sueeeus

My body is changing.  My physical form is occupying less space in the universe, and with this slow transformation there is a new self-awareness dawning.  How can I explain this?  It’s almost as if, for all the years –so many years!– that I’ve been taking up so much space, there was a gaping chasm separating my self, the real me, from my self, the physical me.  Maybe I wouldn’t, or maybe I couldn’t look at the latter.  Maybe it was just too much.  This is not who I am, I’d say, and I’d turn the other way.  But the problem is –was–, that we live in a physical world, so there is no escaping the physical self.  That is what manifests.  And what of the inner self?  Where did that one go?  That one who might have been beautiful, smart, capable, excellent.  That one is smothered by the shell that is manifested in the physical.  I spent years struggling with self-acceptance.  The dichotomy between who I was and who I appeared to be was too great.  E R R O R.  C A N N O T   C O M P U T E.

It’s so very easy to soothe this unrest, this distress, with all manner of deflections and cover-ups.   Fill one’s every moment with something, anything, so that you don’t have to think about yourself, and the Grand Canyon that separates your self from your self.  Be a super achiever.  Move mountains.  Consume mountains.  At the end of the day, though, there remains a deep and aching sadness, because you can’t really cover up the Grand Canyon.  It’s still there, and no matter how hard you may try to justify or explain or deflect or deny, the truth of the matter is that it is still there.  You can’t escape from yourself.

Grand Canyon

What I’m beginning to notice, as I sit for a moment and gaze down at the legs folded beneath me, is that the chasm is closing.  Ever so slowly.  But it’s closing.  Because when I look down at my physical self, I see my physical self.  And I recognize a faint glimmer of my self.  I can look at the legs beneath me and say, “Oh!  That’s me.  I’m sitting here.  Those are my legs.  They are attached to my body.  They are a part of me.”  And that is the beginning of acceptance.

Two things come to mind as I reflect upon these things.  Why does it take a lifetime and a radical change to deem oneself worthy of one’s own acceptance?  And why is there a chasm at all?  It’s clear to see how the chasm has grown, but not so clear to understand where or why it began in the first place.  The whole matter is tragic.  Such a waste of life.  Such a waste of beautiful moments, beautiful thoughts, beautiful breath.  Such a waste.

I don’t know who will emerge once the chasm has healed, but I do know that I will embrace her, because she will be whole.  She is who I am.  She is the real me.  Hello, old friend, I will say, when we meet.  I’ve missed you.

I’ve been alive forever.

Oh Barry.  You have such a way with words.  I sit in my living room, clinging to the few precious minutes that I have to myself before I collect my children, and your voice fills my head and my heart, transporting me back to the girl I was so many years ago.

The timbre of your voice, like velvet, fills me and warms me.

My home lies deep within you, and I’ve got my own place in your soul.

I feel within me the stirrings of beauty, the dawning awareness of the magic of music.  Music fills.  Transforms.  Transports.  Breathes life to a parched heart.  Gives hope.

Music fills your heart.

My young mind is taking in the world around me.  I am filled with emotions.  I am going through the metamorphosis of child to young woman.  I feel everything.  I see beauty.  I am filled with wonder.  I am awestruck by the magnificence of God’s green earth.

I write the songs that make the young girls cry.

I yearn for love, although I know not what love is.  I ache for something that I can’t put words to.  I have an emptiness that I can’t describe.  To belong.  To be cherished.  To be wanted.  To be understood.  I don’t know who I am, but I feel.  Oh, how I feel.  I am emotion.  I am music.

I am music, and I write the songs.

I want to wrap my arms about the world and fill it with all the love that I have, that I am.  I want to wash away all the tears, comfort all the sorrows, and heal all the brokenness.  I am love, and I want to sing.  I am music, and I want to sing.

It’s from me, it’s for you.
It’s from you, it’s for me.
It’s a world wide symphony!

