Flat

I couldn't bring myself to go to church today. I could barely bring myself to do life. Jeff knows something is wrong. He stopped doing today so he could sit on the couch with me and watch a movie. I did not ask him too but I think he knew I needed the support in my nothingness.

I wanted to spend time with God on my own and sometimes the best place for me there is when I write.There are no secrets for me here, in the written word. I let it all out - even if people decide not to like me anymore. It's the place I find my voice. It is here I can feel safe in the dark that moves inside me.I want people to see it. I invite you in to relate or repel. Pretending is too exhausting for words.

The disappointment I am learning to live with is almost tangible. I can taste it; everything I consume is muted, as if I have a cold. I can feel the heavy, a thick blanket that I wrap tighter rather than throw off. I've never been a person who gets depressed. I think I am too stubborn for it. The thought of something or someone getting the best of me is enough to keep me moving, keep me doing, keep striking a line through the tasks on my list.

Until now.

I am tired, God. I am.
I am tired of smiling when I don't mean it. I am tired of hugging, tired of thinking of an answer, tired of making excuses for other people. I am tired of putting their shoes on my feet when I know they don't fit me anymore. I am tired of walking in them, with them, when they are so tight I cannot breathe, so constricting in where they are taking me, in a life, in a story, I don't want as my own.

I remind myself, God, to love them like I want to be loved.
But here is what I am learning, God, what I have known deep within,
you can't make people love you back. Not even a little.

I remember my ex-husband saying to me one time, a thousand times, screaming;
Why can't you ever have my back? Why can't you take my side?

Those words have remained on me, deep in my skin, a scar that will not ever be unseen.
And now I know exactly what he meant.

It was always with good intentions, God, always with good intentions that I tried to see why people do the jacked up things they do. Maybe they had a fight with their spouse. Maybe their kids are too much today. Maybe they don't know how untangle themselves from the lassos others threw around them. Maybe they like it there because they learned how to walk in ropes.

This feeling, God, this feeling is so unknown and I do not like it here.
But here's the thing,
I don't know how to get out.
My list is not working. Distractions are not working. I listen to your songs, God, but I feel like I don't belong in them so I turn it off. I see the quotes, God, one inspirational word after another and all I can think is,
"Shut up. I'm so sick of your blanketness." I write cards, God. I write cards and I feel so much better for a minute because I do know, in that act, I am saying what I need to hear and I think, maybe someone else needs to hear it too? But then I tape it somewhere and I walk away and I walk away from the words. They have left me.

The tears come in the most unlikely of moments. At the grocery store, driving home from work, in the bathroom while I change to workout, in reading the thoughts of a fictitious twelve year old girl who lives in the pages of a book.

Are you there God? It's me, Shannon.

I walked out on my mother last week while we had dinner. I couldn't do it God. I couldn't sit and listen and nod and smile and pretend that all the words she spoke were true. I couldn't stop myself when I asked, "Oh, is that how it happened, Mom?" Even though I know better, even though I know she doesn't like to be questioned, even though I know it's a mistake to interrupt what she has re-written.
But it came out anyway, God, it did, and I'm not sorry for it because I was there too and I had to remain silent then but I won't remain silent now.

She is demanding too much. She is taking more than I can give out.

And so I warned her. I did. You heard me, right God? You heard me say, "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
But the Carrie-show stops for no one. It never has and she kept right on.

Her proclaimed epiphany was a joke, and not one of those ha-ha-ha ones God, it was more of a, what-the-fuck-is-she-saying-I'm-so-stunned-I-gotta-laugh ones.
But it's when our eyes met, and hers narrowed, and she instructed me to "go ahead and put a smile on my face", that I kind of lost it God. But not in a typical "Shannon" fashion so hey God, that's an improvement right? I didn't curse at her or make a scene or take her face and smash it into the basket of tortilla chips. Instead I stood up, so calm God, did you see how calm I was? And I grabbed my things and said thank you to Steve and I left. I heard Jeff behind me. I heard him stand up too. I heard him say to her, "you should have stopped. She asked you to stop." (unlike me, Jeff can always be counted on for a good back-having moment) and then he was with me, side by side, all the way out.

And still God, there was nothing, no ranting or yelling, nothing more than an occasional, she's fucking crazy, but even that was measured.

