Tales from the Crypt

Obviously I took a good long break from blogging, not really intentional, I just sorta lost my voice. I do that from time to time, have a lot of writer's block. Someone mentioned to me recently that I hadn't written and honestly the past month I've just been too sick to do any writing whatsoever. I prayed some days that I would just die! Okay Lord just take me, I really can't stand being sick anymore. I felt like I was on my death bed, in my own personal crypt. But alas I've made it, well almost, to the other side. I'm still a little bit sick, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway, I've been working on a project, a book, that has been swirling around in my head for a few years. I don't really have a great way with words like my sister or a friends daughter I know. The following is an unedited, extremely rough, almost incoherent excerpt from my book; tiled "Surviving my childhood and beyond"

For most of my life I’ve felt like life is just passing me by.  Almost like an out of body experience where I was just watching my life and saying who is that and why are we not going in a better direction.  Weird I know, but true none the less. There are so many things I wanted to do that I STILL want to do. When did I lose that independent, outgoing, and no fear person from my youth. When did I become this person who is essentially afraid to leave my house, even some days out of my own bed.  I was always a buck the system kind of gal, never say die and the person who would stand up to anyone on just about any subject. When did I lose that piece of me? When did I become this person that I do not recognize?  I want to be out embracing life and making memories with my kids. I can say a lot of negative things about my childhood, but my parents did some cool things with us. We experienced parts of America. We stood at the Grand Canyon, went up Pike’s Peak, and camped in the KOA’s. I can remember our dad “waking” us up in the wee hours of the morning, gently guiding us to the car where he had the turtle all packed and ready to go and beds for us in the back. We would sleep and he would drive. My kids can’t say that about us or me.

What they can say is that most days I struggle to keep it all together. It isn’t like this every day, but a lot of days are. Maybe they won’t say that maybe they don’t really know the struggle that Mom is going through every day, I pray they don’t. I try to tell them every day, many times, how much I love them, how awesome they are and how proud I am of them. It’s something I really want them to know and understand that Mom loves them and is proud of them. I am still a little bit shocked when my Mom tells me she is proud of me. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve actually heard it come out of her mouth (bearing in mind that my mind and memory is terrible).

The past few years have been really hard on me physically and emotionally. I’m still battling both parts and although I seem to finally be getting control over the physical the emotional is really taking it’s time to bounce back. I lost a part of myself the summer between my eighth and ninth grade year that I can never get back and in reality is seems that a lot of my life is like that. I lost so many parts of myself so early on that when I look at myself, I sometimes see, Humpty Dumpty. Like I’ve tried to glue myself back together with the purple glue, you know the stuff, it’s purple until it dries and then becomes clear. Except mine never dried and it’s still all purple.  Slowly, ever so slowly, I am learning to hand over those pieces that the only One that can turn the purple clear. It is an excruciatingly slow process that I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get it all done.  “All the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back to together again”.

When I look back on my life what do I want to see? What will I leave behind? What will people say about me? Did I do anything great? I probably won’t by the world’s standards and that’s okay with me. Did I shine the light of Jesus in this dark world? I’m not doing a great job of that now. Something that I must change! Did I point my children toward the Savior and a real relationship with Him? I can honestly say that I am trying to with everything that is in me. There are still things I want to do, to see, to be and to accomplish. The question is now how? If you know you want to too and you know you need too but you just can’t quite seem to get there. Where do you go from here?