Of Mice and Mold

C.S. Lewis told me that I'm a mere player on the stage -that the REAL me exists outside of the stage -in the darkened wings and the unseen balconies, and that I can't tap into The Real Me until my part is finished, until I've washed off the stage make-up and hung up the costume... in short: until I die.

This makes absolute sense to me because I feel The Real Me at certain sacred times in my life, and each time I do, I find a sense of home that feels even more HOME than the four walls that house me right now. 
Writing does it to me -leaves me with a sense of other-worldliness that feels more like visiting a departed twin I've never met rather than an alien encounter.
Certain songs will transport me to my "other" home, remind me that I'm still playing my part on stage and that there's a wide world waiting in the wings and beyond.
But surely, PRAYER is my biggest, fattest surest freest ticket to my Homeland, to Father and Mother.

Prayer has been my golden ticket in these last years.  I always pick up a ONE WAY ticket, fully intending to never leave God's presence, but something always, always pulls me back to the bright draw of the stage lights.
God knows how I can't let go of that stage.  Even when we're together, it seems like all I can talk about is The Play.  I'm consumed with it.
He knows all about The Play.
He wrote it.  He produces it.  He is the audience, the crew, the set designer.  Alpha and Omega!

I ask Him questions, and sometimes He replies.  Sometimes He raises His eyebrow and sometimes He just smiles while I work out answers for myself.

I'm doing a scene right now titled, "Of Mice and Mold."It's really pretty grotesque.

It hold the familiar old plot line of health issues, one that I can't seem to shake.  Maybe my character plays the part well?  I don't know.  This is something I ask Father when I happen to buy a well-intentioned "one way" ticket. 

The set looks something like a blue-collar rental, adorned with antiques and dirty clothes.  There's a baby painting her own fingernails, a young boy and girl arguing over who called whose imaginary friend stupid, and Me.  Me is wearing my LEAST favorite costume: work clothes.  I'm curled up in the comfiest chair.
There's a television show on in the background, a nearly empty milk carton in the fridge and leftovers on the counter that have grown some fascinating mounds of mold.
And as I sit with a heating pad on my side, hoping to quell the pain roaring from under my right rib and calm the nausea that comes in dreaded waves, a mouse scurries around the edge of the stage.

I want to care, but I'm too tired.  I'm SO tired.

I find that in previous acts, I've had to let go of expectations in my marriage.  I've had to leave my 50th anniversary bash and dreams of grey-haired front porch hand-holding in the hands of The Playwright.
THAT was hard.
I yelled into the blackness of the audience at that point.
"You expect me to go along with this?" My hair curled, my body toned and able, my make-up as pristine as was in my power to procure.
It was my DIVA moment, The Diva Scene.

Of Mice and Mold is unfolding in what feels like YEARS away from The Diva Scene.  I'm not sassy and stamping my feet.  At this point, I'm looked less plucky and more sucky, defeated and tired.

"It's been 5 years," I whisper to the footlights because I know The Director well enough by now to know that HE WILL HEAR ME even if I don't yell, even if I don't stamp, even if I don't speak at all, "and still.  I am being asked to give more of my future.  I am being asked to give all.  I don't know if I can."

Can I surrender my ENTIRE future to God?  Can I trust Him with my health and my kids and my bank account?
With the mice?
I haven't even mentioned the mold!

These are the questions I put at His feet on my Prayer Train visits.
His answers are always so pure and delicious. 
"Stop worrying about The Play, Alicia," He closes His eyes to match my closed eyes, "And let Me."
His calming words make the mice and mold feel like distant pebbles in my shoes -the kind I kick out in an instant. I remember that The Play is a blip on the radar.  It's so easy to forget, so easy to get wrapped up in my lines, the set, the banter.