That girl, so long ago, still lives within me.  Who was she?  What were her hopes and dreams?  The years, like layers of dust, have accumulated and obstructed the clarity of youth.  My sense of beauty is tarnished.  My sense of wonder is shrouded.  My sense of awe is eroded.  My sense of self is masked.  But the music!  The music takes me back.  The music reveals my soul.  The music sets me free.

Now, when I look out through your eyes, I’m young again, even though I’m very old.

What does a twelve  year old know of life and love?  Everything!  The innocence of youth allows hope to exist unfettered and pure.  To see and understand eternity.  Eternity!

I’ve been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song.
I put the words and the melodies together.
I am music, and I write the songs.

What did I know of the path ahead?  What did I know of the cares of the world?  We were poor, and though it tugged at my heartstrings to see my mother’s anguish over how to make ends meet and somehow maintain a semblance of sanity amidst the bedlam in which we lived, I didn’t understand.  Worldly things were not my concern.  There was a roof over my head, food on the table, shoes on my feet and clothes on my back.  So I was rich, and I was free!  I could dream!  I could hope!   My heart could sing!  I could get lost in the music.

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.
I write the songs of love and special things.

Now I am my mother.  The cares of the world are on my shoulders.  It’s up to me to see to it that my own children have a roof over their heads, food on the table, shoes on their feet and clothes on their back.  So they can be rich, and they can be free.  So they can hope and they can dream.  So their hearts can sing.  So they can get lost in the music.  There is a sense of wistfulness that the woman I’ve become has replaced the girl that I was.  But the music takes me back, even if but for a moment, and reminds me that I am still the girl that I was.

I am music, and I write the songs.

It can’t be all, so it has to be nothing.

I get it.

there I was, peacefully enjoying some ice cream, when...

I knew this day was coming.  I just didn’t know when.  Or how things would transpire.  But I really ought not be surprised.  And indeed, I am not.  It’s not how I would have liked things to go, but I guess it’s how I knew they would go[1].

I feel numb.  Probably it’s not the best time to try to write, in the heat of the moment, as it were.  Then again, the heat of the moment is when the emotions are raw, so maybe it is a good time to try to get things out.  Perhaps I can go through them later and make more sense of things.  Or learn something, at least.

He said that I am selfish and that I am a user.  I can’t recall much more than that.  My mind sort of goes blank.  I remember just looking at him like a deer with it’s eyes caught in the headlights.  I couldn’t find words to convey anything that he could hear.  Maybe I am selfish.  Maybe I am a user.  Certainly in his perspective I am, and I’m not going to try to defend myself for another’s hurtful opinion.  It’s his opinion.  Those are his feelings.  They belong to him.  Am I selfish?  I guess so.  Because I chose myself and my kids over him.  What he doesn’t understand is that I have to choose myself.  For my kids.  I don’t know how to balance life with him.  The way things were when we first met aren’t a true representation of the me who I need to be.  I put that person aside for way too long.  It’s unfortunate that he is the one caught in the crossfire, when I finally decide to take a stand for myself.  The woman he met two years ago was the woman he wanted me to be, not the woman I am.

I can’t explain that to him in terms that he will understand.  I hardly know the woman I am.  I want to get to know her, though.  Staying in a relationship that is out of balance is unfair to him.  He’s waiting for me to be who I am not.  I can’t let him do that, because I am who I am.  He is who he is.  I love him.  But we don’t fit.

I hope  he finds someone with whom he fits.  Someone he can laugh with, cry with, love with and be with.  Someone good for him.

[1] …I guess I didn’t know how things would go…

He said he was going to erase me from his life, and indeed, he is.  He said he would hate me.  He said that nobody has ever hurt him the way that I have, or as much as I have.  He said he wanted to go out and “f!#& a bunch of girls”.  He didn’t say goodbye.  He returned all the gifts I ever gave him (at least those he could find in the last 20 minutes).  I didn’t expect that.

So that is how it is.

I’m tired.  This day has been coming for some time.  I wish it didn’t hurt either of us.  But it did.  And it does.

I’m very sorry, and I hope that he will forgive me.  Not that I want to be forgiven for having the courage to be myself, but forgiven for hurting him along the way.

