Rest Stops

Trickle disclosures are like Chinese Water Torture.  They hit the same nerve again and again and again...  At first, I appreciated the honesty, but after a few I'd had enough.

"I just want to hear it all at once."
Because, as we all know, having a bucket of cold water thrown on your face is much better than Chinese Water Torture.  Or something.

This morning I sat on my bed next to my husband and he threw a figurative bucket of water on my face while our therapist watched via webcam.  At the end of it, we didn't hug.  I didn't tell him I appreciated his honesty.  Instead, I fixed my eyes on the keyboard of my lap top and thought about my past.  My memories.  They were all very real to me -my realities.

But in one swift hour, they were stolen.  Remember Whoville?  And the Grinch?  And how he slithered and slunk?  My husband's addiction slithered and slunk like a thief in the night and stole my past.  What I thought was... wasn't.

Up to this point, I thought I was dealing with loss.  That's why I was sad.  When we lose something, we are sad.  I've lost insignificant things and I've lost very significant things... and each time I've learned something.  I've learned along the way how to deal with loss.  The grieving process, tissues, family, love, Christ.

Through this whole addiction recovery process, I've been going through "loss" emotions.  Lost hopes, lost dreams... but today I experienced something more than loss.  Loss was there, YES.  But it was sort of distant.  I'm pretty much through grieving the loss I've experienced at the hands of addiction.
But standing in front of Loss was a robber, a thief, a Sex Addiction Grinch.
I woke up today.  I walked out into my memories and I found bare walls riddled with crumbs much too small for the other Whos' mouses.

I feel violated.
I feel like I can't trust anyone but myself.
I feel trespassed on.

As my husband laid it all out on the line, I listened to him tell me what my past was REALLY and thievery aside, I felt a comforting sort of validation next to righteous indignation.

All of those times I thought I was crazy, I wasn't.
All of those times I thought something was wrong with me, there wasn't.
All of those times I went against my better judgement, I shouldn't have because I KNEW what was right.

I knew.  I KNEW.
I regret second guessing.  I regret not staying true to myself.

I CAN trust myself because I KNOW.  I can trust GOD because HE KNOWS.
I don't trust my husband.  More than I didn't trust him yesterday.  But I don't have to worry about that.

As I shifted my fixed gaze from the computer keyboard to some vague spot on our bedroom wall, I wanted rest.  So I stretched out on the bed.
And there.  There on my bed it came to me... what I really wanted.
Ready?
It's cancer.  The terminal kind.  The kind that makes it easy to set affairs in order, to make sure the right songs are sung at my funeral and the right people get my jewelry.  The kind that gives me time to write letters to my kids to be opened at later dates.  The kind that give my husband the golden opportunity to finally have sex with someone hotter.  The kind that give my children a better mother: one who gives regular baths and serves three meals a day (it's harder than it seems, okay?).  And the kind that gives me a wonderful escape -one that leads me right back into the safe arms of my Savior.
And people would pray for me and my children.  People would know I was hurting.

This afternoon I sit in a pool of reality, and it's murky.  I really hate it.

The Murky Pool is a rest stop.  on a long, uphill climb. on the side of a steep mountain.  Behind me lies darker days where I couldn't see what was REALLY around me.  Looking ahead, I see exactly what I have to deal with.
For that, I'm grateful.  To my husband?  Double edged answer.  Yes?  and No.


December 13th, 2013
Dear Diary,
Today I faced a Grinch in a Murky Pool.  And it sucked.

Everyone in The Murky Pool wants out.  It's the worst rest stop in the history of histories.  Cancer is a way out because it kills you.  The other way out of the Murky Pool is surrender.

I can surrender my anger, my husband's past sins.  It doesn't feel natural to stand on the edge of The Murky Pool, arms outstretched, cold wind blowing my wet body.
Jumping is scary.
Jumping is so scary.

So I fall instead.  I close my eyes and tell Him I can't handle this.  And I fall.
And just before I scream out of sheer terror, His loving arms lift me up and cradle me.  And I find The Ultimate Rest Stop.  I'm cleansed from The Murky.  I'm polished, dressed, refined.  When it's time, He puts me back on the path and I begin the climb again.

I know that as I climb, His arms will ALWAYS be there and I will jump off most every cliff.  Some days I will dive, some days I will jump, some days I will muster a fall.

But the fact of the matter is that there is simply parts of the path -like The Murky Pool -that are not meant to be traversed.  It was never my job to ramble and stew around the murk until I figured out how to clean it.  It's only my job to surrender it to God.

Here am I.
Arms outstretched.
Murk dripping from my body.

Lord, are you ready?