Everybody's supposed to be strong...

I'm too tired. No need to babble about my thoughts. I'll grab someone else's.

Just watched the DVD commentary on the movie, Walk the Line. I was struck by the Thanksgiving scene at the lake house, just after Johnny confronts his father . . . Thirty years after the loss of his brother, the feelings are still as raw as if it just happened. He's tried to overcome, but still meets with disapproval. He's messed up, addicted to drugs. He's on the path to self-destruction. Thanksgiving dinner is ended abruptly by his altercation with his father. His guests can't leave quickly enough. Johnny makes a mad dash for his stuck-in-the-mud tractor and starts up the engine. This is not going to be good. Everyone knows it. June Carter is about to get in the truck with her parents and daughters, but her mom stops her.

Mother: "You should go down there to him... He's mixed up."

June: "I'm not going down there. If I go down there--"

Mother: "You already are down there."

June's parents camp out at the lake house, while Johnny goes through detox, fending off his drug dealing friends with their hunting rifles. In the DVD commentary, the writer/director said that he doesn't think June would have stuck with Johnny if it weren't for the support of her parents.

I hear people saying that in tough situations, you have to "find the support that you need." June didn't actively find that support, she didn't ask for it. God provided it in the form of an older retired couple who were not distracted by the demands of raising young children or supporting a family. They weren't tired, like their single-mom-and-twice-divorced daughter was. Being tired of trying myself, I found that beautiful.

I'm feeling the pressure to do something . . . to decide everything right now and jump through the hoops of official paperwork, OR to be Todd's mommy and walk him through recovery when I can't even seem to manage the much simpler task of getting the kids to do their homework . . . OR, of course, there is the other alternative of doing what I've been doing for the past quarter century: Numb myself and do what has to be done to survive. I mean, he doesn't beat me, so what's my problem?

The Different Faces of Love (The Moon, the Crazy Moon, part 3)

This started out as a response to a comment on my last blog, but it was getting so lengthy, I decided to just post it as a separate blog. It may only make sense in the context of my last blog, though, so you might want to go back and read that (and the comment) if you haven't.

-----

Perhaps it all boils down to me being an abysmal communicator (that may have been my problem then, just as it is now). . . or perhaps it's the dramatist in me, embellishing in the wrong way--adding a flare of romance to the story when it's really a different sort of love I'm speaking of. I mush it together in my description because there are similarities, but really what I'm talking about is more like the love and loss I felt with my sister and when she passed away, and yet my own failure with words paints it as something silly. It may be that I'm thinking too much of an audience--what words could I use that they would understand? I can get caught up in the idea of trying to word something in a clever way, a universal way--such pride, however, is not conducive to successful communication.*

Call it two-faced, but I feel misunderstood. And I'm using the backspace key a lot now in trying to explain. How should I expect my words to be clear enough for my readers understand me, when it's all still so much in process? I don't even understand me. Does denying that you have questions and making haste to cover the holes over with the quickest biblical patch to be found make one's God bigger?

I feel like I'm being pushed to action out of the expectations of others that I figure it all out already and DO something. That probably wasn’t your intention, but that’s how it felt. Why is reality so hard for me? What reality? How can reality be hard when you don't know what it is? It's the inability to identify reality that is hard. Of course, I could simplify it by ignoring the intricacies--the threads that don't line up with a particular presumption of neat, tidy fabric. But that, in my opinion, would be the sign of a belief in a small god.

Yes, the recent line of questioning with Doug may be a distraction, but I wouldn't call our friendship a sideshow. It's a distraction just like maneuvering all the kids' birthday celebrations, skinned knees, and last-minute homework and costume needs is a distraction. It's a distraction like my parents' waning health and a friend who needs help moving is a distraction. It's a distraction like the stopped up sink is a distraction. Life is full of distractions. True, the way I've worded things in the three blogs in which I've talked about Doug may make it seem like I've been obsessing, but the reality is, we have a deeper history than I have even come close to putting into words here. If anything, I’ve given voice to an over-active imagination in the “he hates me” or “he doesn’t care” side of it.

