Week Two – The Fire Hydrant of Feels

Y’all. At the beginning of the week, I had this nice flow going. A beautiful little schedule that looked organized, comfortable, and well thought out on paper. You know my Plum Paper day planner is one of my favorite things on the planet. She was glowing.

That was 8 years ago…or at least that’s what it feels like. I tried to put this idea together Sunday – you know, at the appointed, appropriate, scheduled, end of the week reflection time. I couldn’t get it together. I moved through most of the day like a robot on auto-pilot – now you have to eat, drink some water, laundry needs to be done, you really need to go to the store, there is some work that kinda needs to get done, you need to get ready for bed. By the time my bedtime rolled around, I still hadn’t eaten dinner, showered, or thought about the next day. I finally got into bed…and I just couldn’t get it together.

April wept. Y’all, I just couldn’t get it together. I know crying is okay and therapeutic and all the things, but this was inconvenient timing. I needed to get to sleep. I knew I had to work in the morning. All this blubbering – and it really was a full-out blubber – wasn’t doing anything but snotting up my nose and swelling up my face. I was setting myself up to ruin my morning schedule and looking like a blowfish. I finally called my sweet husband, there was nothing else for it. I hate doing that to him. Does he always have my back? Yes. Is he always super supportive? Yes. Is he emotionally available to me whenever I need him? 100% yes! Does he also love me in a way that means my tears break his heart? Also, yes. I hate doing that to him, but I just didn’t have it myself. He just sat on the phone, talked to me about the cats, the sportsball, the drive home, the plans for the week while I got myself snuggled in the bed and under control. It worked…right up to the moment when I said I was good. Framily, I was, in fact, not good. But, we both pretended like I was, and said goodnight. I turned on the Hallow app, and let Bishop Barron recite the rosary for me until I finally got to sleep.

I woke up this morning a little later than expected, but nothing alarming. I was greeted by a face in the mirror that was blessfully not a swollen monster mess. My coffee was hot, the weather was beautiful, and my drive to campus was uneventful. I got here way early, so I just kinda wandered. I found my building, my classroom, the study lounge at St. John XXIII. I talked to my husband and met a delightful Catholic FOCUS missionary, Connery.

Now, I think my brain is beginning to untangle the mess in my head that exploded into Steel Magnolias ugly cry on my face…or, at least sort of.

We talked last week about finding flow, a groove that allows for forward movement even when I am feeling a bit less than. In that discussion, we touched a little on the effects of loneliness and fear. These feels were discussed as completely normal products of this transition. Honestly, there is nothing more predictable. Even if I were local, and UTK had always been my program, there would have been some level of “oh shit” beginning a new phase of work with new people.

What we didn’t talk about, what I hadn’t realized or allowed myself to consider, was the expanse of these feelings that had spaghettied into other unrelated pieces of my body. I wasn’t holding out; I just didn’t know. The first 17 days of my journey were soaked in extreme newness. That kind of distraction will mask many things. The obvious ones are your garden-variety loneliness and performance anxiety. The ones that catch you on your pillow after you have had a delicious taste of love and home? Those are different monsters.

While appreciating my husband, I tried to explain to him what happened, how it felt.

“You know how when you are a kid and you go to your first spend-the-night or sleep-away camp? And you are having an excellent time. But then, right at bedtime, you start to get that empty feeling in your stomach, and your chest starts to tighten? And you just feel like if you don’t get home right that second, you won’t be able to? It’s like that.”

He understood what I said; I knew there was more to it, I just hadn’t worked it out yet. I still haven’t worked it all out.

But I am peeling at the edges. I feel like I have removed myself from the position I need to live in to act as a constant reminder that I do deserve to be loved and held on to. I feel like I have left the space where I have given the appearance of ability and am therefore assumed to be somewhat valuable. I feel like I have given up my seat in the first row, and those who are supposed to save it will not. I feel like I have given everyone in my world the opportunity to learn that I am replaceable and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I feel abandoned, discarded, unwanted, unloved, incapable, and stupid for ever thinking otherwise.

Do not come for me. I know these are the most outrageous thoughts of ridiculousness. I, in my unblubbered mind, know, without a shadow of a doubt that I am loved, strong, and capable. I, without hesitation, know that I am unconditionally adored and cherished by the lover of my soul. In fact, when we are being honest, there is some argument to be made that Mike is having a harder time with the separation than I am. I know this is nothing more than evil poking at my soft spots.

So, while the thoughts are unfounded, they do a great job of exposing the ignored reality that the soft spots are real. In her book Restore, Sister Miriam James Heidland said, “Our wounds are not arbitrary, they are not random. Satan is like a sniper…and he shoots his most deadly arrows…to thwart the flourishing of a person and God’s plan for their life. Satan succeeds when he can convince us to hate God, hate ourselves, and hate others for the wounds we bear…if we allow restoration in these places…[these] vicious attacks are nothing in comparison to the immense sovereignty and love of God and the profound transformation that can take place” (63).

I am here for a purpose. There is no way to deny that. When I look back at the last two years, I have to go back three more, and then five more, then ten more, then…there is no place in my steps where God’s love and call to me wasn’t obvious. For sure, I wasn’t always looking and sometimes just downright rejected it. But he was always there. Which means he is here. This was made for me. Sunday night was a real example that there is nothing I can do, I am not capable. But I don’t want to be. Left to my own devices, I will mess this up. But God wants to do a wonderful thing in me and through me. If I have confidence that framily is on my side, that my beloved husband will never leave or forsake me, how much more confidence can I have in the love of the one who loves perfectly, who loves me perfectly?