I know God.

I know all those "fucks" are unrighteous at best, deep-rooted sin time at worst, but I gotta tell you God, I think just about every one of those "fucks" was earned. I hear people say it all the time, "You can choose better words to express yourself" and hey, I've said it to my own kids.
But if I get right down to it, I really can't think of anything else that fits. So fuck it is.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful to you, God. Really I am not. I am being as up front with you as I can. Isn't that when prayer works best? Isn't that when you come in and do your biggest work? When we let it all hang out?

So there it is God. I am letting it hang. I am stuck. Believing in you is not a problem. Believing you is not a problem either.
The problem is me.
The problem is smiling when hey, it's not all alright.
The problem is I just don't have it in me right now to go that extra mile.
I'm having issues crawling.
Steps are kind of out of the question.

I know you God. I know you love me no matter what. I know you are going to stick by me, in all this junk I keep trying to toss out but when my back is turned, it's like someone is refilling the can. I know you are going to help me here, in this place. I know you will wait. I know you will speak.

But here's what I don't know.
Who else?

Clump of dirt

When I visit my mom, we smoke. She lights up a fat cigar and I suck on a camel. I always make sure I have a fresh pack, because by the time I leave they are almost gone. It is not weird to smoke with my mom. Sometimes I wonder what we would do with our hands if we didn't.

Together.

Would we cry? Would we scream? Would we drown inside it all? Or would we laugh until the crazy left us? I am not sure. But when we talk and swap stories, sometimes the words are so heavy, it is the drag that lifts us back up, gives us the pause to catch our breath, and enables us to keep going. This will not be the case forever. But for now, I have given myself a break and I will take it as it is. Until we are ready.

I sat with mom just a week ago on her back porch. The sun warmed us as the ocean air breathed over us. For five hours we sat. Together. Giving and taking strength - comfort. We talked about the monster and how everyone celebrated him. How they cried in sadness and eulogized his life. I shook my head at how blind people choose to be, unable or unwilling to pull the covers back and see what really is. Was.

It was always my plan to go. I wanted to see him dead. I wanted to watch the dirt fall and bury him. I always pictured that with each clump that fell and sealed him under, it would in turn release me. I wanted them to see me, see how unbroken I am. I wanted them to look into my face and remember, remember how they forgot about me, how they pushed me aside, how they failed a little girl and left her to fend for herself. I wanted them to know that the truth is still here and no matter how many miles separate us, the horror of it all will always bind us together in a way distance can never separate.

But I did not go. And my mom did not ask me to.


I have another Grandpa, a real one. One that loved me. One that took me to Padres games. One that told me stories while he smoked his pipe. One that had few words but would nod his head and tell me, "You've done real good, Shannon. Real good. I'm proud of you." One that wasn't sure if it was ok to hug me when I came back to California at nine years old, traumatized and soul broken. One that called me once he had moved to Missouri to tell me he was saved now and he had kept the letter I had written him, telling him about Jesus. One that I wasn't afraid to have my kids know. He was a good Grandpa. The best. He died this past year and I couldn't go. The reasons are many and life, but I was so sad to not be there. To honor him. To show respect for him and all he has done, all he has given.

How could I not go to the funeral of the grandpa I loved and go to the funeral of the one I hated most of my life? The irony of it hit me hard in the gut and I knew I could not do it. I would not give the monster that honor. I refused my presence in his life. I would refuse it also in his death.

My mom told me later how glad she was I was not there, even though she had been so close to asking me to go with her. "I don't think you could have stood it," she said quietly. "I could barely stand it. It made me sick.... You would have been SO angry.I thought about getting up and saying something, telling everyone there who he really was ... but I didn't have the balls." She looked up at me, from her cigar and the sun, "But you would have."

And in that moment she gave me a little piece, a clump of dirt, and my soul moved up. Just a tiny bit higher.

and now I see ...

It's been a long time
but I still remember what it was like to hate Him.
It didn't start out that way, me hating him. And I am not sure when it happened. What I do recall is when someone asked me to go see him, hang out, and be a part of what he was doing, my insides began to burn and my fists would clench.