When I read “You are acting like you are trying to solve some hidden hurt, but you are justifying flirting with another man who is not the one you are pretending to be yoked to. You can't honestly love someone from that long ago to whom you have never lived with or spent much actual physical time with. Love is more than fatal attraction, or fantasy boyfriend love affairs of the mind,” that hurt. Don't stop commenting, though. Hurt is okay. We grow through it. And do keep praying that my eyes will be open, because that has been my prayer, and I do believe in the power of prayer and since I have also been praying that God would reveal to me any ways in which I’m deceiving myself, I believe He will.

What may have been missed in that blog, probably due partially to the Moonstruck references (which are about a romantic love), is the longevity and depth of the friendship history Doug and I have (and the connections he has with my family as well), and the fact that if a close female friend or one of my brothers or parents would have come to me with the same news that Doug shared yesterday, it would have sent me reeling in the same way. To me, all love is important.

It’s interesting timing that yesterday a boy came to ask Todd and I permission to date one of our daughters. The term “just friends” came up in the discussion--they no longer wanted to deny that they were more than “just friends.” I cautioned them about the logic behind that term, saying that romantic love, if it is not built on a firm foundation of friendship, will actually grow into something that is “less than friendship.” The love between friends is not something to be trivialized, and it can in fact have a more enduring quality than love that is contorted to fit the mold of romance.

Even though I wanted to know if romance was the cause of the dark period between Doug and me, I am NOT interested in romance with him now. Our friendship has weathered too great a length of time and too many storms of life to ruin in that way. Even if it seems like an excuse to some who read this, my main reason for digging and wanting to know that part of the past truly was because of the questions about relationships that my daughters have been asking me. I want to understand, so my advise to my girls will not be born out of my own dysfunctional confusion. I take it as an answer to prayer that even when one of my daughters broke up and another started a new relationship, in the midst of my own personal struggles and without me having yet found “the answers to that dark pivotal day in my past,” I was still able to offer them what I think was wise counsel. Maybe I don’t have to know the specifics of what happened back then in order to be able to find mental and emotional health now.

The appearance of silliness confirms to me that some ground is better not to be dug up because it stirs the flighty emotions of that time period. (Yes, I did get a bit caught up in it.) Doug and I have grown past that--there is no need to bring it back up--that was proved when I was able to talk to my daughters with confidence. Also, I don’t want to confuse Doug by stirring up emotions from the past that he has already worked through, so I will be careful what I say from here on out. Maybe I feel like that wounded little girl more because of my current hurts than because of anything “back then.” I will try to not let the past distract me from dealing with the issues of now, mainly the issues with Todd, but I don’t think God would have me deny the impact of a dear friend who is facing a very serious disease--that is also in the present. You would understand that he is very much like a brother, if I were to share our full history.

Hey--that just made me think of a slightly silly, yet related, little side-note:

When I was in elementary school, I had crushes on at least two of my cousins. I even said with certainty that I was going to marry one of them. All these years later, I can interact with those cousins at family reunions and there isn’t any weirdness or shame or romantic attraction, but I still love them... and I grieved when one of them was very sick... and I rejoiced when the surgery he required was successful... I sobbed when he lost one of his own children...

Love affects us that way.

It doesn’t have to be romantic (and it may actually help if it isn’t romantic). So, I’m sorry if anyone judges me for expressing my love for Doug. I was probably misleading in connecting the Moonstruck clips. The wording of that statement about love just gets me, and I tend to apply it to all sorts of love. When you love someone, they are capable of driving you crazy--there is a much deeper truth to that than what we see on the surface of Loretta’s mom’s words. My love for my dad drives me crazy. If I didn’t love him and desire his love, it wouldn’t drive me crazy when his words and actions lead me to believe that he is more proud of my brother than he is of me. Talk about issues--I’ll have to blog on that someday. Any mother knows that her love for her children can drive her crazy. And, I can't even tell you how long it took to be able to function again after the sister I loved passed away. Love can drive you crazy.

