Death to Self & Living Again

I've been wanting to write something, somewhere for awhile. The problem is that I have so much to say that my head is bursting, yet my mouth is mute. A lot of it I can't say.

I died for a while. Like, years. I lost sight of who I was and what I was about. What was really important in life. God.

As I sit here and reflect on my life one year ago, I see an empty, trapped person. Someone who was completely aimless. I had lost my faith. I had forgotten how to feel anything other than numb. I was deeply sad, but had no idea where to even start fixing anything.

Somewhere around Christmas or after the New Year, I don't remember, I went to a Saturday night service at my sister's church. Standing there listening to passionate worship music--about a God and faith my skepticism had long frozen out--and hearing a message spoken by someone whom I felt could finally answer my Questions, a crack appeared in the ice around me. I started to feel a little bit alive. Alive in a way that I ached for, but also in a way that frightened me. I choked up so many times that night. It was embarrassing, trying to hold back the huge tide of emotions facing me while in a public place. I hoped my sister couldn't see the tears I kept swiping away.

I couldn't get enough of that place. I still can't. I can't get enough growth, enough meaningful conversations, enough epiphanies. I've been holding all that stuff down for so long it's like a volcano erupting, just cracks all over me with molten rock unable to stay inside. In the course of one year, my journey has led me to make such enormous changes in my life, I can't even imagine how I bore life before them. It's like I'm living for the first time since, oh, 2001 or so? I want to shout my joy from the rooftops. I want to call my confidants and tell them every revelation.

And, no, it's not perfect. There with the joy is also bitterness and shame. Oh, how ashamed I am at myself and my ego for so many years. Being so, so weak. Not appreciating any of the gifts God gave me--always wishing for more! I'm not at the point where I can look back on those years and say, "well, they brought me where I am today." I want the wisdom, but I wish it came without the shame.

So now it's: what's left? How do I live now? All I've learned for so long are bad habits. And so the journey is always showing me something new.

I'm sorry for being so vague about all this. Regardless, I'm here. I need to write again, I think. It occurred to me recently that I'm probably wearing everyone out with my constant deep pondering and thoughts. It's too much for them to bear.

More later.

Clear

2011, so far, has been a year of cleaning up. I am, compartment by compartment, de-cluttering. Digging down to nitty gritty gunk. Stepping back and assessing, asking: Does this work for me? Do I need this? Is it messy? Is my conscience clear?

On my other blog, the sewing one, I shared my New Year's resolution. Which was to NOT BUY any clothes for one whole year. For any of my family. If we needed clothes, I would sew them. At the time I made this commitment, it was in the dead of Winter, and we were bleeding out jeans and sweaters. Violet was swathed in long sleeved dresses. Wright had multitudes of hand-me-downs to keep him clothed for 3 weeks at a time before I needed to do any laundry.

Now, however, it is Spring. I...have gained, like, 5 lbs. I am down to 1-2 jeans. I hate all my shorts. WTF did all my short-sleeved tops go? Damn my purging mentality--where's the depth of selection?? For various reasons, my super-sewing output at the beginning of the year has trickled to, um, a dam. I just can't get any sewing done. Too busy doing all the other crap I have to do. And my KIDS. Dear Lord, why can't they just exist without fighting/needing/shuffling? Fact is, they are my priority, above all else. I can't feel bad about that, even though I made resolution to clothe us with mine own two handses. (Leeches.)

I caved and bought: A hat. 1 top to wear to a concert.

Whatever.

When it comes down to it, I'm pretty frickin proud to have gone this long. My endless conflicted guilt over buying inexpensive, slave-made clothes

(But am I also providing jobs??? And if so and I'm okay with that, do I still want to look down and know that some sweaty person 50 rungs down the ladder from me blearily pushed these seams through an oily-smelling machine and then went home to his/her 300ft square living space, rice for dinner, and 5 kids?? How comfortable do I feel standing on the shoulders of people with so unimaginably less than I? Why is my life so pristine and my birth so fortunate that I was born in America and they in China/Thailand/Indonesia into poverty? Why do we need this many clothes? Where do the old ones go? I don't know. I'm not trying to make a stand or condemn, just do what I'm comfortable with. I have major, major problems with The System. These are the things that keep me up at night, and I'm not apologizing for that.),

is a non-issue when I a) sew my own clothes and b) accept second-hand clothes. I am 95% sticking to that, and it feels amazing.

Where was I?

So, that was the first part of my clear-out-the-clutter resolution. Stop buying clothes and end the Old Navy card addiction. Next I tackled my sewing paraphenilia consumption. K, working on that. Doing better at it. I'm no trying to be smug about this, just sort of systematically trying to BE A BETTER PERSON so I can stop loathing myself from a big picture morality standpoint, just a little bit.

We've started going to a new church. I want to write love letters in the sky regarding how I feel about this new church. Which isn't actually that new, since we used to go there back in our pre-parenthood days. I'm...alive there. Our old church, while eh, not bad, was basically where my faith went to die. My life-long faith. Dead. Like, so dead it was kind of, I'm not sure if I even believe this crap anymore kinda dead. I actually think that's a good thing in many ways--question stuff, always!--but it was time to remember why I believe anything anyway. Hence why the new church is like my new boyfriend I can't stop talking about. Real people and real sermons and truth? Intellectually satisfying faith? Huh. Whoda thunkit!

And. Through many "aha" moment sermons, and a lovely jaunt through Esther at an I-also-have-faith-in-my-gender-again weekly study with some truly beautiful (inside and out) ladies, I have come to all sorts of conclusions about my life. How I want to conduct it. What is, and what is not good for it.

I'm cleaning out my house, too. I sort of neglected it quite a bit the past 5-ish months, while we all hunkered down in the rain and deep cold that comes from living near the ocean in a cavernous house with no heat. It is...well. It is 1. not clean, 2. clutter filled, 3. sad. So I'm tackling it, corner by corner.

All this feels really good. I'm new. Happy. Free. In the words of my personal musical hero, John Mayer, I'm not together but I'm getting there.