[2] …words spoken from a place of hurt…  i.e., the morning after

“Next time you decide to f&$# someone over, try picking someone who hasn’t already been f&#*ed over.”

“Take all your s$#t and go buy somebody else with it. It doesn’t mean s#!t to me.  You can’t buy me.”

(…but I sent him a text message later and said he could come get his stuff if he decided he wanted it…  …and it’s (mostly) gone.  With the exception of the pictures and cards, which are strewn dramatically and ceremoniously all over the shop floor.)

[3] …the morning after the morning after…

He apologized for the behavior and things said from the place of hurt.

be still my bleeding heart

My life has been a road of many twists and turns.  The paths I’ve traipsed over the past few years have led me to face some of the most arduous challenges of my life.  I’ve made hasty, monumental decisions.  I’ve put myself into difficult situations.  Backed myself into corners.  Wasted time, wasted money, wasted emotions, wasted life itself.  I could say, “Hello, my name is Regret.”  But I won’t.  No, because I’ve been thinking about the wasted time, the wasted money, the wasted emotions.

I’ve been thinking about the ripples.  All the ways that lives have changed because of the roads I’ve traversed.  Good things come!  Good things happen!  It’s absolutely concrete.  While I could say that I wish I never wasted so much of my life chasing a mythical love, and I might wish I’d never said those two fateful words (“I do”), I have two vibrant and beautiful testaments to the perfection of that journey right before me.  Every day I am blessed by the wonder of these two human beings entrusted to my care.  And they would not be, had I not walked down that particular path.  And since then, for all the painful twists and turns that follow divorce, I can see how other people’s lives have changed for the better, all because our lives intersected at some point along that path.  This isn’t to say that I take credit for anything; it’s only to say that providence allowed me to be in a particular place at a particular moment in which I could (and did) do something that would (and did) help another.

It’s real.  It’s tangible. I can name names.

A child in Bali.  A village in Cambodia.  A single mother with two young children.  A battered wife.  A young mother with four children.  A woman.  A family.  A man (or two, or three, or seven, not that anyone’s counting).  If I even start to dwell on why or how I am here , in this country house so far from the madding crowd, I can turn my thoughts to any one of these people and quiet my anxious heart.  I don’t care how much money is gone.  I don’t care how many days, months, years have passed.  I don’t care how many tears I’ve cried.  Lives have changed!  Even one of these would be well worth any of the suffering I’ve put myself through.  I won’t dwell on the pain.  I won’t entertain regret.

True, I’ve been losing myself all along the way, bit by bit, so that I don’t even recognize myself any more.  I do wish I’d been vigilant from the start and given my self greater care.  I’m recognizing this now, and slowly but surely I am taking steps to restore myself to my self.  I’m going through the fire.  The refiner’s fire.  I’m going to be shiny and bright, when I get back to me.

Hello, my name is Hope.

I’m glad for this journey.

You asked me if I wanted you to stay or if I wanted you to go.  I told you that I don’t like it when you give me ultimatums.  Where is the ultimatum in that, you asked.  It’s in the mere fact that you asked a leading question with only one acceptable answer.  Rather than just enjoy the fact that you are were here.  If you’re here, you’re here.  Why would I ask you to go.

You asked me if I was willing to do whatever it takes to keep this relationship alive.  I answered, “probably not”.  I answered that because I don’t know what you mean by “whatever it takes”.  No, I’m not willing to do whatever it takes.  If it means slitting my wrists, no, I’m not willing.  If it means compromising my relationship with my kids, no, I’m not willing.  It’s an absolute question to which the only answer I can give that won’t be untruthful is “probably not”.  It doesn’t mean that I won’t do anything.  I have done SO MUCH.  Do you even know?  But that was then and this is now.   And you said that was enough of an answer for you.  And off you went.  Again.