Anyway, if you’re able to get past the apparent “inappropriateness” of me admitting that I “love” Doug (realizing that it may not mean to me the same thing that it does to everyone else), I would appreciate you saying a prayer for his health. The initial blow when I got the news wasn’t like, “oh no, I’m going to lose my fantasy boyfriend if the cancer takes him!” It was more the fear of going through what I went through with my sister again. Not another sibling! Selfish, I know, but I’d rather be the next one to die than have to see another loved one go through such a painful end.

* At the risk of drawing more parallels with films that confuse, I'd like to share a clip from a favorite that touches on the complexity of love. Not saying that it has anything to do with the kind of love I was referring to--just that love is not always as neat and tidy as we'd like it to be.

Richard to Clarissa: “Oh Mrs. Dalloway, always giving parties--to cover the silence....I wanted to write about it all, everything that happens in a moment...all our feelings, yours and mine, the history of it, who we once were, everything in the world, everything all mixed up--like it’s all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less-- sheer f-ing pride and stupidity. We want everything, don’t we?”

The Awful Fear of Loss (The Moon, the Crazy Moon, part 2)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I took a scalpel to an old emotional wound, opening it up in hopes of bringing healing.

I took the risk and asked my friend Doug to help bring clarity to a decades' old misunderstanding between the two of us. When his first reply didn't satisfy my curiosity, I pried further. Then waited. The more time passed with no reply, the more my imagination went to dark places, chiding me for being so foolish to have bared my soul.

My note had left off with:

"I don't know if I've ever confessed to you that I was often rather intentionally contrary with you. In a world where people are constantly battling over their differences, it's weird to say that it was our lack of differences that frightened me. I thought that if I were to admit that I liked too many things that you also liked that I would appear like one of those ditsy, game-playing girls who I had so little respect for... and so, when you said you liked something that I adored, I'd often down-play my admiration... and likewise I was perhaps a bit overboard about those things we disagreed on (food, for example).

"In that way, I guess you could say that good came out of the crumbling apart of our friendship, because I did learn that when you care about someone transparency is important--I should have trusted that the over-all complexity of who we are would be enough to prevent any apparent 'overly-compliant' aspects from being interpreted as fake.

"How stupid of me to BE a fake so as to avoid looking like a fake! Talk about feeding confusion. But have I really learned that lesson if I still find it hard to admit the biggest thing that I never dared to be transparent with you about--the thing that I was so certain would make you not want to be my friend any more? Hmm... I can't claim that I was immature then (as if it's any different from now) if I'm still unwilling to admit 20+ year old feelings for fear of ruining a friendship.

"Yep, I'm still an immature, insecure, fraidy-cat. But all that is self-centered. I don't want to be self-centered. I want to be transparent. I say that all the time, and then I draw my curtains... hesitating because I over-think everything. Could transparency itself be selfish??? What if there are truths I long to speak that others don't want to hear? What if speaking such things destroys the environments others have build for themselves and like?

"I'm sorry to bring you into my madness, [Doug]. These are things I probably just have to figure out for myself--things I shouldn't be burdening anyone else with. Rather than explanation or clarification, all I should really be asking for is prayer--prayer that God would strengthen me according to His word. He is able. I really do believe He is able. I just need Him to help my unbelief. And to know that when my heart melts with heaviness it is safe only as it flows into His hands.

"Thank you for tolerating me after all these years. Someday I'd like to tell you more of the things wiped out by the stroke of a back-space key, things regarding one of my dearest friendships that I keep veiled by a curtain of fear. I know that perfect love casts out fear--why must I be so far from perfection?"

Days went by, then weeks . . . and no reply. I started to take it as confirmation that the friendship was a lot more lop-sided than I'd been willing to admit. I even started imagining that I had been little more than a pawn in a plot of folly and mixed messages, the punchline of a cruel joke. That's why life could go on for Doug, smoothy, comfortably, while I was desperately itching at my scabs.