At that moment, the Real Alicia and The Real Father touch souls so intimately and deeply that I can't imagine ever opening my eyes and breaking our connection.  In that moment, God knows my deepest longings to live a life filled with Mother Teresa's charity, C.S. Lewis' wisdom, and Erma Bombeck's humor.  He knows my shame, my strength, my fears and my hopes.  It is the most vulnerable love I know. I am completely exposed, yet all around me is insurmountable support.

It is Heaven on Earth.
And I CLING to it right up until the mouse scurries across from stage right, and then my eyes fly open.  I'm back.

The Plot floods my mind: get the nail polish away from the baby, keep the chocolate from the dog. Put the fighting children outside, and don't forget to eat even if everything makes me sick.  Do I have any bleach?  Can I make it to the store?  Does anyone have any clean clothes?

My serenity is threatened constantly on stage -maintained only by the heavenly hangover that comes when I access my Real Me, my True Home.
I remember today is just today, and my only job is to be as present as I can be in it for God has a new act around every corner.
The great tragedies only come when I spend my time trying to predict and manage the upcoming acts -to grieve over my mistakes in the acts I left behind.  I try to balance every scene all at once instead of simply playing the one at hand and leaving the managing and writing to God.

Tonight, I touched The Real Me.
This makes the impending tomorrow easier. Though the mold will grow and the mice will somehow find their way from the barn to my home and the pain in my body will insist on playing it's own shadowy part... I remember the Play is just The Play.

And God, who is within and without, knows me very, very well.

Red Pain

I haven't thought about my razors in at least a year.
It's been well over ten years since I threw the last one away, one I had pried carefully from my disposable pack of razors I used to shave my long teenage legs.

I never cut for attention.
I never cut to toe the line between mortality and escape (death).

I just wanted to free the pain.  I felt Red Pain, and when I could see my pain in red, everything made sense again.
I could face school again, as long as no one bumped up against me too close in the hall.
It didn't take long for scars to form, for cuts to open on scars.  Those ones hurt the most, and I knew they did... so I saved those cuts for the pain that hurt the most. 

It was how I freaked out.

It was how I let my two year old baby inside of me out -the one who didn't know a life without freaking out when she felt the urge: kicking, screaming, bawling...

Freaking out, I felt, was NOT okay.  I had been taught it wasn't okay.  Pick up, carry on, it will pass, and in the meantime, dry your eyes, won't you?  No one wants to see you like that.

So my pain went down, down, down, until one day when I needed to see it.  No amount of expression was enough: no amount of writing or music could free the pain.  There was too much, it was too heavy.
Trying to free it with my pen and paper was like poking an insignificant hole in the Hoover Dam.
Slooooooooowwww leak.  Too slow.
The pain from my pen and paper was grey and black and white.
I had Red Pain.  I needed to see it so I could deal with it.

No one ever saw my shoulders anyway.  I never wore anything to show them because good girls don't, and I was good.  Always good, too scared to be anything but good.  So my shoulders took it.

You can't even see the scars anymore.  They've finally -only recently -faded out.

Last night, I found myself longing for my old razors.  The Red Pain is back, and even still -I do not know how to freak out.
I have some sort of barrier in my soul, harnessing pain and harassing me from the inside out.
Don't do it.  Don't scream, don't kick.
Terrified to make a mistake, terrified of consequences, terrified of his reaction.

I need to see my pain now.
I prayed, I took myself to the piano and HAMMERED out songs lyrics that said what I was feeling.

The scars of your love, they leave me breathless.
I can't help feeling,
We could have had it all...
Rolling in the deep.
You had my heart inside of your hand,
And you played it to the beat.

Over and over, harder and harder until it wasn't enough and I needed more.  So I played "Good Life" mockingly, as if the song was some sort of shallow misrepresentation of reality.  Over and over and over.

In sweet progression, I continued trying to release my pain... but it was only black and white pain.  It wasn't enough.  It was a slow leak.  But I kept going.

But the tigers come at night.
With their voices soft as thunder...
As they tear your hope apart.
And they turn your dreams to shame...

