Still here

I think about blogging. I think about journalling. I think about reading. I think about composing. It takes enough for me to keep praying: without falling asleep. I go to bed at decent hours, but sleep in, dragging myself out from under my cozy flannel sheets. Never getting up early enough to bother with yoga, sometimes early enough to shower or maybe just do that later. Sometimes with motivation enough to scrounge together some breakfast, but really it's brunch time. (Besides I have to eat at strange times now since I tutor English so much over dinner time.) I think about walking to the office, but it's so snowy and cold already that the car just seems best. (Besides I have to drive further after work to my students' houses.)

I keep saying, "I'm ok. God is good and I'm ok." I've had some nice revelations about how I've never felt alone and God has always been here helping me. And there are all these people to whom I come across admirably strong, but I have a new realization that any strength I may have appeared to have has always been from God. I am not particularly strong on my own. And thankfully, I have never been on my own. So yes, God is good. And I am feeling much better about him and his involvement in my life.

But life is hard for me right now and has been for some time. Last night after I left our church's annual Christmas dinner, I was reminded again how I am not enjoying social gatherings right now and how I am generally not that happy. I am not feeling able to join in on people's celebrations (engagements, pregnancies...), or even in on normal and general conversation. No, I have nothing new to report. No, I do not have guys lining up to ask me out and the last date I had a few months ago was lousy. No, my mom is not getting better. No, the marriages of those I care about are not getting better.

Even my friends who are twenty years older than I, have not had to put their mother in a nursing home. And I don't know anyone who has had to listen to irrational, mentally unhealthy words come at them from a mother as I have. (Thank God, that He takes away the words that could seriously hurt me.) And I don't know anyone who has had to hear and bear the pain and the tears of their parents.

Now I know that everyone has had their own doses of pain and their own hard things, but right now, it is striking me that no one my age who I know is having to handle this type of stuff and most are celebrating and anticipating a joyous Christmas. I am not anticipating such a Christmas. There will be one missing at our Christmas table and there will be remaining a broken, depressed, exhausted family with a possible time bomb of fury and irrationality waiting to go off at any moment. Thank God for my nephew, who surely will be a lovely delight over the holiday.

I am at the Beach tonight. My dad turns 64 on Tuesday and I came to visit. I saw my mom today and it actually was a fairly good visit. We played the piano together and I don't think we've ever done that. I was emotional as I left and thought and said, "I miss you."

That's kind of all I have to say, but I don't want to end on that note. I bought an old and a new Jill Phillips cd recently and on my drive last night I found myself singing loudly along to her song "Steel Bars" where she is "fighting back to gain control" from the "rock bottom of despair". I think our little band could do this song well. I'm really enjoying it. Then there is the other little new anthem of hers I'm digging: "Oh I believe, though its hard sometimes: You are the resurrection and the life....I know the words of life to come are true, but sometimes they feel like salt upon the wound. When I’m asking in these moments where are you? Where are you? Oh I believe, though its hard sometimes: You are the resurrection and the life."

At this same Christmas dinner last night, I was complimented on my voice a few times. That always makes me feel happy (see, there is happiness to be found even when you're sad), yet it also always makes me wonder. There were a couple questions posed to me about blues and jazz and once again, I am pondering if there is something more I can be doing with music....

Friends. Friends are a good note to end on too. They are loving. They are supportive. Even if no friend really knows what I am feeling, they know pain and they care. Thanks.