Today, I got a message from Doug. He said he sent the note because we needed to "keep the dialogue alive." Then, he went on to tell me that about 10 days ago, he went to the doctor because of a mole that had obviously changed. The doctor agreed with his concern and excised it. And today, the pathology report came back as a full-blown melanoma. "The good news," he said, was that "the depth of it was less than one cm--about a third of that." He explained that if it had been deeper, "it would have been serious, with more excision and pulling lymph nodes under the arm and all that."

His good news didn't sound good to me. One-third of a centimeter sounded way too deep, so I looked it up online and learned that anything deeper than a millimeter is of great concern because that is when it's deep enough to reach blood vessels and be spread to other parts of the body. It took a while for me to even be able to write a single line in reply. I was reeling. I couldn't stand the thought of the worst case scenario (which I have already seen play out in the lives of several people close to me.) Most of the people I have known with melanoma haven't survived. And now I was faced with the possibility of loosing someone to whom I couldn't even admit my true feelings for fear of them being taken as "inappropriate."

Finally I managed to ask him to please tell me that he meant to say "mm" instead of "cm." I sent the message, but then I had to get away to a quiet place. Todd had just returned from the store, and the boys kept demanding my attention, so I snuck out to the van in the driveway and hid in the back seat where I returned a call to a dear friend. It was helpful talking it out with her, but I was away from the computer, so I didn't check for Doug's reply until about an hour later. Oh, the relief to see that he had indeed made a typo. He meant "mm" not "cm". That still doesn't guarantee that he's in the clear, but the prognosis is A LOT better.

Needless to say, my chest has done some of those crazy contortions today. Like her mother said in reply to Loretta's declaration that she loved Ronny Cammareri something awful, "Oh God, that's too bad!" and "When you love them, they drive you crazy." (Moonstruck, 1987)

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation." (C.S. Lewis - Four Loves)

Sacrifice

Last Friday, our cable TV was cut off. Payments had been set up automatically to our credit card, but in the wake of our financial crunch, I took that nice luxury off automatic payment.

It was Todd's idea.

Well, it wasn't his idea specifically to remove the television service. When I pointed it out to him that we are going at least five hundred dollars further in debt on that card every month (even when we don't use it for anything other than the automatic payments) and that the bill will exceed $10,000 by Christmas, he said that we'll have to stop the automatic payments. I know how late fees and reconnection fees rack up on utility bills that aren't paid on time, so I did leave a few of the "essential" utilities on auto-pay for now. Cable TV didn't seem essential. When the bill came in the mail, I placed it on the stack of unopened mail on Todd's desk, figuring it would be a nice experiment--I'd rather risk him missing the TV bill than the electricity.

So, time went by and the "red" notice came in the mail. I put that on Todd's desk, too.

On Friday the cable was finally cut off. He seemed to handle it okay. (ie. I wasn't there when he discovered it, and even though a bunch of the equipment sitting on top of the TV incidentally happened to "fall" right around that same time, nothing was broken.)

When we spoke later in the day and I explained that I just did what he told me to do, Todd said that I should have reminded him when the bill came because "it still needs to be paid." I told him I put it with his mail and also said that I wasn't going to pay it because I know we can't afford it. [I didn't even get into the fact that automatic payments have gone a long way to preserving our marriage thus far, because they've cut back on the number of times per month I have to nag him--I'm done with tolerating that sort of existence.]

A couple of the kids were in the room when this came up, and they quickly agreed that they didn't need TV--there are still a lot of shows that we can view online, and there are other things to do. Todd seemed okay with that. I was hopeful that he might actually be willing to make a few sacrifices himself to dig us out of this hole.

Friday went by without TV. Todd spent some time in his recliner reading a book . . . .

