Grief

I am great with empathy.  I see how a person feels.  Sometimes, I can really feel it myself.  And I grieve for them.  And celebrate with them.  But, as I have been doing this writing, I have come to see that I have a hard time grieving for myself.  I keep making up excuses for why I should do better.  Be more.  How I have failed.  But, reading back a bit, I grieved.  Really grieved.  As if I were reading about someone else.  Suddenly it came to me that it is ok to grieve for ME.  To have compassion for myself.  To take care of myself.  To allow myself to be an entity with needs, hopes, dreams and wants. 
Funny how it took stepping outside of myself in a way to actually see my own pain and not as a source of blame but simply as it is.  Painful. 
I have suffered many losses in life.  Death.  Divorce (not my own).  Fighting.  Abuse.  I have faced great challenges in the power of a god who has carried me and protected me through every single thing.  But my calling this relationship what it is confounds me.  Even when I read it in writing, I remind myself that this is me...not someone else.  If it were someone else I would be weeping for them.  With them.  Knowing how deeply they must be hurting.  If it were someone else, I would understand.  I would not condemn.  But it's me.  And I expect that I should have done more.  I should have figured out a way. 
Maybe it's the denial stage of grief?  The part that simply can't see that sometimes a thing HAS happened.  Though we didn't want it.  Though we don't understand it. 
I do go through stages.  I do feel like cursing lately.  As in..."get your damn hands off of me.  I already said no."  The truth is that it wouldn't do any good.  It would simply fuel the belief that I am the one to blame.  I am not the christian woman he hoped for. 
No wonder I understand children so well.  I see their confusion because I have experienced it.  I can feel it to my toes.  When they hurt, I know their hurt.  Not just because I feel sorry for them, which I do....but because they are so precious and they BLAME THEMSELVES.  I get that.  Still have trouble seeing myself as precious.  I know it.  I remind myself that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  A poem.  An artwork.  A treasure.  Bought.  Redeemed.  Still, my heart wonders if those things are true then why does he not love me for me?  Because I can't put the blame on him for some reason.  I feel like I am the one responsible.  Like I am the one that isn't willing anymore so it is my fault. 
Grief.  Deep grief.  It's good.  Now, I need my time walking the coast, collecting rocks and shells and treasures while also collecting my thoughts and allowing my grief to be soothed.  I must allow myself to grieve for me.  To be loved on by those who care.  To be cared for as I am by those who choose to.  To allow myself to love myself though I am without a doubt one of the most imperfect, totally weird people in the world.  I need to be ok with that.  But having the person who was "supposed" to fill that role find me unacceptable makes me question who I am.  Wonder if I can somehow change my very makeup.  I know that I have spent so much time trying to conform that I almost allowed myself to be erased.  So, it seems like I should not do that anymore.  But does laying down my life mean being erased?  I keep coming back to that.  But if I am to love others as I love myself, I would never let them be erased.  So, don't I have to love myself in that same way? 
Yesterday we were snapping photos on a digital.  I looked awful.  The grief is huge.  Like a beacon.  But he does not see.  He only hovers.  Waiting.  Wanting me to make the world right for him.  And I just want him to grow up.  To learn that I can't do that.  I used to tell him, "I'm not God...I can't do those things for you.  You have to have your own relationship.  You have to find that in yourself." 
I am here.  In my house.  It feels so good.  Got a little extra time off of work.  My spirit soared.  I had time to think.  To write.  Sometimes I think that I should take this blog away.  But I keep praying that it will be of help to someone.  That maybe one day a person will run across it and it will give them hope....that another person had big questions.  And that God was big enough.  Kind enough.  Faithful enough.  To her.  And that maybe reading that.....well, perhaps that person will find enough hope, enough grace, enough peace to make it through one more day. 
My words aren't magic.  My experience is not unique.  I am simply one person among millions.  With a story.  I want my story to be heard in a way that does not destroy faith, but build it.  Though I appear totally messed up and screwed up....and I am in many ways....God is God.  And He has not rejected me.  As a matter of fact, my feeling is that it is actually His seeking of the real me, of wanting to fill back in the lines of my nearly erased self that is causing all of this discomfort.  Like He is calling me to trust Him that He has something better for me.  I just have too hard of a time wrapping my mind around the fact that what He has might be completely contrary to the things I thought I was doing to please Him.  Getting along.  Keeping the peace.  I am realizing that those things ARE important.  Only in the context of truth.  Not habit.  Not ritual.  Not ruts.  Not making others comfy cozy in their unkindness toward me.  He is beginning to crack this vessel.  To let light in to show me that He created me beautiful.  Fully how He wanted me.  Not without flaws.  But that He even intends to use the flaws.  One day maybe I will get it.  For now, I'm just rummaging around, trying to hear.  Trying to listen.  Trying to hold my Daddy's hand and not get lost on the journey. 
Many years ago my grandpa took me on a jeep trip.  We went without a backup jeep.  Way into the back country.  we jeeped all day.  Toward the end, something major broke on the old Willie's Jeep.  We had to "walk out".  Darkness fell.  I was terrified.  The great adventure had suddenly turned threatening.  There were bears.  And wolves.  And owls.  And bats.  And mountain lions.  And snakes.  And anything else a child can imagine on a very dark night in the middle of nowhere.  My grandpa took my hand.  He led me.  He chatted with me.  He sang some songs....he never sang. ;)  Finally, hours later, we arrived at a campground for Boy Scouts.  He got us a ride to civilization....and a phone(no cells back then in the dark ages) and had someone pick us up.  It was only moments after getting in their car that I was asleep.  The thing is that God wants to walk me through this journey just like my grandpa did.  He doesn't expect me to be anything but what I am: His child.  I don't disappoint Him with my fears or my wonderings.  My questions do not anger Him.  He wants to meet my needs.  It was so easy to believe it when I was a child with my grandpa.  I struggle with it now as an adult with God.  Because going through means facing all kinds of grief and fear and loss.  But I won't be alone.  Never have been.