I am reposting both of these here and then I am going to post an update on the last year plus.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Girl Who Lived
Only a Fool would look at a Gift and see a Curse.
And I am no Fool. [insert image of Eowyn removing her helmet just before she slays the Witch King here].
God has given me a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card and I kept seeing that as a loss somehow. I've been handed an unexpected parole on a life sentence for a crime I never committed. Why am I sad?
I need to get over the sadness, get over the continual shock of the new revelations about betrayal that keep showing up, and just TRUST in God.
I know He has good things planned for me. God will heal me, God will heal my shattered children. He will take all the bad and turn it in to our Good.
I am going to mark this date on my 2010 calendar and I'm going to look back that day and I know I'll think "Oh, Thank You Loving and Merciful God!" as I look around at my beautiful life.
That day I will Praise the Lord and rejoice that I am The Girl Who Lived Through This.
Thanks to all of you who have been praying me through this despair. I hear His still small voice again and I know that He is there. Thank you. :)
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Thursday, October 29, 2009
Padme Was A Wuss
We are Big Star Wars Geeks around here.
I've used a lot of metaphors from my favorite movies lately, and I'm about to use another one. This post is going to be painfully honest and difficult to read emotionally - feel free to skip it. But in the interest of "keeping it Real"....
In the Star Wars Universe, Padme Amidala is the strong female lead in Episodes 1, 2, and 3. She is first a Queen, then a Senator. She falls in love with Anakin Skywalker and marries him.
In Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, she becomes pregnant with twin babies [Luke and Leia]. Anakin turns to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader, which is, understandably, shocking and upsetting for Padme, who can't believe he's capable of it.
After Anakin Force Chokes her in the midst of an Evil Fit, Padme gives birth to the twins [in the scariest, most futuristic automated surgical birth ever...worst birth portrayed in film yet in my Childbirth Educator opinion].
Then, moments after the babies are born, she simply dies - she's "lost the will to live" and dies of a "broken heart". Leaving, of course, her two infant children orphaned for all intents and purposes.
Now, oddly enough, my children have been saying that I am like Padme Amidala for years and that their father is like Anakin Skywalker. Their father was the first to make this comparison and they ran with his story. In fact, one year for Halloween they begged us to dress as Padme and Anakin, and we did.
And it became a self fulfilling prophecy in many ways. Anakin and my husband have many similarities.
And I will say that I DO identify with Padme. How does a woman keep going when the man she loved above anything else in the Universe decides to choose evil and harms her so completely? How does that woman recover herself, get out of bed, and keep going?
No matter how strong a woman is, she CAN be broken.
When I first watched Episode 3, I remember actually yelling at the screen at Padme "Don't you DARE lay there and die and abandon those babies!!!!". I was SO furious - so ANGRY at George Lucas that he would have such a strong woman die like that - broken, worthless, just lying there and dying because of her stupid broken heart... it really made me angry. I hated that movie.
I have more sympathy for Padme now. I know what it is like to have a heart so broken that you don't think you can keep going. I know what it is like to experience a betrayal so deep that you don't even remember who you are any more.
I spent a large portion of the last few months feeling suicidal on some level - some days it was a low level, other days I made actual plans and came very close to carrying them out.
Two weeks ago I found myself on the phone at midnight with a VA Suicide Prevention Counselor. He was very helpful, and that was a turning point for me.
Because, you see, Padme wussed out. I don't want to be like her. I don't want to leave my children alone - to abandon them to a life of Hell as motherless children. I WON'T do that.
But I understand why Padme did.
My life is extremely difficult now. Not only did my husband leave me and the kids, but he moved several states away - which means I don't even get an occasional weekend break while he does his "Visitation".
My life is 24/7 and, most of the time, it is 24/7 of me running in over drive trying to accomplish the impossible.
Most nights I don't get sleep - due to kids with the flu, or teething babies, or a toddler with a serious night waking issue, or an 8yo who keeps having scary sleep walking episodes...it never ends. [3 of my kids sleep all night long, 3 wake all night long - but 3 waking all night long is sufficient to insure that a mother does not get sleep].
It is like a Sadistic Game of "Whack-A-Mole" - I get one kid to sleep only to have another one cry out. It goes on all night.
Most days I don't really eat either - I am so stressed and so "GO GO GO" all the time that I have no appetite at all - I completely forget to eat. Many days it will be 5pm and my stomach will just be *hurting* and I'll think "Hmm...wonder why my stomach hurts so much?" and then it will occur to me that I've not actually eaten anything yet that day....
My days are a fog of running from one task to the next with no break. I get the kids up, get the older 4 kids to school, take care of the baby and toddler and all the stuff I have to do around the house, and try to deal with whatever demands the public school is making that week, and try to manage doctor appointments and grocery shopping [thank GOD for my father who comes to watch the two smaller girls while I deal with the doctor appointments and grocery tasks - I'd be completely lost without him]. Then the big kids get home from school and the most night-marish part of my day begins - I have to do homework with them [even the 4yo has homework!] while the baby and the toddler throw fits because they are tired and angry that I'm not 100% theirs at that moment. They climb on me and cling to me and cry and fight while I try to help especially my second grader who has TREMENDOUS amounts of homework. It goes on for hours most days - 2 hours, 3... then I try to get some sort of dinner on the table [our once *excellent* diet has gone straight to hell since the separation] while the older kids fight and fuss and run around like maniacs ...then it is a rush to get 6 kids bathed and in bed and to take a deep breath before the endless rounds of night waking begin.
Oh, and my 2yo has violent fits of anger that include beating me and the baby non-stop for hours at a time [I'm not kidding you] when she doesn't feel well or is angry about something.
And often I'm doing all this while also dealing with my own health issues - pneumonia, kidney stones, an anti-biotic resistant kidney infection that they can't cure.... yesterday I found out I may need up to 3 surgeries in the next couple of months to try to fix my kidneys.
It never ends. It won't end for years.... things may get better if I can survive until Monkey6 is school aged - at least then I can get a job and bring in some income, so the financial stress will not be as great. But that will add other stress I imagine.
And my kids are *really good* kids - compared to most kids they are Angels. They are *traumatized Angels* but angels none-the-less. How would I cope with "normal" bratty kids? [Praise God that I don't have to!]
And I have *amazing* support from my family too - my dad & mom & sister & brother. There truly is no way I could do this otherwise - it wouldn't even be a possibility.
But yet - though blessed with awesome kids and awesome family members - my days are still awfully difficult.
When I look into the future, I feel so overwhelmed and inadequate to the task ahead of me that I feel completely hopeless to achieve it.
I go to Confession a lot these days to confess feelings of complete and utter Despair.
[And, lest you all decide that I'm a complete nutjob here, all my divorce recovery books and my divorce support group tell me that everything I'm feeling is actually completely NORMAL - these feelings would all be normal for a single parent - male OR female - with only ONE child... much less Six....]
I don't know how I will accomplish what I have to accomplish here, but I do know that I WILL. I will do it. I will wake up every day and do my very best for these children [even knowing it won't be adequate many times]. I will keep going because my children *deserve* for me to keep going.
I will not lay down and die like Padme did. I just won't do it. Padme and I may have parallel stories, but mine isn't going to end like hers did.
Please pray for me.
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