Then Saturday--Todd had a job, and he was gone most of the day. When we got home in the evening, we watched a movie on Netflix instant view. It was nice. With the steady stream of television in this house, it's hard to get him to commit to watching a movie with me--it's always:

"not yet...just a little more news, and a little of this home improvement show, and a little of this crazy white-trash criminal show, and a little of this expose on short-cuts in the construction of golf-clubs... and, naw, it's too late to start a movie now. I'm tired. We'll do it another time."

How nice. The benefits of going without cable TV were more than monetary. I could get used to this.

Sunday, I was out with my daughter most of the day, and when I got back in the evening, Todd and one of the boys were watching a movie. I thought nothing of it--It was probably Netflix instant view.

Then, this morning when I got up, Todd was once again planted in front of the television--this time it was obvious that he'd dropped the loot to reconnect the cable, and he had likely done it while I was gone yesterday. In his world of fantasy, that's not debt spending as long as he uses the debit card and not the credit card--even though the expenditure means we have less available to put toward paying off the credit card. [Perhaps he should have gone into politics.]

It's almost noon on a weekday (work day?) and he's still watching. I could give him the benefit of the doubt that he must be on an exterior job, and since it's sprinkling outside he "can't work"--however, with this being the nature of his line of work, it just seems that he could plan ahead a little for these rainy days and either use them to drum up future work or at least do a little of the long-neglected interior work around our house, rather than just sitting around enjoying a luxury that we can't afford--a luxury that is keeping us in debt.

What could be Sexier than a man doing the dishes?

Todd's doing dishes. Everyone knows it. I'm sitting in the livingroom trying to get a little work done on my writing job, but I can't concentrate. What amazes me is how loudly he can do dishes and not leave them shattered and chipped. Of course I haven't ventured in there to see, because I feel "the mood" so strongly out here, I can only imagine how stifling it is in the kitchen.

The volume speaks volumes . . . . He shouldn't have to do this house work after a hard day of real work (yes, he actually did put in a pretty full day of work today.) The thing is, he didn't have to do this. Our son, Jake, was out there doing the dishes, then all of a sudden I heard the clanging level amp up and looked up to see Jake walking down the hallway toward his room.

"I thought you were doing the dishes," I said.

"Dad took over," he answered.

"That doesn't mean you have to quit."

So Jake went back in the kitchen, and moments later he was heading down the hall to his room again.

The clanging was louder, as if intentionally calling attention to itself.

"Why are you quitting?" I ask our son.

"Dad says he's got it."

What more can be said? I'm curious about the reason Todd would take over one of the kids' jobs like that, but not curious enough to go in the room . . . and risk suffocation. Jake has A.D.D. He probably wasn't doing the job fast enough or sticking with it in a way that would be likely to see it finished before the evening was over--but still, dismissing him and taking over doesn't do anything to teach Jake responsibility. Jake doesn't seem to even know why his Dad came in there and took over. No words were spoken--and yet, communication of sorts. What an opportunity for father and son to work together wasted! Todd could have talked with Jake about his day. He could have shown him his method to make the job go by quickly and they could have enjoyed company while doing a job cheerfully. That would have built up Jake's sense of responsibility, his confidence, and his own communication skills for the future . . . but instead, he was dismissed. He got a message alright--he learned that whatever he did, it wasn't good enough.

This makes me think of Todd's oldest half brother, Roger. Roger was living in the same house as his wife and kids when I first met him. He was sleeping in the basement, biding his time until the youngest child graduated from high school. As soon as the youngest child left for college, Roger filed for divorce. I heard all the scuttle from Roger's side of the story--Todd's mother didn't keep her opinion secret. The marriage was doomed early on because Roger's wife didn't discipline the children. Oh, that evil woman just let the kids do whatever they wanted and there wasn't anything poor Roger could do about it!

Years later, after struggling to try to find common ground with Todd in parenting, after having him negate the discipline I try to enforce on the children . . . I'm tired. Tired of existing like a single parent in so many ways, and yet-- Tired of having my own parental authority undermined by my spouse. Tired of trying in vain. Tired of having Todd complain about the things the kids don't do because I didn't make them (even though Todd himself was there sabotaging me when I tried.) So, I "parent" when Todd is not around, but I often don't bother when he's at hand. I can't help but wonder if that was what Roger's wife went through.