I can’t even count how many times you’ve walked out my door.  How many times you’ve hung up on me.  How many times you’ve lied to me.  Yes, I know you’ve lied to me.  Maybe not so many times that I can’t count them, but you have lied.  You speak of how much I hurt you, and I don’t think you have even a remote idea of the hurt I feel and have felt.  Nor do I want you to know.  That’s more than enough for one person.  I sense the pain you feel, and I have my own pain too.  It’s always magnified.

I wish you understood me.  You speak of partnership, and you see my unwillingness to go where you are, but it seems that you don’t see your own unwillingness to go where I am.  I told you where I have to be.  I am standing where I have to be.  I am a mother.  My children are demanding and I am trying to do my best to raise them well.  It doesn’t mean that I think  you’re not good enough for me, for us.  It doesn’t mean that I reject you.  It simply means that I choose them.  I have to choose them.  There. Is. No. Other. Choice.

Do you hear me?  They are demanding.  DEMANDING.  The stamina required of me to maintain composure and remain firm and kind and loving and gentle and solid and good and strong takes nearly every bit of will that I have.  I am weary.  I am ragged.  But this is my prime responsibility and this is what I must do.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, that I don’t value you, that I don’t see your worth.  It just means that I have absolutely no idea how to balance life with a relationship, children and work.  I can barely, barely manage to hold it all together with just children and work.

What you need and want and require in a relationship I cannot give.  I am sorry.

I don’t know what else to say.

I am sorry.

What do I need?  I need a friend.  A shoulder to cry on.  Someone who’s interested in how my day went.  Someone who’s content in knowing that I’m a friend, that I have a shoulder for them to cry on, and I’m interested in  how their day went.

You’ve been distancing yourself from me for some time now.  Do you think I didn’t know this or feel this?  Of course I did.  You said you were doing this to prepare yourself to break up with me, because this relationship isn’t working for you.

So now you’ve said it.  And now you may go.

I wish you well.

You posted a quote on your Facebook wall this morning:

Watching you walk out of my life hasn’t made me bitter or cynical about love, but rather, it has shown me that if I wanted so badly to be with the wrong person, how beautiful it will be when the right one comes along.

I read it and thought, yes, how beautiful it will be for you when the right one does come along.  Because I am not the right one, as much as you think that I am.  And I think that somewhere deep down in your heart, you know it too.

Is this the last goodbye?  I don’t know.  I’m not going anywhere.  I am here with my kids.  This is where I will be.

If you ever need a friend, or a shoulder to cry on, or someone who’s interested in how your day went, give me a call.

I am happy to bid adieu to 2012.  I would say that 2012 took me for a ride, but it would be more honest to say that I let 2012 take me for a ride.  I could call it the ride of a lifetime.  Woohoo!  Put a bright spin on it.  A ride indeed.  I think I may have experienced some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life in good ‘ole 2012.

It’s all good, really.  My life is full.  My children are happy and healthy.   We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food in our bellies, and warm beds to sleep in.

There is beauty and wisdom in all things, no matter the circumstance.  It just takes a certain perspective to be able to see it.

I won’t say that losing one’s children to the slaughter of a mad man has any beauty in it, but the shock and the horror force (some of) us to take note of our family circles, be more vigilant, hold our children more, and be more grateful for every little moment, and embrace it all.  Even when we’re at our wits end and drowning in frustration.  All these things are trifles.  I want to drink it all in.  Treasure. Every.  Moment.

The time that the children are children is fleeting.  I blinked my eyes and see so many of my nieces and nephews and my friends’ children are already grown.  Grown!  Where did the years go?

My hair is turning (more) gray.  My skin is starting to show its wear.

Professionally, I did well in 2012.  I had some lofty goals and I had actually admitted defeat to myself as well as my boss that it was unlikely that I’d be able to finish the super project before the end of the work year.   I pressed on, and somehow (by the grace of God and the skin of my teeth) I did it!  I felt like a superstar, and it was a great sense of accomplishment.  I don’t think it really mattered much to anyone but me, that I finished by the deadline, but it did matter to me, and I was/am pleased with myself  –pauses to pat self on back.  I suppose I ought to acknowledge that being a superstar for a moment barely compensates for all the days that my performance was distracted and disjointed from the emotional fray that I was buried in for the better part of the year.

