I Read Too Much

Christmas is a really hard time of year for me.  Oh, it hasn't always been hard, just in the recent past few years.  For those who have followed this blog for any given amount of time, you know it was during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season that the ex-Mr. left.  I won't sit here and tell you there hasn't been some happy Christmas memories since that time, there have, but, there are also many that make this time of year hard.  I want to share straight off that this post will be raw - you don't have to read/finish beyond this point. It is during the Christmas season that I find in my heart so much hurt, pain, and, yes, even anger. I want to tell you I can pinpoint it to one exact thing, and maybe if I look at it hard enough I really can.  Christmas is supposed to be a time of celebration, a time to honor and remember the birth of our Savior. Yet, I have found that I cannot, especially at this time of year, put away all of the feelings I have about how Christma...

I know life is about change.  I also know that life is going to be wrought with ups and downs, victories and defeats, joy and sadness, and so on.  I know, too, how we think plays a huge role in the outcome of each day. You see, today I could tell was going to be a rough day.  You know, one of those days where you wake up and you just "feel" it?!  That is when it happened.  Instead of thanking the Lord for giving me another day, I woke up, looked at myself, and felt instant disgust.  This feeling trailed me out the door and into the van.  Then at Starbucks this morning they messed up my drink, seriously who on earth forgets the double shot of espresso?  Sadly I didn't catch it until I was already on the interstate and took a big swig of my caramel flavored frothed milk...YUMMO... NOT !  But that wasn't even the clincher.  Here I was, finally going to get to work BEFORE 8 am and no...that coffee-less drink I just mentioned...took them over...

Do you ever just want to yell at God?  No, I don't mean like when you yell at the guy who cut you off in traffic, I mean yell at him over things that happen and demand of him the reasons for those same things?  I do.  I want to scream at him at the top of my lungs to ensure that he hears me.  No, not just hears me, but feels me.  Feels my pain.  People, I am so very mad at God right now.  You want to know an ugly truth about me?  I hate myself.  I hate that I am not good enough for another person's love.  I hate that no matter how hard I try, another person always steals the person I love away from me.  Each and every time.  I hate that I am so wrong for everyone that they run from me as fast as they are able and when the dust settles I am left holding a broken heart and lots of memories.  Always only memories.  Not plans for the future, just the moments of my past. Why?  I know this is an age old que...

There comes a time when you know.  You just KNOW how someone feels.  You see their actions, their words and you know.  You know without a shadow of a doubt what they are going through, not because you have sat down with them, but for a reason all the more prominent than that.  You've been there.  You've walked a mile in those shoes.  You know.  You have a deeper understanding than many people do.  An understanding that you wish you didn't have because of what it is, but one that you do have because of what it is. I know the pain.  I know the struggle to hold on and fight and beg and plead.  I know the way it feels to come to the realization that there are no words left to fully express what needs to be said.  I know the anguish of the truth as it comes crashing down at your feet.  I've been there.  I've been in that place where you don't know if you are coming or going.  Where merely going through the motions of eve...

There are times when you have a million things to say and yet not the words to do so.  That is me - today.  Rather, it is a manifestation of a long weekend worth of lots on my mind and numerous thoughts climbing over each other for prominence and the right to be uttered aloud.  This happens to me frequently.  In fact I usually find that they come more freely when I have the opportunity to type them out.  Thus, I have something to say.  Someone that I care for, deeply, truly, honestly is hurting.  The hurt was self induced and yet simultaneously thrust upon them.  That type of hurt comes from not owning both sides of a story. There are ALWAYS two sides to every story. In fact,  I looked back over some of my posts from 8+ months ago.  Those posts where the pain and the heartache and the anguish were so unbearable I could do nothing else but understand it through my eyes.  Today, or this whole weekend ac...

I've searched, fervently, for something to heal my broken heart.  I stumbled across a picture on the web that gave me the only answer I really needed, you can see it below.  It wasn't that my vision was skewed, its that my mind couldn't, wouldn't, focus.  After all, my heart is in a thousand little pieces.  I hurt.  My pain is greater than I have ever experienced.  I've been dealt a death blow, I'm crushed.  But, I've found a few things.  I've found the depth of love my church family and friends have for me.  I've found, that I'm still alive, a feat in and of itself, but I am breathing, in and out, though labored by the incessant crying.  Oh these tears, how they burn.  My eyes, so puffy.  My stomach, in knots.  All these a reflection of the pieces my heart is in.  It's a funny thing, really.  How this organ that circulates life has the capacity to ache, to feel heavy over the loss.  In case you didn't kno...

We have all been told, from the moment we were able to understand, that everything happens for a reason.  Next we are told that whatever doesn't kill us will only make us stronger.  Then, we are schooled in the fine art of learning from what has wronged/pained us.  Sadly, it is hard to see past the hurt while it is happening.  It is hard to see any perspective other than the one that is your own reality, because let's face it, when it hurts there are no other sides, just the one facing you.  It is the proverbial elephant in the room.  There are different perspectives, rather other people's points of view, that you can get.  You can ask a random person, a friend that has the same core beliefs you do, a friend that doesn't, an acquaintance, or your own troubled self.  With each of these you are going to hear the right things and the wrong things; the things you need to hear and those things that are so wrong you wish to crawl in a hole a...