The Lost and Found

Perspective is a fickle creature. If you are standing too close to something you can't see what it is, its blurry and muddled, and to be honest rather ugly. It can give you a headache if you look at it that way for too long. Perspective is FAR to easy to lose, especially for someone who has a hard time holding on to things I can actually SEE. Even when you do find it, you can't hold on to it for very long. No, it's elusive. The Holy Grail, maybe, right perspective.

I see life that way. Is there ANYONE closer to my life than me? Anyone with a more myopic view? No. So, I am in the worst possible position to make calls on my own life. I'm too close to it. From my perspective its muddled and sometimes ugly, and when I look at it too long, it can give me a headache.

I quit.... For today.... Tomorrow I'll probably tell you to butt out again, because by then I will have lost my perspective.... again... darn slippery little sucker!

Saturday night I couldn't fall asleep. I put myself to bed at 9pm, hoping for a good long night sleep, so I could be good/fun Mommy the next day. I was tired Saturday, and not as much fun as I wanted to be with the boys, so I gave myself a stern talking too (read: wallowed in Mommy guilt) and put myself to bed early, with resolve to do better the next day.

My brain had other plans. Going on 48 hours now removed from the 'episode', as I'm now lovingly calling it, I have better perspective. However in it, I was convinced I was going crazy, that I was losing my mind. I'm learning slowly this is something the 'Christian world' likes to call a "Spiritual Attack". (I like the single apostrophe quotes (I'm sure there is a real term for them, but I don't know it), I think of myself doing 'air quotes' with my fingers when I type them out.) I put them around 'Christian World', because its a strange term to me, one I don't know what to do with, so I call it out as someone else's term.... Anyway... I seem to be having these a lot lately, "Spritual Attacks", for those that got lost in my convoluted train of thought.

The Catholic world doesn't talk about this, or at least they never did to me. In that world (for me), a good healthy dose of guilt just meant you were doing it right, being a martyr for the cause was smiled upon, and doing it in the most visible way possible was even better. Image was everything. Joy, peace, contentment, those things were considered Heavenly. I took that literally. Like, sure enjoy a brief experience of it here and there to wet your appetite and keep you committed to public martyrdom, but don't expect to experience it for any length of sustained time here.

Yeah.... I might have had a teensy, tiny, little mis-understanding. You can understand the air quotes on 'Christian world' a bit better now. I'm gun shy of religious terms and religious people. I posted a Blog awhile back called "Love Wins", after I read Rob Bells book. I said I liked it. I still do. In his book he asked a TON of questions, I'm not sure he directly answered even one.... I think that's why I liked it. I have a TON of questions, and answers for none. When you find people that think like you, and I consider writing, to be thoughts out loud, it makes you feel a little less crazy. I don't like feeling crazy. I also liked the book, because I'm in the camp that thinks its that simple. Love Wins. I'm not saying its easy, but when that's all you have, you win. I think of it in the "Big Daddy" (movie quote) context. "I love you, and you, and you, and you (x 6.2 billion world pop).... I win!".

I'm learning so much, and growing so much, that I keep taking steps of faith... some may call it religion, but I'll stick with faith. I keep coming back to church every Sunday, because it's encouraging there, this talk of "On Earth as it is in Heaven"... who wouldn't want that?

It's like going to the Lost and Found for me every week... You know, when you misplace something and you go back to the last place you had it, and ask if you can look in their Lost and Found? That's church for me... and Momastery.com, but she talks about churchy stuff using my kind of non-commital language. I go in with my ugly/muddled view on life, the one that's giving me a headache, and making me want to self-medicate, and walk out with the better perspective I had misplaced. They remind me, that if I would stop focusing SO intently on my own life for a sec and look around, my headache will go away, and I'll see the bigger picture.... and as corny as it sounds, the bigger picture really is a LOT more beautiful, than the muddled myopic one!

Dance Class

I'm starting another journey today. This one isn't a Fast. Thank God... I'm fasting, fasting, for awhile I think. Two fasts, 2 months apart, filled my fasting tank. I will now indulge in chocolate and cheese happily... or at least until my pants get tight.

No, today marks the beginning of the Spring Semester for Metro groups. I'm signed up for two weekly classes, the Freedom Growth Track class as a member, and I'm also leading the Breaking Free: Beth Moore study. Did anyone else pick up on my trend? For the next 3 months I'm considering myself on the fast track to Freedom. Freedom from insecurities, fears, a rather obnoxious thought life, you name it, I want Freedom from it. I don't know what this means. I have no real expectations for the ride, but I am excited and anxious for it in equal parts.

While I don't have any expectations, I do have my own selfish desires for it. For one, I'd like some freedom in my ability to show emotion in public. Currently I see myself as having an allergy to public displays of emotion, namely my own displays. I'm hopeful, over the course of these 12 weeks, that my 'reaction' to either the thought of display, or God forbid the actual display of an emotion, no longer sends me into anaphylactic shock, requiring eppie pins to bring me out of it. It's not pretty people.

Don't presume to know what I mean by 'public' either. I think there is a 'range' of criers... there's me... a 'rock', no tears, no display of emotion, some may wonder if I even feel. Yes, I am not bionic, I do feel, I just don't want you to know it! Then there are those, in a stadium of thousands, that are heaving, snot flying, sobbing over a message that has 'reached' them.

I would be satisfied if I could cry comfortably in front of Kevin, and not just because I am SO happy that "The Notebook" ended the way it did, again, or maybe a handful of close friends.

But more importantly, and God, need you to be paying attention here, I would like to meet you.

Not in the literal sense, please, I'm not done yet down here... just saying.

You know I'm not a fan of the 'relationship dance'. I appreciated your acceptance of that fact when you brought Kev and I together. That man and I can dance! We have fun, we don't 'mess' with each other to see how closely the other is paying attention, we say what we mean, and we mean what we say. Thank you for him!

As for you and I, I'm having a hard time figuring out this dance. I don't feel like I know the steps, and I know you wanna take the lead, but seriously... I'm not the best dancer, I don't know how to follow. You know the dances I like... the fast, up beat ones I can dance all day long to on my own. These SLOW songs, I don't know any elaborate steps, I think I keep stepping on your toes, and its awkward. I want to dance beautifully with you, hand n' hand, let you twirl me around the dance floor... THAT sounds absolutely delightful, but THIS.... These jerky movements, these tentative steps, and this feeling I have that I'm being televised on Dancing With the Stars, where all the other contestants around me are swirling and twirling beautifully... well to be honest it makes me want to quit.

We've got 12 weeks of 'Dance Classes' God.... I'm not throwing out an ultimatum, that I quit if I'm not the best dancer out there when this is said and done, but can you at least show me the steps? Can you COME to the classes and teach me how to dance, how to follow, so that it looks like its supposed to... that people can tell we're actually dancing, rather than hurting each other constantly on the dance floor? Can you make me feel like I belong here, on this dance floor with you, not like a poser on the brink of discovery? Can you make me believe that you like dancing with me, even when I step on your toes, that you aren't horribly frustrated with me and waiting to point out my every mis-step, that you don't want to dump me for a better dance partner, one that can pick up the steps faster, and keeps up? Would you make me joyful and proud (in the good way) to dance around the room with you, in front of all the judges, televised and all?

And God, when I trip and fall, because we know that will happen... it is me we're talking about. Catch me. Make it look like a new move, one we planned, so that we don't miss a step, the judges don't notice, and the crowds applaud your masterful skill.

Can you do this for me God? Please? Thank you.