Spiritually I’ve had some growth in 2012.  Not the sort of growth that a mainstream Christian might acknowledge or agree with, but I’ve learned some things and for that I’m grateful.  I thought that I wanted to settle into a church family, but realize that I’m truly not drawn that way.  I love the people, I love the worship.  But I belong to a church that is not made with hands, and that church is my home, wherever I am.  I don’t hunger for the company of a congregation, and I’m secure in the knowledge that I am a child of God.

This year has been a rough ride for me emotionally.  I’ve endured much.  I’ve made my loved ones endure much.  I tried so very hard to do more than I am able to do.  Like that image of a circus performer spinning plate after plate after plate.  I had so many plates spinning, but I just couldn’t keep it up, and they all came crashing down.  Lord, how I tried.  I gave it a good shot, though!

Physically, the twists and turns and ups and downs have taken their toll.  Whereas I’ve maintained my weight for most of the year, the past few months have seen a dramatic change in overall physical well-being.  From the moment that I made the decision to re-find myself, I’ve put on weight and my blood sugar has climbed.  Something’s got to give, I suppose.  I’m trying not to panic.  I’m attempting to take it in stride and breathe deeply, knowing that things will settle once I get a stronger grip on the emotional side of my life.

So where am I now?  I don’t really know.  In transition, I suppose.  I’m not settled.  I’m not where I want to be.  But I’m changing and standing faithfully where I need to stand.  I tell myself not to be afraid.  I tell myself that everything will be okay.  And it is.

adieu 2012

crazy

He says nobody makes him more crazy than I do.  I’m just being me, and not conforming to the version of me he wants or needs me to be.  He’s out there, alone in a house, by himself, without me by his side.  He’s aching.  He’s lonely.  He can’t stand to be alone.  It makes him crazy.  It baffles him that I don’t understand how he feels (he thinks I don’t understand).  It rips his heart up to know that I’m not going crazy with loneliness and separation.  He may think that I love him less because I’m not missing him.  But I’m going crazy on my own over here.  My own version of crazy.

He has only himself to keep up with.  When his work day is done, he can rest.  I have children to care for.  Every aspect of their precious little lives is critical to me, and right now, their emotional health is even more so.  I remember being four and feeling like I was in the way.  I remember being eight and feeling like I couldn’t do anything right.  I remember, and those feelings, whether valid or not, contributed to the adult I became, and all of the emotional struggles I’ve dealt with along the way.  I find myself starved for time, racing through each day trying to scrounge up enough to give them at least a little attention, trying to lovingly direct them and instruct them when they’re bouncing off the walls and the furniture.  Literally.  They are boisterous little boys, and it’s their unbridled joy at simply being that compels them to jump on the furniture and play and have fun.  While I want them to respect property, I want to somehow teach them without squelching or scarring them.  God grant me the wisdom and patience to do this.  Truth be told, though, inside I rejoice that my boys exhibit such glee.  In my heart I say, “GO AHEAD!  Jump! Play! Laugh! Rejoice!”  (Please don’t hurt yourselves or anything, and please be respectful of others’ things, but don’t stop rejoicing, my beautiful little boys.)

loves of my life

I am exhausted.  It takes a great deal of time and energy to lovingly, patiently and kindly see to it that the teeth get brushed, the clothes get changed, the schoolwork gets done, and the bodies get clean.  Life with my kids is my priority right now.  They need me.  I need them.  I absolutely need to take this time for them and with them.  I need this for them.  I need this for me.

It doesn’t mean I love him less than I did before.  It only means that I recognize now that far too often in the past year I’ve shuffled them aside in my endeavor to be a couple, and that is something that I should never have allowed myself to do, and something that I want to ensure does not happen again.

I’m going my own kind of crazy, wondering when and  how I will ever have a little time to myself so that I can at least try to collect my thoughts and calm the storm that is raging in my head.

