has issues.  So I try to time it so the hardest moments are during the school day and at night…

As much as I think I can play with the timing – sometimes staying perched with your head above water is all you can really ask for. There have been days I honestly didnt think I could do one more day.  It’s then that someone comes along and provides a steady arm, a caring smile, and encouraging words. Or my goofy son will run through the room making superhero sounds and chattering on and on – and I realize in so many ways this withdraw thing isn’t even about me – or for me.  It’s for them.   It’s in the worst of moments that you see that sometimes success and happiness are truly easy to reach.  I don’t need to do amazing and grand things…  I just need to get back to being ME again.  My kids miss her.  My husband misses her.  And dont tell anyone, but this self loathing woman (who so often feels like she’s failed at the very things she wants to do best) well she actually misses that goofy chick, too.

So I have come up from a darkness after weaning off the #1 worst of the medicines… and soon will begin to tackle the next.  I assure you I am not gone, even if you dont hear from me for eons.

I cant help but feel like, after I am done climbing my way back out of this hole, I will immediately begin to climb yet another mountainous hill. If this stuff/medicine wasnt the answer… then I am back to square one.  I am not sure where to start or what new doctor to find.  Someone out there has the answer. Or maybe not.

I have a long way to go…

But for now, I am just going to focus on staying steady… and reclaiming me for a while.

Today?  I just focused on fighting myself and somehow get to my daughter’s soccer game… where she had the pleasure of having her mom present (with her family) to see her score her first two awesome goals of the season.  That will hold me over the next few days that try to overwhelm me.  I was there…  I was present.  I was mom.