Thursday, January 20, 2011

what i thought i knew

I do not know what is going on with me this week. I am so scattered, distracted, almost as if I am watching my life through a window...but yet I am in it and don't have the luxury of just watching, because there are things I am supposed to do. And it makes me feel stuck. Frozen. I don't know how to make this make sense. I have a few short hours where I am alone in the house, have time to think about things other than the every day....and I just feel....today anyway....shocked. I am entering my last year of nursing school, and that shocks me. I am thinking about being something other than an oncology nurse...and that both shocks and shames me. In truth, it scares me. I entered on this journey almost no time at all after he died. Within four months I was back in school, swearing to do this, forging ahead. ("You are so strong..." "I could never...") I put his name on it, stamping it with The Acceptable Stamp of Guilt Absolution by making it part and parcel with my loss of him. With a way to turn this horrifying experience around into something positive.

But now I am learning new things. I have experienced some types of nursing that feel less....heavy. Less loaded. And I weigh out pros and cons and for the first time realize I could absolutely choose to do something other than oncology and hospice care and there is this little whisper in my head that it might be preferable for a number of reasons to do so. And I am stunned into silence in my soul.....a loud, echoing silence.

The new semester has gotten off to a less than stellar start for me. I am scattered and windless. I am not myself these last few days. All I really want to do is be with my husband and with my cat, to be quiet and to be comforted. I am scared to go forward. I thought I had made this decision already.

People keep bringing up God lately and it keeps poking at me. So I feel a need to address it. Those of you with unwavering faith, please respect that this is not your opportunity to step in and save me from myself. I need the questions more than the answers right now.

God, you feel very far away, if you are there at all.
You have for a long time now.
I see people claim you have this big, broad purpose for their lives.
And that you are a bastion of Love, Forgiveness and Hope.
And the child in me yearns for the You I thought I knew.
But I don't feel like I am in your eye.
Or the palm of your hand.
And I don't feel your purpose for me singing through my veins
or even drifting on the wind.
I do not hear you whisper
and I hear nothing but silence with my stunted hands reach out
I confess nothing
I trust nothing
I live in ten different kinds of uncertainty and fear
And I hear people tell me it takes love
faith
trust
I have none.
I feel superfluous
Forgotten
And foolish for the rapture of my teenaged devotion
I want to scream Where Is My Son?
But I do not cry out
I whisper
And it is dry, cracking, barren
on a wind of nothingness
I feel alone
unimportant
and lost
I miss the You I thought I knew


I just feel stranded, paralyzed, afraid to answer these questions inside me. I feel so small, stumbling forward with so much that I have taken on, wanting the resolution, but seeing now it is just another step away from things. I am lacking in courage.

Bah. No peace inside me today. Surely tomorrow will be better. Surely it will.

1 comment:

Gberger said...

Is it possible that the questions are part of God's love for you?

Three other bereaved moms (across the country) and I are deep into a book study. We have a private blog, and we read, write, and then read each other's writings and comment. The book is by a woman whose other books I have loved - her name is Joyce Rupp. It's called "Open the Door: A Journey to the True Self," and is a 6-week study, one day at a time. It has been a great blessing.

Have you read any of Paula D'Arcy's writings? She has walked the path we are on, and has been on a vision-quest @ Wind River - and wrote about it in "Gift of the Red Bird."

I guess what I mean to say is that it seems to me that you are on your own vision quest, and that in itself is a sacred thing. Your questions are sacred, and you are beloved, no matter which path you take, whether you "feel" it or not at this moment.