I miss writing.

I’m back.

I hope.

These are my people.  They are a part of me.  I am a part of them.  Uncle walked through the door and I saw my dad – they could have been one and the same.  I couldn’t hold back the tears.  We embraced.  We spoke of life.  Uncle tells me how very proud of us my dad was, and how much he loved us, his children.  He explains an unfortunate nuance of Korean culture in which the fathers have burning love in their hearts for their children, but their sense of aristocratic decencies prohibit them from expressing this love.  He speaks in response to my surprise at learning that my dad was proud of us, and especially proud of me.  I never knew.  It’s a tragic cultural chasm, for parents to be unable to show or assure their children of their love.

my people

My aunt is so beautiful.  Her smile radiates.  Her love for everyone emanates.  Her name is fitting – it means Powerful Love.  Auntie’s cooking is the best Korean cooking in all the land.  All the Korean ladies want to learn her ways.  She prepared a glorious feast for her family, our family.

When the siblings and I were alone, they remarked at how talkative Daddy was – they’d seldom seen him so.  I shared with them the things  he’d told me about a Korean father’s love and pride for his children, and his reticence to express it and I realize that they have grown up much the same as my siblings and I, in the shadow of fierce love.  We have all made strides to ensure that our children, the next generation, are secure in their knowledge of the love we have for them.  This is our gift to our children.

I gaze upon my cousins – I can’t stop looking at them.  I see my own brothers and sisters, I see myself.  The pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place and I see who we are.  I see who I am.  I know where I’m from.

first cousins first meet - part I

first cousins first meet - part II

What a gift these days have been.

What is it they say?  If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen?

Things of late are resolving, bit by bit.

Sometimes when you belong to a big, strong, loving family, and you want to bring someone into that family fold, the family will guard the fortress and bar the gate until it’s understood what it means to enter that gate.  It can be formidable to an outsider; it’s basically running the gauntlet, and not one bit of fun.  Once in, though, it’s a pretty great place to be.

If you survive, that is.

Oy.

~*~*~*~

Separating the men from the boys…   …I found this circulating on the internet…

Boys play house, Men build homes.  Boys shack up, Men get married. Boys make babies, Men raise children.  A boy won’t raise his own children, a man will raise his and someone else’s.  Boys invent excuses for failure, Men produce strategies for success.  Boys look for somebody to take care of them, Men look for someone to take care of.  Boys seek popularity, Men demand respect and know how to give it.  Boys will like you for a month, Men will love you forever.

…It makes me think of this (which comes from the love standard)…

1 Cor 13:11

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.

~*~*~*~

I’m still shouting from the mountaintops!  I’m in love!  I am saying this carefully, and considering it deeply, measuring it against snippets of wisdom such as these:

Love is NOT…
1. Something you “fall into” – a black hole.
2. Infatuation. Emotional loss of control. “Flipped out..” “Couldn’t help myself.”Romanticism and sentimentalism. “Puppy love.” Boy-crazy; girl-crazy.
3. Evaluating another by external criteria. “She’s a #10”
4. Selfish. Interested in “getting” to satisfy my needs.
5. Taking advantage of another (age, height, weight, looks, intellect, emotional maturity,
spiritual maturity, social standings, social skills, psychological understanding, place of
authority, financial superiority, etc.)
6. Improper need fulfillment. Need for love, acceptance, relating, bonding, belonging, to be
valued, affirmed, excitement, identity, etc.
7. Lust. Hormones. Lasciviousness, sensuality.
8. Sex.
9. Idolatry. “……….is my life.” Totally preoccupied in attention and time.

Love is…
1. Respectful of the other person’s values, standards and opinions.
2. Unselfish and unconditional.
3. A decision to relate to the other person at every level – spiritual, psychological and physical.
4. Giving of oneself to the other.
5. Responsible to seek the highest good of the other person “for better or for worse.”
6. God in action. (Rom. 5:5; I John 4:8,16)

~*~*~*~

The bottom line?  My heart is at peace and it is well with my soul.