Whee!

I tried out snowboarding on Saturday. I went to Welch Village with my dad, mom, Allie, and grandma. Allie's already a pretty accomplished skier, in her second year of lessons. My dad's really good, too. Mom and grandma were just along for the (very, very long) ride.

Anyway, I loved it. I had a lesson, then practiced on my own for another couple of hours. I'm ridiculously uncoordinated, especially when it comes to balance, so I can't say I'm at all good at it- I spent most of the morning on my butt. But it was a blast. It's too bad it seems the season is more or less over, because I'd love to go again.

But my goodness, two days later I am still very sore. I'm going to have to do a lot of biking this summer to build some leg strength and just overall improve my fitness level. I'm definitely better off after losing my fifty pounds of accumulated baby weight, but simply losing weight is a far cry from being in shape. Last time I was at my current weight (1999, yikes), I was definitely more fit.

Ow

Ever since I blogged last, my brain has been periodically screaming at me to take down my last post. It's too honest. Too messy. Too open to debate, or rejection. The screaming got louder today when I sort of accidentally found two web pages with lists of Porch bloggers, and that I'm listed on both. I don't want people to assume that I'm somehow representative of anything but my own life and experiences, that I'm more than one broken person struggling to make sense of life and God. But so far I have resisted the urge, and my intent is to continue to resist it.

I don't represent anyone but myself, obviously, and I would argue against anyone who said that my circumstances and choices were applicable elsewhere, either in general or in some other specific situation. But I am honestly struggling to come to terms with God as I've experienced Him, not as I'd like God to be. And I'm fighting to accept my life and my choices as they are, not as I wish they were. I need to break my addiction to seeming to have it all together. I need to be honest with others so that I can be honest with myself. Because left to my own devices, I'm perfectly content to have others believe things are fine and I'm doing great, even when things are falling apart. Left to my own devices, I prefer comfort to honesty and security to authenticity.

But when I hang up the whole cloth here, everyone can see the rips and holes, the seams and the jagged edges. It's excruciatingly uncomfortable. And in the end, I think that's a good thing, especially for an approval junkie and perfectionist. I need to realize that it is not a sin to be imperfect, and my pretending I have it all together only puts pressure on others to do that as well.

If this is the only place I can really grow toward being more open and honest about my life, then I'd be a fool to use it to preserve my illusions. I'd also rather not continue to be a cog in the machine that manufactures all the pretense we hand each other on a daily basis.

But oh, it hurts to expose myself this way.

Eyes to See

I'm not dead yet. (For those of you that are anxious types, that's a Monty Python reference, not a threat.)

It's been quite a year (almost). I haven't had reliable internet in months and months, and things have been so crazy that blogging was the last thing on my mind. But I'm going to try to start again.

Tonight, listening to Jimmy at the gathering was such a hard thing. The reasons we don't see God in our lives...because we don't want to? Oh, yeah. That's my story. I know first-hand what that's like, and I'm starting to think that may be the biggest obstacle to following God for a lot of people. Even most people. So I'm going to tell a little story, and you may believe it. You may think I'm deranged (or worse). But I'll risk it.

I don't have to tell most people that the last five years or so have been very difficult ones for our family. We had twins who were eleven weeks premature, and hospitalized for 6 weeks. We went back to school, and had all the stress and financial burden that brings. We had Jonah, which we were neither planning on nor prepared for. We found out that Gabe fit the criteria for Autism Spectrum, and needed special education preschool. I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. And through it all, Jeff struggled with his own mental illness, hospitalization, and trying medication after medication with no lasting relief. We were a mess. But it got worse.

At some point, our marriage went from difficult to unstable to mutually destructive. I don't have a timeline for it; I don't know when things really got unhealthy for us. But we separated last May. Right around that time, God started calling me end our marriage. Out of compassion for both of us. Out of concern for our kids. I won't go into detail here, ever, but our relationship had become a really scary, ugly thing. And at some point, we both became so wounded that it was hard to muster anything at all for our kids. That was agony. But for me, the thought of giving up hurt worse. The thought that God was asking me to get a divorce made sense to me in light of what we had become, and what I believe God wants for us, but I didn't believe it. I outright refused to. Closed my eyes. Turned away.