All I knew about Him flashed in front of me, which admittedly, wasn't much. But it was enough. Enough to make me rage. Enough to make me say NO.
I remember saying ... "After all that has happened? After everything I have gone through? No. I'm not interested in any Jesus. I don't need a savior. AND I will never, ever worship (practically spitting the word out of my mouth) any God that walked around as a man."

You see, men made me want to want to step inside a scalding shower and scrub all my flesh off until I disappeared. Specifically, middle-aged, white, religious men, with poochy bellies, short statures, and glasses that doubled the number of eyes that stared at me with lust and hunger. Men that said "Jesus!" and "I am SAVED! I am FORGIVEN!" and "Gawd bless YOU!" and then took me upstairs for "naps". Men that made me do things I did not want to do and then told me I better ask for forgiveness later because I had been a bad girl, a naughty disgusting girl. Men that whispered to me in the dark and covered my head with pillows when I begged and cried.

Men. Man.

No thanks. I'm out.

I was told over and over by his daughters and my mother, that he had been forgiven. Jesus (Jesus!) had cleansed his heart and his life and the thing in his pants (he has been SAVED Shannon! Saved!)
and now I must forgive him too. (this is what good Christians do Shannon, this is what they do!)

I remember thinking to myself, "I don't want to be a good Christian. I don't want to be any Christian at all."

It took a long time before I understood how people can twist even a good God like Jesus into something mangled and different so they can feel better.

People can twist him up so much, he's not recognizable anymore.

I remember the day I sat in the church and felt Jesus next to me. I knew it was Him. I knew, because I wasn't looking for Him and I didn't want Him to be there. I was there to listen and then leave. I didn't expect anything other than what I had seen my whole life - empty words that weren't real.
And so when He was, it was so obviously plain to me. There was night. And now there was day.

I was almost offended by it.

I didn't want Him to be real. I didn't want to reconcile anything in my head or in my heart. I knew what the twisted Jesus looked like. It was safer to hold on to Him that way.

But I couldn't.

Because what was next to me wasn't twisted at all. The full force of His LOVE radiated on to me. It was warm. And gentle.
And it ... waited.
It waited for me to say "ok". It waited for me to say, "Yes, I will let you be with me".

Isn't it funny, in an incredibly heartbreaking non-funny way, we can become so used to the wrongness of life that any rightness that tries to introduce itself is threatening and shown the door? Don't let it hit you so hard you fall on your face and crack it open on the way out.
Or do.
It's all the same to me.

But this day, I did not show Him the door as I had so many times before. I couldn't. I felt a craving start to gnaw inside me, a fierce need I didn't even know I had.
My love-starved soul woke up. And it demanded to be fed. It had gone without nourishment for far far too long.
All I could do was sit in it.
and cry.

I could hear him, hear him (!) whispering to me, and not like the whispers before, not ones that made me afraid and want to curl into the tiniest of balls and hide....
No.
These were smatterings of love. Gentler than a moth's wings. Quieter than tall grass waving in the wind.

"It's ok", He said. "I love you."

I love you. I love you. i love you. i love you.

i love you. i love you.

i love you. i love you.
you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you youyouyouyouyouyouyouyouyouyouyouyouyou

iloveyou.

I got up. I walked with shaky legs and a shakier heart to the front ... wanting so badly to throw myself down at the feet of Him. To crawl into his lap and have Him hold me and rock me and tell me again how much He loved me, like a mother would do for her child. Or a father.

I knelt and I put my face in my hands and my soul ripped open. I couldn't stop the tears if I tried. My insides, my body, my spirit knew better than my head what I needed
and i needed to let go.
to be free.
to empty myself of all the junk and the black and the rotten that had taken residence inside me.

A good soul scrubbing.
A renewal.
A gift.

Now it is Easter. It is Saturday. The day after he would have been beaten and tortured and ripped up and nailed; left bleeding and naked and exposed.
And for what? Because He loved. Because He healed. Because He took away all the junk and the black and the rotten.

Because He is God.

I imagine how his followers felt on that Saturday.
Lost. Disappointed. Confused. Afraid. Bereft.

They didn't understand what was happening. They didn't realize what it meant. They thought all hope was lost. They thought it was dead. They thought they were on their own.

They didn't know
that on Sunday
Hope would rise ....

and they would never be alone again.

I
will never be alone
again.
And all the junk,
and the black,
and the rotten

is now white in Love.