I'm Not Going to Apologize

i think that's common protocol to apologize for a blog absence.

i won't.

this is the internet.

1. nobody cares that i didn't write for whatever number of years
2. i don't care
3. blogs are for A) cathartic release, like a journal, or B) informative purposes, like an excessively drawn out, but free, how-to book. mine is a journal, so i have the right to forget that i even had a journal for 3 years.
4. meh

there are a billion places to begin.

my marriage has been in a precarious state for a number of years and it came to a big, pus-filled head last year in september. i saw a counselor who told me something to the effect of "the problems your husband is having are too big for you to handle. you are not big enough for this. God is sitting behind you while you claim that 'you have it under control and you don't need help and you'll figure it out', and He is waiting for you to say 'I don't have the skills or the knowledge, and i need someone else' so He can step in and do the dirty work."

at the time i very conscientiously knew what she was saying. i went home and relinquished control over major things that most people would have had trouble letting go of.

our marriage improved, he improved, and life has been good. i'm not going to break down the specifics dish out intimate details that don't need to be forever plastered on the internet.

in this last month, several major components of my life slammed themselves into a large brick. there will be a spectrum of damage, from shattered beyond repair to minor restorative work. what falls where remains to be seen.

i am tired. i gave all of my patience and understanding and grace and forgiveness, everything i had, last year when my marriage exploded. i have methods that i have grown accustomed to using in order to deal with stress. at least half of them are unavailable to me after the great brick wall incident of 2015.

i am tired and cannot see my safety nets. or the end of the tightrope i am walking. or how high it is off the ground.

i also cannot explain the situation in any literal terms, it seems. ANALOGIES FOR EVERYTHING!

on thursday of last week, my cognitive understanding of the wisdom my counselor poured over me last fall was swallowed by a deep emotional understanding.

it is not simply stepping back and releasing control over some things. demoting myself, or delegating responsibility to the Lord and taking what is left. delegation is still control. demotion still implies that you have a position within the system.

it is stepping back entirely, against my will, because i know i will fail if i stay here. it is putting my life, my responsibilities, my duties, my joys, into His hands with no knowledge of what will happen.

and then being covered with the peace that surpasses all understanding, right?

sure.

there is a peace. in the sense that the chaos is no longer mine. i am not sitting at the bed of the brick wall, sorting through pieces and trying to figure out what belongs where or is salvageable. my hands are not the ones bleeding. the gears of my mind are not the ones turning. the decisions aren't mine. i am back on some hill a hundred feet away, watching and waiting for someone to give me an update.

i do not feel blissful. there are no soft, joyful, radiant beams gracefully enveloping my spirit, warming me into transcendence.

i feel confident that in the end, what is left will be there because it was meant to be. i will always carry a strong conviction that there is a purpose for everything, because my God tells me so, my faith tells me so, and my life has proven it to be true thus far.

i am not sure that peace is necessarily a positive or joyful thing. peace after war brings joy, certainly. it also produces tension and anxiety. it requires that people create new cultural norms. it forces us to finally see the ruins around us that we had to ignore in order to survive.

peace can remove fear. that does not mean it removes pain.

i think that kind of peace is beyond comprehension. sitting a hundred yards back on a hill, terrified, solemn, aware that the pile below may be entirely destroyed, heartbroken and disoriented, and yet not screaming or impeding the work being done, not fighting the people trying to help you, not cursing them, not burying yourself in the ground to die, cannot be processed. that peace can only be experienced.

that kind of "peace" is the kind that tells you that the disaster will still be there if you walk away for a moment. it reminds you that you must trust the ones working, because you cannot do better. it reminds you that you cannot do anything right now. and it reminds you that at least once, maybe more, you were down in the shambles for someone else who couldn't do anything at that moment.

so i took a break from the wreckage and carted my peaceful ass to reconciliation for the first time in 5 years and sat myself in a pew for Mass.

and it helped.

and i have started praying the rosary every night.

and it helps.

because i don't have to make up any of my own words for Mass or the Rosary, and God knows i'm far too tired to even do that.

and then we will go to counseling and doctors and they will grind out plans that i will follow, and they will give instructions that i will follow.

because that is all i am big enough to do right now.

and honestly, i don't feel bad about it.

so i'm not going to apologize.