Aloe

I'm not good with goodbyes. In fact I'm horrible at them. I become a bumbling mess of complete emotional chaos. Truth is, if you know me, you know that I hate emotions that are sad. I always want to be cheerful and upbeat and happy and silly. I want to make jokes and I want to laugh. So when goodbye rolls across the dinner plate and I am actually faced with a situation where there are no jokes and there is no humor...

If I'm honest, I'm the biggest coward I know. I've spent an enormous amount of my life grieving something. I've spent an incredible amount of time trying to forgive the demons that have gone bump in my life. I've worked so hard to walk away from  the waterfalls of tears and to move my psyche to a place of joy. Life is too short to cry. I swear I've cried so much for so long that I just don't want to do it anymore.

But you... You're forcing me to go through it, over and over again. You're forcing me to say goodbye when I don't want to and you keep forcing me to hurt. And I don't understand why. I don't understand why you bring these people into my life and you make me love them with every fiber of my very self and then you move them away or deploy them away or you take them away. I don't understand. And it hurts. And it makes me cry. And it makes me feel so small and so helpless.

Sitting here in my beautiful marriage, my home, with my children and watching the people that I love as part of my self hurt so much is like daggers. I would trade my self to make them feel better. I would bend over backwards to make them laugh. And you know how hard I try to make them laugh! How hard I try to bring even a small amount of joy to their hurt hearts. Because comforting them is maybe some retroactive way of knowing that no one will ever feel what I have felt in my life. All the hurts I've endured alone... All the tears I've cried alone.

Everyone thinks I'm so strong. I'm not strong. I'm a walking basket case that's probably one more damned goodbye away from having my heart ripped out of my chest. Loving people hurts. It's a simple fact. To love another human being is to open up all sorts of beautiful emotions, but it's also ripping pieces out of your soul and handing it to someone else and saying "Here! Take care of this. But if you don't, I'm helpless to defend myself."

It all sounds so romantic, doesn't it? I find it ugly and complicated and wonderful and messy. I guess it's strange that I'm able to love people like that without it being romanticized in my own heart. Maybe that's the gift that you have given me. But it hurts. And it leaves me feeling broken. Because I am so freaking helpless. I can't fix anything. I can't help anyone. I can't cure any illness, or prevent any tears, or make marriages happen or people to fall in love. I can't. And I wish I could.

I have endured a lot. It probably sounds sick but I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for all that you've put me through. Because every single one of those hell-on-earth experiences sucked me closer to you, like an aloe plant pulling out a splinter. It hurts like heck, but it brings out the ugliness and puts new growth back in its place. You promote my healing. But you always have to sucker punch me, because I'm just that freaking dense and I don't give up control easily.

You have brought me some beautiful people to love. And I really do love them. I really do. When they laugh, it warms my heart. When they hurt, it hurts my heart. When they're sick I want to help them. When they're excited I want to listen. When they're angry I want to support them and defend them. When they leave for horrible places that I can't go...

So here I sit helpless. I sit broken and sad and angry and vulnerable. But I need to be. Because I've never let a weakness dominate my life before and I'm not about to start now. And the more I expose myself the more you suck the splinters from my heart.

As I just finished that sentence this was what started playing on my iTunes: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Jesus, please come, today. And I find that to be so spiritually fitting for what I want to say.

Come and save the broken ones. Their hurts are so great and their needs are so astronomical. Come and save this broken one. I'm a basket case.