He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came.

Over and over and over, but the pain was still just black as night on a sheet of snow.  I wanted to see my red pain.
I went to the tub, and the water just couldn't get hot enough.

Stupid cold pipes.
My skin was barely pink.  My pain isn't pink.  In frustration I scrubbed my skin, and the pink turned into a deeper shade of rose -still pink, only deeper.
I scrubbed more and harder, trying to let the red pain out.  I used a coarse brush, scrubbing...
It burned, but it never gave me more than pink pain.

It came to me there in my real and vulnerable moment before God and a few angels -which at this point I'm SURE are surrounding my family around the clock, even if we aren't behaving ourselves like we ought to when angels are around -that the Red Pain has already been suffered and seen.

I remembered that He knows my pain.
How in the HELL did He bear it and not die instantly?  The collective pain of just MY life -my cutting, my sins, my miscarriage, my labors, my losses, my grief -it would break me, kill me! 

And there in my red pain, I thanked Him for knowing it.  Because I was suddenly not alone in it.
I still wanted to feel it.
But I also wanted to hand it over.

I have no idea how to hand it over because there's SO much of it.
I have no idea how to freak out and turn that slow leak into a full-on dam break.
I don't know how to freak out.
I don't know how to stop abusing my piano.
I don't know if I can hand the red pain over.  I always handled it myself.  I saw it and dealt with it and closed the case on it.

Last night, I wrapped myself in warm fleece jammies and went to bed, my body still burning but not enough for me to feel any better.

I dreamed I was on stage, sitting on a ledge over the performers.  I was completely exposed, completely naked, and too high up to get down easily.  Everyone could see me, and everyone DID see me, but no one looked me in the eye.  They were looking at my body.
I tried hiding it, turning it... I tried texting my husband for help of any kind -help getting down, a coat?  anything?
But I couldn't reach him.  I had no phone, no way to reach out -no way to get a word out.

At that moment of panic, a warm coat fell over my shoulders.  A woman sat next to me with a smile on her face and talked to me about her kids, her own coat at home, and the program going on below.

You know the difference between knowing and understanding?  Like knowing you're a child of God and then finally UNDERSTANDING it?  It's a totally different kind of education.
For three years before Danny's disclosure, I knew about addiction.  I studied it and became well-versed.
Broken brain
Frontal lobe
Can't choose
No agency
Can't connect
Minimize

And then Danny's disclosure came, and everything I KNEW... I finally UNDERSTOOD.  I finally UNDERSTAND.  And the pain I felt before is rearing it's ugly head at a new awfully painful level.  I could tell people what I was going through before... I could even kind of feel it.  But now.  Now I can't even tell people what I'm going through because there's hardly an English word out there that sums it up.  Except maybe "bloody." 

My past has been taken, my youth taken advantage of and tossed aside, my trust has been priced worthless, and my love never fought for, though still I gave, gave, gave, hoping to be enough someday -hoping to earn it.

Yesterday I sat with Danny in an online group session, and we were given a big presentation on the basics of sexual addiction.  It was nothing new... in fact, I'd seen an almost identical presentation given by Brannon only months before at The Togetherness Conference.  But hearing it all post-disclosure brought emotion raging back with power and force.

My soul is aching for me to freak out.
It's the Red Pain.  It's back.

When I take things on my own shoulders, I feel exposed and helpless... left to my own designs to figure things out, forgetting that IF I DO FREAK OUT I will feel better, and I will feel warm -as warm as a coat given by a friend when I'm in my most vulnerable and exposed state  -and less alone.
Because then I can HEAR the pain, free the pain, and send it off in a great big balloon to heaven where my Savior will take it.

Only He understands The Red Pain.

Detaching From Detaching

I detached from my husband a lot over the years.