Finally, I have to pass through the kitchen to switch laundry loads. Todd's scrubbing the counter now. He doesn't appear to be upset, or even grumpy, and yet I feel the mood (that's all I can think of to call it.) It starts to affect me somewhere between the back of my throat and the middle of my rib cage; then it grows--not only broader, but also thicker. I'd think I was crazy-- that it was just my imagination, but the kids seem to sense it, too. It warns us to get away from Todd. No need bringing it up to Todd--I've tried before and it always turns into "Oh, is that the way you see it?" or a similar statement dripping in sarcasm or prickling like the quills of a porcupine.

He did put some money in the checking account just in time to avoid NSF charges on bounced automatic payments today. That should be cause for celebration. Maybe he is changing. Should I be giving him the benefit of the doubt on the attitude behind his help in the kitchen, too? I'm skeptical. It wasn't just me. Something drove my son out of the kitchen. Is it understandable that we're having a hard time hugging a porcupine just because there's a chance that he may have been de-quilled? The problem is: I've trusted before, only to be jabbed by those stealth quills when I'm in my most vulnerable state. In the past, smoothness has only been there temporarily--as a means to manipulate others into giving him something he wants.

Am I being too cynical? I mean, what could be sexier than a man doing the dishes?

I guess I should have jumped him. But he has since gone to bed, and I still have work to do.

And, as my big brother used to say:

"Do a good deed every day, but if you get caught, it doesn't count."

I guess that's kind of a paraphrase of Matthew 6:1-4. Another paraphrase might include the clanging of dishes . . . . Just like the Father rewards those who do their good deeds quietly, out of the deep motivation of true love, let's just say it is infinitely more sexy for a man to quietly help his son do the dishes than for him to loudly take over and make it known to the entire household that he, and not the boy, deserves the credit.

I'M DOING DISHES. I'M IN THE KITCHEN AND I'M DOING DISHES. I'M DOING THEM BETTER THAN A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD BOY WITH A.D.D. AREN'T I SPECIAL? I'M BETTER AT THIS THAN A KID!

Sorry, Dude . . . . Not sexy.

Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day with my daughter--the one who just broke up with her boyfriend of 4 years. She has one week left of college, so we're going to pack and move some of her things, but also, I thought she could use a little support in the wake of the breakup. I'm so proud of her doing the hard thing and breaking up before they reached the point of no return, but I'm also concerned that she is at a very critical place in her life. I think it might be helpful for her to know about how some of the life choices I made "on the rebound" a couple decades ago are still causing me such incredible pain. I don't know how much I should actually tell her. If you're inclined to pray, please pray for me to have wisdom to know what to say and what not to say.

Staying together for the expectations of others...

My oldest daughter just broke up with her serious boyfriend of four years. They've been talking marriage almost that long. She says they've been ignoring the signs for some time, and that they kept putting off breaking up partially because of "what everyone else expects" of them.

Interesting timing once again . . .

right after my realization today that a major problem with Todd & I back when the Charlie episode happened--back when we probably should have separated--was the fact that we were so entrenched in a world that didn't see us as individuals.

This Social Network

This is the point in the script where things start connecting--perhaps faster than our protagonist can handle. I received a message from someone from my past on a social network today. She had to have done some sleuthing to find me because I'm only listed on that network by my maiden name, and I'm pretty sure she never knew my maiden name. My initial reaction was "I hate the internet." I've got my privacy settings pretty high, yet not so high that those who truly know me can't find me. It's an interesting balance to strike--especially if you have chapters of your past that you'd rather forget.

For those who have read the Charlie chapter of the story of Bridget, you know that there were others privy to our marital woes (or at least to my sinful reaction to the marital woes). You may even remember the pastor whose counsel almost gave me the courage to give in to suicidal impulses... and to be fair I must admit that he also offered me the sage advice that a separation in order for us to work on our individual problems might be beneficial. (In retrospect, I know that would have been preferable to the way we just ran away, and ultimately clung to our old codependent habits.)

