2014 was a train wreck of a shining pile of shit. Everything that could shake me got up and stood in line to shake me. It started off with sickness and a lost so called friendship, and it ended with death and a lost mind. Mostly lost. I kept random shreds of sanity by utilizing the air waves and laughing hysterically at nothing funny. I didn’t have any idea how to write a check anymore, the filter on my mouth broke, and I didn’t smile for 6 months. When I did laugh my face cramped because it had no idea what it was supposed to be doing. Just so you know, smiling and laughing are two different things.
The kids were sick for the first 4 months of the year or so with every sickness known to mankind. Then after that they got hand foot and mouth in July. I found out that a friend wasn’t a friend and removed them from my life at the counsel of a counselor who isn’t because she only has a bachelors and a masters in psychology. Hehe. Something like that, I forget what the big words are.
Then I found out I was pregnant and was cautiously joyful but didn’t tell anybody because I didn’t wanna jinx it. Apparently that didn’t work. I just ran across the sort of an off handed rant I posted 4 years ago yesterday. I baldly stated that pregnancy doesn’t make a person an invalid. Maybe I should have acted like one anyway, just in case, and things would be different and I’d be a semi-nice person. Wait. Have I ever been semi-nice? Okay, never mind. I’d be the me I was after I grew a backbone in the previous paragraph and found out that I am actually an awesome person and I deserve respect. Yes, I was forced to say that sentence over and over until I meant it by the aforementioned Not A Counselor.
So, all the blood and tears that came out of me that year is on here in past posts. I’m sure you’ve read them. Probably cringed and left a few times. That’s fine, but I’d like to know why you morbidly came back to read more if you didn’t like what you read so much that you had to moan about my words to people? Don’t know who I’m talking to right now, but I do have a good idea about their spinal column and empathy levels.
Anyway, here I am in august again. Waiting for the train at the end of the tunnel to flatten me in 27 days. No, I’m not capitalizing august. It’s ugly and I hate it. Okay. One day in august is good. August 21st is a good day, all the rest can fall in a bucket of suck and stay there to drown.
And since I’m rambling bitterly through the year I’m going to ramble bitterly about the wonderful, helpful Christians that gather to mourn with people and lift up the heads that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. Spoiler alert: that only happens if people like you because you act like they want you to. And only if you react properly to worn out platitudes and empty headed well meaning phrases.
Spoiler alert number two: I don’t fit into people’s pigeon holes. I don’t praise the lord that my kid is dead and gone to heaven 5 days after he’s buried in the @#*%% dirt where he doesn’t belong. Nor will I ever until it’s how I feel. Ain’t nobody gonna get me to do things their “proper” way because their way isn’t my way and my way is my way and that’s the way it is.
So. That being said, since I don’t generally go about pleasing people so they’ll like me, they don’t like me and so they stay away. That brings us back to all the helpful Christian people. I know nothing about that. I can count on one hand the people who showed up after Radley and Raina died. Two deaths. 5 people. None of this fellowship of believers stuff here. Over here we get left sitting on the floor, alone, with a splitting headache, wanting to break away and head to the bar across the street and get so wasted we can’t walk ourselves home again. That’s what the body of Christ gave us. So pardon me when I have no idea what you’re talking about when you talk about people staying by your side and carrying you along. Sure, I had people carrying me from across the nation. But notice the across the nation part. That’s the emptiness we got left with.
And when I took off in the truck so I would keep my husband I got accused of abandoning my kids. Sure, it was sad and terrible for them that I was gone after they buried their little brother they loved so much. But my guess is that they would be more irreparably damaged if they no longer had a dad. Of course that reality is always pushed under a rug and people park lawn chairs on top of it so nobody sees that it’s there. I’m real good at pulling the rugs out from under lawn chairs sitting on my problem. Get off the problem and find a solution if you think mine is so terrible. I’m here, still married, to tell you that your solution wasn’t one. Mine was. Who you gonna say abandoned their kids now? I’d dare go so far as to say YOU did. You abandoned my kids. And me. And my husband. And after that, you can’t even bring yourself to remember their names or their birthdays in church like you do other people.
People who actually remember are my people. I don’t mean the kind of remembering where you pat me in the head and ask me how to spell Raina’s name. Or the kind where you don’t even know when Radley’s birthday is. Or even the kind where you tell me you remember but the only time you do is when I bring it up. All that is is more empty headed word junk that means nothing to me. Words are stupid. IF you actually remember, tell me that voluntarily. That’s what it means to remember. If you think you’ll remind me and make me cry, don’t think that. I cry all the time by myself. You actually remembering for real is only gonna make me cry because I’m so happy you brought it up. It means I’m not alone. Being alone can be deadly.
Nobody was here when I didn’t dare drive down the road alone because if I did I wanted to drive into oncoming traffic. Nobody was here the day I wanted to get up from the picnic table and sit in front of the oncoming train. Actually, I take that back, God himself was, and he held me down on the bench so I couldn’t move because his people were off at their houses, busy with their kids, uncomfortable with tears, and not liking that I was mad at the very Being who was keeping me from killing myself. My sisters were on the phone with me for months checking on me because they knew I was alone and shouldn’t be. You wanna prove you care? Show up for Raina’s birthday because you know it’ll be hellish that year and take away my bag of baby boy clothes that still make me wanna puke when thinking about them. Tell me that I can throw away every single thing I own that has to do with maternity clothing. Tell me when you see a butterfly or a bear footprint or an angel shape in the clouds.
Speaking about God... you wanna show God’s love? Save the life of somebody who’s pissed off at you. That’s the kind of God he is. He’s not the jackass people told me about who lets you get pregnant and excited about it then says, “Oh, never mind. I actually was just testing you because I’m a jerk and I can kill off your kids so you love me more or because I needed an Angel and I really like yours because they do lots of crazy stuff and keep my babysitter angels really busy.” He’s actually there and he fixes stuff that’s broken.
That’s what I learned in 2014. Just because people say they’re Christians doesn’t mean they act like it. And just because they tell you something about God doesn’t mean he’s remotely related to their perception of him. He gave me sisters that year. Honestly, I’d rather have my baby than sisters, but sisters ARE awesome critters to have kicking around the underbrush. He showed me who he is that year. He sent us to marriage counseling and fixed us so we could still be us 4 years later. Is he a cripple who couldn’t find any other way of doing those things without killing off my baby? No. But since he’s in the business of redeeming situations that the freaking devil enjoys %#*##* up, he made good stuff happen. While I was pissed at him.
And that’s something to write a blog post about.
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