He wasn't safe, our marriage wasn't safe, a situation wasn't safe... so I'd detach and lay a brick down.  A few days later, I'd step over the brick and back into my relationship with my husband.  And then he'd go into addict mode, and I'd detach and lay a brick down.

It was a comfortable pattern.  My wall grew thick and strong.  It got to the point where if I wanted to step over it and get back into our relationship, I had to REALLY try hard.  And I would try hard, and then I would get hurt.  So I would catapult myself over the wall and add 90 million bricks, covered in "Alicia How Could You Be So STUPID?!?" tears.

Behind my wall was a wonderful world filled with everything I loved and had forgotten: my crochet hooks, my empty grid-paper journal, my hunger to learn and do more!
I dumped myself into that world and discovered that -oh my HECK, I am really fun!  Vivacious, colorful, imaginative, silly, crazy, creative!
I had this moment standing there behind my wall with my arms full of kittens, crayons, and musical instruments... I wanted to share it with someone older than the age of 6.

And that someone is my husband.
Even after all the hurts, the lies, the betrayal, the MUCK... I love him and I want him in my life.

So I did something very Alicia-ish.  I took a drill and took it to the wall.  I am CRAZY with tools.  Not crazy good... just CRAZY.
I peaked through the hole and saw him standing there.

He was doing rottenly mean things, and I watched.  I didn't feel a thing.
Something inside sort of wanted me to feel, but my wall was doing her job and I felt nothing but apathy... if it's possible to actually FEEL apathetic.
I left my tiny drilled hole and went about my business, writing, playing, crafting, cooking!  I learned a few new skills, I discovered Pinterest, I worked my own recovery.
Now and then I'd return to the wall and peak out. 

Sometimes he'd come to the wall and knock.
Sometimes I'd call out to him through the hole.

Sometimes I wanted to make the hole bigger, but fear kept me from doing it.
Sometimes I filled in the hole and cried myself to sleep.

The Wall stood proudly between us always.

But then something happened... and that something is his Step 1 Inventory.

When we were first married, my husband kicked my toenail off by accident.  Except it didn't come alllll the way off.  It left a weird stubborn stub just... THERE.  That toe was such a pain in my life.  I couldn't touch it.  I couldn't bump it.  I had to really watch other people's kicks around my precious toe.  I tried nursing it, clipping it back, painting over it.  It grew back in deformed and thick.  I limped around on it for YEARS.  YEARS!  Until one sweet day when I was dancing with my husband last year... and he finally kicked if off FOR GOOD.  It hurt like mad for a few weeks, and today I have a wonderful new toe nail and no pain.
The nail has been taken off for good.

It's uncanny how that toe mirrors my marriage.  The Step 1 Inventory finally ripped the deformed marriage OUT of it's place.

I kept myself safe from my deformed marriage because I had a wall, but as I found myself... as I came to know that I AM A LITERAL DAUGHTER OF GOD, My Father, King, Savior, Ruler and Prince of Peace... I became strong!  I became confident and sure.  And I became comfidentally SURE that I didn't want a deformed marriage anymore.

With my wall in place, I had separated from my marriage.  By abusing me, my husband had ceased to really BE a husband.  Our children were unfortunate floaters in the mess of it all, running around with boots on the wrong feet and ketchup on their faces -seemingly oblivious.

And suddenly, I was through being through with my marriage.

If my husband looked at porn, I WANTED to feel the pain and the hurt.  I AM HIS WIFE, for crying out loud.  It SHOULD hurt!  I wanted to feel the anguish that comes from rejection, the heart break of NO INTIMATE CONNECTION.  I wanted to let the emotions rise up and out and through and around, and I wanted to tell my husband how I felt.  I wanted to be SEEN for the first time in my marriage -truly seen for who I am (a daughter) and what I love (creating).

I did not want a wall to keep me safe from my own husband.

 So I used my tools and I tore the wall down, and there I stood... vulnerable and wincing and ready to go on a few dates with my husband.