Running away is how we handled the situation back then. Our lives were tangled up with complications--work and home and friends and church overlapped* way too much for us to find any place where we could feel safe enough to deal with our problems. Our counselor even advised us to leave, citing that we needed to have a place of our own where we could retreat from work and focus on our relationship. Her advise led to us renting a house for the first time in years--a place that would not be invaded by the demands of employers we were in debt to for the roof over our heads--and leaving a church that had been a source of demands and judgement in disproportionate balance to support. If we had stayed (or if one of us had stayed) separation would have been the only way to survive. [*The overlap served as a sort of a cancellation of each of us as individual entities--the majority of the people in our lives saw us as a single unit . . . and thus, when they were disappointed by Todd, they would express disappointment in me.]

Looking back, I realize that the biggest reason I couldn't handle staying there was because I would need to really stand up for myself and push away from enabling Todd in order to not go crazy. Todd pulled me into his world of delusion more than I ever realized. He reacted to criticism of our employers by demonizing them, and because people are imperfect, I was able to see the flaws in those he was demonizing and it magnified my distrust of them. The church did contribute to the gluing us together with "till death do us part" expectations--approaching me as if Todd and I really were one, even when I had little to no sway over his irresponsible behavior... they should have held him more directly accountable and not always put me in the middle. But I also should have stood up for myself. Todd and I were bound more tightly in our disfunction than I realized. If they had truly worked with us as individuals, things might have worked, but we seemed to be so inextricably "one" in their eyes that there was no other way. So, we left. We didn't move too far--only about 15 miles--but in a metropolitan area, it was enough distance to pretty much avoid seeing all the people from our old life.

I have a phobia of that little suburb 15 miles from my doorstep. There are times that I have to go there, and my hair practically stands on end if I get too close to the place we lived. One time Todd was driving, and he jokingly started to swerve the car as if he was going to pull in the driveway to the old church. My heart nearly stopped and I had nightmares for weeks after that. There were some pretty awful things that went on in that place, and I frequently deal with the fact that I haven't been "reconciled" with those "brothers and sisters" in the Lord by putting them in a different category from the "real" church: It was a cult--a bunch of self-righteous fringe lunatics--looneys who are not to be trusted.

Then, in the midst of my safe oasis of friends on my social network, a message shows up from that pastor's wife. She's hoping that Todd and I will be able to attend the church's anniversary celebration coming up soon. She says that she and her husband think of us often and pray that all is well. My defenses instantly erect about me. Distrust. Sure you wish us well. Sure you want us back there for the anniversary... an anniversary... what a convenient excuse to snoop around in our business for your own amusement. I look at her profile and see pictures from the cruises she's gone on with her husband. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Clergy. They were happy to move into a wealthy area to minister, because the lifestyle fit them so well. It was incidental that they had to live that way to minister to the natives. Suffering for the Lord. Ha! Past hurt excavates the ugly depths of my soul. Envy. Judgment. Demonization. Then I realize something that had evaded me until now. These attitudes toward this couple... are they really my own? Are they perhaps more Todd's narcissistic reaction to people who refused to accept his delusions as true? God! How much of his crap have I incorporated in the way I deal with others over the years?

I'm going to have to pray about this message sitting like a weight in my inbox. Initially, I thought I'd ignore it. Why would I want to open up that can of worms? But even in the amount of time it has taken to write this message, I've begun to wonder if the timing of this might be more than coincidence. Could this perhaps be providential? a gift? a catalyst for my grow-up plan--my attempt to uncover any delusion that is crippling me? An answer to the prayer I've been praying from the Psalms 119:29?

Remove from me the way of lying,
And grant me Your law graciously.

The only reason to answer and reconnect with this couple I've avoided for so many years would be if it could promote honesty and healing. I really don't need any more nice role-playing in my life.