tornadoes

It’s a cycle. She talked about her cycle where she will ball up all her anger until she has to channel all her energy into restraining herself from kicking her husband, sleeping peacefully next to her. It’s not his fault, she admits (almost insists), she’s not angry at him. But she’s angry and it’s this cycle of holding it back and letting it out and (I love how she put it) consciously choosing to be angry, to get mad. And she doesn’t want to be this way any more.

And a different she prayed that we would yield our hearts to Him. And I didn’t pray with her for a minute, there. Because I know Him and I know how He is and I know what He’s up to and I don’t want anything to do with it.

Until I remembered that I do. She said, let us yield ourselves, and our hearts, to You, because You’re good, and You’re merciful. And I remembered that that’s true. And I thought, okay, maybe. On behalf of Your goodness and Your mercy, I guess I can yield myself to you.

And then the fear comes back. What if He makes me boring? There’s this recurring nightmare I have of one significant quiet time that takes place sometime in my future. I bow my head to pray (which is hilarious, because when I’m talking to the Lord alone, I definitely pray with my head up, eyes open, lots of gestures) and actually humble my heart (which usually takes me longer than it does in this dream-sequence I’m describing) and in an instant, God has transformed me into a woman in a twin set with no figure and a bun in her hair. She isn’t feisty, never swears, and cooks bland food. She is incredibly peaceful and never doubts God’s love for her and can tolerate they hypocrisy of the modern megachurch and has a few children and is nice to them. And I hate her.

And I wake up and(even now, when I think of this dream) I say, under my breath, fuck. Because, like my first friend, I don’t want to be this way anymore. The not-yielding way. Don’t want to live with the sensation that I am constantly fighting against my own destiny. On the other side, the counterpoint, I see Boringwoman in the brown sweater, who probably would not even think the word “fuck.”

I’ll share what I’m not yielding: One secret: I feel really alone sometimes, and I feel a little alone most of the time. From this secret comes shame (because I realize it’s not actually true and also that my faith in God is ‘supposed’ to negate my loneliness) and anger (doesn’t God love me? Why doesn’t He take away my pain?). In the past, I have turned these emotions inward and come up with two byproducts: depression and busyness, which are both effective at distracting me from the real problem. Depression tells me that no matter what I do, I will continue to be lonely. Busyness tells me that if I work really hard (and make lots of to-do lists, natch) I may be able to avoid feeling the loneliness.

And in the midst of the anger/shame (about the loneliness), as the self-hatred starts to well back up, I sort of remember something Rob Bell wrote. About Jesus experiencing these human emotions. How even He had to do it. Remember the garden? Take this cup, He prayed. The pain sucks. It’s destructive. It’s debilitating. And He did it, too. (And tried to avoid it.) I think Rob went on to discuss how the tension of raw emotion is a factor across which humans relate, and basically, our refusal to experience the feelings is a refusal to connect with other humans.

So, I sit in this messiness. I marinate in the reality that I’m destined to submit to my loneliness on and off for the rest of my life. Aughhh. (Fuck.) All the real-ness of life – the feelings, the truth – is so overwhelming sometimes. I just want to walk away. Have a surface-level life that I can manage with checklists and pretty highlights. It would be so much easier.

I realize the real-ness is better when we sunk down in my broken couches and kicked our shoes off. When another she admitted that she screamed at him on the phone, “maybe we shouldn’t get married”, we all got closer. Our hearts were drawn to hers because her humanity mirrored ours. She probably fought with herself to tell us that. I bet she wanted to tell us where she got her purse. It would have been easier.

That’s what I come back to when I’m in my fist-shaking moods and I say, Don’t You love me? Why don’t you take the pain away? I remember that my loneliness is like the rough side of the Velcro and that other hearts who have felt that or another strong emotion are akin the fuzzy side and that our common weakness enables us to build relationships.

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I am moving to Savannah, maybe. It’s up in the air. In any event, there are tornadoes in Georgia (my heart is with the folks in and near Atlanta who have recently lost homes, schools, churches, workplaces, and loved ones). I have not experienced a tornado firsthand but it has occurred to me that my thinking (and resulting writing) is tornado-esque. I realize that I begin with the outside and rip through destructively because I’m positive that whatever spiritual or generally wise maxim has been established does-not-apply-to-me-and-fuck-you-for-trying-to-help and then I settle back on God’s character and His promises and not only are those calm, but now, finally, I am calm, too. I have found the center, again. My center.

Until the next time.

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Epilogue:
Her purse came from Target, and I have been promised that if I move to Savannah my home can have a basement (and I will be permitted to call it a “cellar”).