I want him to need me for who I am and what I can do as a woman and as an Alicia.
I want to need him for who he is and what he can do (dishes) (just kidding) (but seriously).

I'm ready to detach from detaching and embrace my new pattern of recovery which I like to call...

Vulnerable, Honest, Living complete with the Surrender Process.

And while I'm settling into a very hard, messy place, I will say this: I love it in the same way I love pushing my physical body to health.  It's hard but there's a purpose for it.

But somehow no matter how I live whether behind a wall with A Few of My Favorite Things or in front of a wall with ALL of My Favorite Things, the kids still have their boots on the wrong feet.
I take comfort in their constancy. 

Into Me See

I wrote a guest post today for Jacy, and I'd love for you to read it!

At the Togetherness Project, Dr. Skinner talked about intimacy.  I equate intimacy with sex, but he said intimacy isn't about sex... at least, not primarily.  Intimacy is better pronounced, he said, as "into me see."

It all goes back to Avatar, I swear.

But I've been thinking about what he said, and I've been reading the book "Captivating" by Stasi and John Eldredge.  There's a lot to be said about intimacy, and I got squirmy when the authors began suggesting that women should strive to be intimate with Christ -to be romanced by Heavenly Father.

I felt like Marty McFly's mom, "This is all wrong... When I kiss you, it's like I'm kissing... my brother."

The authors suggested that the Lord woos us through beauty.  He desires us, He longs for us, He sees us and knows us and works tirelessly on our behalves.  They encourage women to look for signs of his love -I believe Elder Bednar calls them "tender mercies."

I set the book aside and let the words sort of... digest.  Did they sit right with me?  No.  Why not?
Because!
Because EW!
It's Heavenly FATHER!

And then I remembered "Into Me See."
And my soul hungered, faltered, and fell.

I want that.  Can I have that?  He wouldn't like what I have to offer.

I then realized in one swift and awful moment that I've never had intimacy in my marriage (or life? I don't even know.  My brain would explode if I tried to think that far back at this point).  I've never been seen beyond a certain point.
I've had sex.  Yes.
So I've always assumed that I've been intimate.
But sex is sex and intimacy is Into Me See.
If you have trouble grasping the difference, you can watch some Hollywood movies.  Or don't.  Because they're garbagey.

I read an article yesterday about Jimmy Stewart.  He mentioned his wife (of which he only had The One) and this is what he had to say:

“I could tell right off that she was a thoroughbred. For me it had been love at first sight. She was the kind of a girl I had always dreamed of. The kind you associate with open country, cooking stew and not fainting because it was made of cut-up squirrels. She’d look at home on a sailboat or a raft; in a graceful swing from a tree branch into the swimming pool.”

(Q: Why does it seem blush-inducing complimentary and NOT borderline offensive that he referred to his wife as a "thoroughbred"?
A: Because he's Jimmy Stewart, and he can make offensive things sound complimentary.)

I have read that quote at least 5 times, and it still gets me.  He SEES his wife.  Open country, cooking stew!  Nothing about her legs or breasts or clothes!  He gives us an in-depth look into his wife and we feel like we KNOW her without him saying a word about Her Looks.

He into-her-sees and as a result, WE into-her-see.  And THAT.  That right there is intimacy.  It's contagious and warm and more gratifying, fulfilling and satisfying that any amount or variety of  any kind of sex out there.

I want it.
I waaaaaaant it!

I've spent years searching for that deep connection.  I searched websites and companies dedicated to helping married people "date."  I created THIS basket and THAT game.  I planned and schemed and curled my eyelashes!  I worked out.  I baked!  I cleaned!  I read self-help books!
I WAS GOD!  The almighty, powerful!  I could save and fix and create and do it ALONE!

(Are you laughing right now?  or crying?  Either is an acceptable reaction.)

