The Waiting Walk

I am loving my blessed life…
AND
I am utterly exhausted and overwhelmed every single day.

I love my life. I love to share the moments that I feel most alive and most free…
AND
I also spend a lot of time feeling like I want to crawl out of my skin. Literally. It’s a horrid feeling. I don’t want to make the decisions I’m faced with. Wisdom feels so elusive most days…

In fact, many of these beautiful and free moments are captured BECAUSE I am compelled to get away, to get out of my house and into the wild.

I run to nature because it is therapy for me.

I guess it is a blessing when the thing that you do to escape your reality is also the thing that absolutely energizes and breathes life into your soul. Nature. The mountains. Rivers. Trees and flowers and rock formations. Birds. Animals. Open sky. 

I am living my best life. I am happier than I have ever been.
AND 
Most days are still harder than I can even express.

What do you do when none of the parenting options in front of you are good ones? How can you be sure that the least bad is actually the least bad?

What if mental illness wins* and takes my child?
Would the me of THAT day be satisfied with the choices that me of today is making?
No mother should have to face that dilemma or ask that question (though my therapist says it’s the best question I could ask).
No child should have to struggle with such depths of despair… or feeling as though no one in the world actually cares…
It is so beyond unfair that the choices of abusive people affect the victims for a LIFETIME while the abuser, for all intents and purposes, walks free and without consequence.

And what of the bigger picture?

Will my daughters survive in this world where the default question when women are raped is what was she wearing? Why was she there? What was she thinking? Doesn’t she know the risks…? 
Risks of what?? Existing as a female???

Will my boys be able to be good and safe men when the culture around them tells them they can’t help but have abusive urges? That boys will be boys. That it’s not THEIR mother/daughter/sister so they should mind their own business. That laughing at jokes that objectify women is harmless; it’s just joking; it’s no big deal…

What happened to men being protectors of women?
Or is it only the women that they own that they will protect?

My heart is so heavy at the loss of our humanity.

I was standing in church this weekend during a beautiful worship song. And the clear and sweet and innocent voice of one of my students rose up loud and strong behind me.

And it broke me. 
And I wept. 
Sobbed. 
Will this sweet child always feel so free and safe to express herself without restraint?
Or will someone steal her song too, just as someone stole mine… just as someone stole the songs of my daughters?
May it never be so…

And while I do sing again today, that stolen time can never be recovered. 

I’m doing the best I know how.

I’m loving my children, my students, the best I know how.

AND
I have also experienced the jolting realization that love is not enough. If love were enough, my life would look nothing like it does today. My children’s lives would look nothing like they do today.
One can love another to the depths and heights of their capacity, and the one that they love may still make choices that hurt or harm – themselves or others or both.

Am I OK? No…
AND
I’ve never been better.

And so I escape to the mountains and love every moment, as my heart is heavy and my soul gasps for air.

I walk through my neighborhood under the blazing sky in an attempt to quiet the raging fire of thoughts that refuse to be stilled inside my own head. 

And I breathe.
And I soak in the beauty.  
And I shed tears.
And I choose to move forward, towards whatever comes at us next.  
Never knowing what that may be.
But knowing that there will always be something.
Always something. 

AND I know that I will always choose to look for the light. The joy. The peace. The beauty. 
I will choose life. Abundant life. 
Always.

And I hope against hope that my children will choose the same.  

*While mental health battles will probably always be something my family struggles with to some capacity, at this very moment I believe everyone is stable.  We weren’t a month ago, but today I breathe easier.  We are not in active crisis.  We continue to take it one day at a time.
Thank you for your prayers.