2018 has been many things to me. It was a year of stepping out of being a housewife of 9 years to starting a career. It was a year that made me new friends, which I will forever hold so dear to my heart. It was a year that taught me that life can be unbearable. It has been the hardest most heart-shattering year. It has been a storm, with what seems like no clear sky in sight.
I have struggled silently for a very long time with anxiety. I have battled it off and on for years and not until the past 3 years has it started to really take its toll on me in bigger and more life changing ways. Things that I never struggled with before began to defeat me, things like flying. I have flown so many times I can’t even count, but I found myself white knuckling the arm rest and holding my breath at every slight bump. This was most unusual for me.
I started to find myself afraid of everything and struggling to enjoy pretty much any moment life had to offer, though you would never have the slightest clue from the surface that I was internally a wreck. You see, (like that old Tony Rich song says), “like a clown I put on a show”. But like the song says, the pain was real even if nobody knows. Sorry for my cheesy song lyrics. I am obsessed with song lyrics for some reason. I suppose it's because they say it so much better than I can.
I was starting to hit rock bottom in 2016 when we started building our home. I remember the day we closed on the sell of our old home I left and went to Nashville for a girl's getaway. I think that was the first time ever, in my adult life anyway, that I fell to my knees in such anxiety and panic. I couldn't breathe the burden was so heavy. And even then, no one knew. I woke up the next morning, got ready, and showed up for brunch.
I don’t know how to ask for help. I don’t know how to say “ I'm hurting” “ I'm broken”. I have the awful instinct of isolating myself. I wish I wasn't this way, but life has taught me that people don't care, and people don't stay so what is the point. And even if they do care, then there I am completely controlled by what I think they might think of what lies beneath. There is truly nothing that controls me more than what people think. I think that’s why I find writing so freeing. I can put it all out there and am not subject to everyone's opinions. I can say what I feel and and the people on the other side can think whatever they will and I am none the wiser.
Things only spiraled down from that day in 2016. I miscarried 7 months later in early 2017. I thought at that time, that it didn't get much worse from there. Oh the irony. I was going through that while trying to build/move, and being audited by the IRS. One of those alone is enough stress to leave you wringing your hands in anxiety, but all three left me so weary. I was like a walking, talking, hosting, zombie. I had no other choice. I had company non stop. We are the only landing pad for both our families and that left me all time host to all people. I do find joy in it. It is actually one of my greatest joys in life, to make people feel at home in my home, but I was running on less than empty. And yet again, no one knew. I baked cookies. I planned trips. I went to dinner with friends. I am living proof that behind every smile is a beating, bloody, wounded heart.
By the time 2018 reared its head, I had a way of doing things, a system if you will. Isolation. Complete and utter isolation. I opened up to no one not even those closest to me. No one knew how afraid, insecure, lonely, and unsure I really felt. People often tell me that I come across as confident and I think to myself, “if they only knew”. I can't even bake a cake for someone without making it a week in advance to make sure it's okay. I second guess almost everything I do. If there is one thing I am not and have never been, it's a risk taker. I am not confident enough to do that. Maybe I am confident and i'm just not brave. I don't know exactly how that works.
This year hit me with so many battles I never saw coming. It has seemed as though waves of grief for everything I had pushed aside for so long came all at once. I was out in the ocean a few years ago with my sister and friend and we all three got caught in the waves and rip tide. They made it back to shore, and I was still left out there. My sister called out to me, “are you okay?” I just simply shook my head "no". This year has felt so much like that. I am out in the sea and every time I come up for air and get my head above the water, another wave crashes over and pushes me back further. That was the closest to death I have ever come. I was scared. I was desperate. April was coming back for me with a raft and I remember seeing her and thinking, “its okay I just have to make it a little while longer’. That was my 2018. I'm coming up to scream for help and swallowing a mouthful of water.
Like I said, this year has been many things to me. It has broken my heart. Being a housewife was safe for me. I had my circle and was free from the mean harsh world. But I learned that even within the walls of your very own home, you're not safe from pain. I discovered that it will find you. Sadness meets us all. I was fine with the sadness and grief when it kissed me on the cheek and then went on its merry way, but it unpacked its bags to stay awhile and it turned my world upside down. It made facing tomorrow seem like some sick punishment instead of the gift I had always seen it before. All my life I have avoided suffering in all forms. I don't do physical pain and I don't do emotional pain. So I made sure to make all the right choices so I didn't have to. Again, suffering meets us all. Whether self inflicted or not, it hurts all the same. Suffering and sadness met me where I was this year and they have changed me. They have brought me to my knees almost daily for the past 6 months. They have crashed over my already sinking body in the seas of grief. I feel it some days for reasons I can't explain. It's just there.
My heart has cried out to God every day. I have begged him for his easy burden and his light yoke. And even though most days, I feel no relief I know that He is there. I know He wants me to sit in the suffering alongside Him. There is nothing harder and more terrifying to the controlling pain avoiding person that I am. I know He is trying to show me that there is no escape, only endurance. I have tried to run and hide from the pain and sadness, but He has used it to chase me down. Even though I have found myself standing desolate in the wilderness naked, barren, and afraid I at times, can see the smallest glimmer of hope on the horizon. If I look out really hard and really far, I can see Him standing out on the water coming for me. I don't know how much longer i'll be here, but I know there is something to be learned here. If there is something here that will make me more like Jesus, then I will endure and tell myself, “ its okay, I just have to make it a little while longer”.
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