I turned everywhere but TO God because I thought (without realizing it) that I WAS God.
Ironically, God is the ONLY one who can fill my vessel.  My vessel is bottomless, ever in need of fulfillment and connection.
Who can fill an endless vessel?
Living Water, The Great I Am.

It's time to seek out that intimacy -it's time to truly understand a concept of connection that has alluded me since... forever.
It's time to seek more fully the Valentines from God.
Yesterday I was given three.  One of which was a Mormon Message titled Wrong Roads:




And one was an blatant over-abundace of gleeful giggles -no doubt in my mind they were Heaven sent.

The third was a woman testifying through tears of her own sweet Valentine from the Lord -and listening to her bear testimony that SHE was not only not forgotten but personally know and intimately loved by God was a gift all it's own to me.

Today I'm praying that the Lord will please send a Valentine that looks and behaves exactly like a housekeeper.
It never hurts to ask, right?

I will continue to battle my belief that what I have to offer is not enough to be worthy of intimacy, my fear that I'll fall short of the Lord's approval because of my character weaknesses.  But I will battle it today with God and not Google, with Christ and holy connection.
And?  *gulp* Intimacy.

Vulnerable Boundaries

(one of Dr. Skinner's slides at The Togetherness Conference)

Random Sample of what's going on in my house right now:

Him: Come here I want to show you something.
Me: I can't.
Him: Yes, you can.
Me: Don't tell me what to do.
Him: Quit being mean.

Doors slam.  Bottom lips come out to play.
But seriously... that actually happened, and both of us were a little disturbed by it.  I mean, we're ADULTS, but we were sounding exactly like our small children.

My therapist applauded me for holding my ground.  I felt my choice was being taken away and I stood boldly and said, "Don't tell me what to do."  I spoke and held a boundary.
I wasn't yelling or defiant.  In fact, I was scared.

"What you can do instead," said my therapist, "is be honest about where you are.  Be vulnerable when you hold your boundaries."

I have been in such a confused and lonely place.  I have a MARRIAGE but I don't.  I have a relationship but it's dysfunctional.  I can't change it or fix it.  I can only detach and feel lonely and wait and watch.
But what if I can't ever re-attach?  Am I destined to stay in this cold, dank corner forever?  never to trust or depend on any man EVER AGAIN?

My ability to connect with people -and eventually this will *hopefully* include my husband -is to foster my ability to be vulnerable.
It's raising my hand in a Relief Society lesson on choosing spiritual needs over physical wants and saying, "I know this concept is important, but I struggle with it.  I need to remember to have compassion for myself because it's only natural to want to give into physical desires.  We have them for a reason."
It's reading poetry I've written in front of a crowd.
It's saying, "I'm sorry, I can't help with that.  I really wish I could."
It's apologizing to my kids and being honest about my mistakes with them.
It's saying prayers with them and letting them hear me talk to God about my failings.
And while I can't be safely vulnerable with my husband all of the time right now, I can be vulnerable in my boundaries.

Instead of saying, "Don't tell me what to do" which shows no insight into what's really going on with me, I can be honest and say, "Whoa, you just set off some old emotions.  I'm feeling controlled (or I'm feeling like you're taking my choice) so I need some space."

I don't foresee that going over well a'tall. 
BUT.

It's time for me to be fully honest, even if it's uncomfortable.
It's time for me to tell my husband how I truly feel instead of change the subject when he comes onto me and I feel triggered.
I owe myself integrity.

I'm always telling my kids, "When you do something that scares you, it makes you stronger."

It's time for me to live that truth, to face situations and let go of the outcomes. 

The bottom line is that I'm not willing to sacrifice the art of being vulnerable.  Right now, I'm very much in a place where it would be easy to wall myself off, but I will fight to maintain my self-honesty and ability to be vulnerable with myself and others.

The fact is: I'm not going to stay in this cold and lonely place.  I will connect again.  Whether it's to my husband or not, I will connect again.
When that time comes, I want to be able to be fully honest and vulnerable with myself and others.\