So I spent most of last year vacillating. Not wanting to give up, but without the strength to go on. Hurting and being hurt. Saying, "Ok, God," then running away, angry and disbelieving. How could God? This isn't how God is supposed to operate. What happened to "'I hate divorce,' says the LORD God of Israel"? I felt incredibly betrayed, and it's a feeling I still struggle with, a year later.

Even knowing how hurtful our relationship was. Even knowing it was affecting our children. Even knowing that God's heart was breaking every day for us. The reasons didn't matter. I had decided how I wanted God to behave, and I was determined to hold God to it.

I prayed about it relentlessly and tearfully. I begged God not to let it happen, to find some other way. I begged God to make our family whole again. And amazingly, God said, "Ok, give it a try". The planets aligned. Obstacles melted away. We began living together again in November. Then God stopped speaking. All through our separation, I had frequent awareness of God's presence. Comfort. Guidance. More frequent and consistent than any other year of my life. And all that disappeared like a match dropped in a puddle. That worried me, but things were going alright, so I pushed it away. When things stopped being alright, God's absence became unbearable.

I spent a few hours telling my friend Michelle the whole story of our attempted reconciliation in January, after three months had passed, and our relationship had become destructive once again. Her response was, "Maybe God isn't speaking because He's already said it."

Ouch.

God let me try to force things to be fixed. He even blessed our efforts- the honeymoon phase was longer and more stable than I ever would have expected. Some good things even came out of those months. But we ended up back where we started.

And so, a month ago, we separated again, this time for good. God said, "Now do you understand? Now do you believe Me?" and internally, I kind of mutely nodded, round-eyed, like a chastened preschooler.

I was dying before, yes, but at least my life felt secure and predictable. Security and predictability are long-standing addictions for me. I think that if it weren't for my children, I would keep fighting to stay blind. But they deserve a mom who will do what she can to protect them, whether or not it makes her scared and sad. They deserve parents who are there for them, even if it costs them each other.

Having eyes to see is not the most comfortable thing in the world.

Offline

My computer puked all over me today. Took it in to Best Buy because we have a service contract on it, and it's either the power supply...or the motherboard. Yippee. So I may be offline as long as three weeks. And unfortunately, most of my phone numbers and stuff are on that very computer, so I can't call anyone, unless they happen to be in the local white pages I have.

Anyone from SP that needs to get ahold of me, my number is on mysolomonsporch.com. I'll be checking my mail next weekend at my parents' house, but otherwise assume that I won't be getting any email until further notice.

That kid rubbing his face in the sand? Yeah, he's mine.

We got the results of all the testing and assessments Gabe has had in the past month. He qualifies for special education in three areas: speech/language, sensory issues, and autism. They are trying to find him a spot in summer school, and he'll attend special ed. preschool in the fall. The good news is, it's through the school district, free, and they'll bus him. The bad news is we have to take what we get as far as his schedule...we don't get to pick morning or afternoon or anything like that.

I'm just so very, very thankful right now that he hasn't had any immunizations. I already feel pretty terrible that we didn't have him evaluated sooner...wondering if the autism was connected to mercury-containing vaccines, and thus something that could have been avoided, is the last thing I need right now. I wasn't all that surprised that he fit the school district's criteria for autism spectrum, but adjusting to it has still been a struggle, and has been harder on me emotionally than I would have thought. There's just so much going on right now...and it's just one more thing.

I started reading Raising a Sensory Smart Child, which I "accidentally" found at Barnes and Noble...I was there for a specific book, wouldn't even have gone to the parenting section (which usually just pisses me off, since it's right next to the birth books and they usually have NONE that are any good). I just happened to walk by it, and huh...something that could help me! And I think it will...when I'm ready for it. I read it about halfway through and realized it was just stressing me out. Thinking about keeping a log of Gabe's odd reactions to things, strange patterns of behavior, what he eats and drinks, how much he sleeps...I just can't do it right now. After reading as much as I have, I'm pretty sure I need to do the same for Allie, who we've always known to be hypersensitive to almost everything. And I'm just not up to it right now. The book did have one immediate benefit, however...it inspired me to start massaging Gabe's arms and legs at bedtime, and he's going to sleep faster and better than he ever has.