Alright, I'm just going to shoot straight with you because lying is a sin and it's hard to be friends with fakers. The last couple of days were HARD. I started sliding down the slippery slope to anxiety and overwhelm and depression on Wednesday. Looking back, I was a little manic, talking off anyone's ear who would listen (sorry husband, and voxer friends). I was starting to notice that I felt agitation in my sprit that just wouldn't quit.
At one point I drove around our little town randomly crying while looking at all these adorable small businesses and restaurants whose futures hold a tremendous amount of uncertainty right now. I prayed as I drove, and felt like the gray storm clouds covering the cascades were a perfect backdrop for the landscape of our world.
I kept trucking along the rest of the day, feeling EXTREMELY emotional, while working outside with the boys cleaning up orchard brush, and then randomly snapping at my family the rest of the night for the most minor of infractions.
It all came to a big explosive crest on Wednesday night after the kids went to bed, when I started screech-pleading with my husband to please understand my desperate state:
"Don't you see?? There's a reason I have never homeschooled!!!! I can't do this! They won't do their stuff! You do your "job" in the morning and then go out and drive a tractor BY YOURSELF the rest of the day, and meanwhile I have all this stuff to do that's in addition to what I was doing before the lockdown, and all my support systems have vanished!!!" He was looking at me and responding to me as if I was, in fact, a crazy person. Well, yeah. I tend to go from 0 to 60 before he can even manage one blink of those unfairly long, dark eyelashes of his. I basically hated him for even existing, and then slept on the couch. Meanwhile, in the other universe also known as REALITY, Kevin is the most generous, kind, funny man alive.
Wow.
How are things going at your house??
Then yesterday I fell into the pit of despair and just decided I was "unavailable" for the first half of the day and put on my giant sunglasses and my noise canceling earbuds and took several naps and stress ate a bunch of snack mix and some chocolate in lieu of a real breakfast and lunch. The boys just basically spent the day outside doing stuff with Kevin in the orchard. At one point, during one of my naps, I woke up to Leah's little hand holding mine as she laid in the bed silently, awake, next to me. She knew I was down for the count and I am amazed at her kind little heart that just shows up for her mom who is having the worst day, and not even being nice at all.
And then, it was as if the cloud just lifted. I can't even explain it. I just felt better and made dinner and cleaned the house a little bit.
Maybe it will be that during this time of of pressure and lockdown and uncertainty, we will come face to face with our emotions that usually send us racing for our coping mechanisms. I know that usually I have a commitment of some sort that will cause me to rally rather than wallow. I don't have that now. Maybe it's good. I heard a therapist once say: "You have to feel it to heal it" and it's hard to fully feel it when you've always got distractions and escapes. Yesterday there was nowhere to escape to, so I just went to sleep. And I was SO TIRED. What is up with all of this tired-ness?
Anyway, I suppose it's par for the course to have some hard days and I am thankful for GRACE. This morning I was reading from Mark, and Jesus is just so forgiving and willing to hit the reset button for us.
I think we all need to be really kind to ourselves right now. Things are not normal. This is not the time to tackle projects (well, maybe for some people), or to compare myself to how so-and-so is doing her quarantine homeschool/workouts/home projects/hobbies in the halls of Instagram and Pinterest. Just, NO.
This is a time that I need to get really quiet with God, and BE with Him and let him heal some of my deepest, darkest feelings. I need that grace every day just to keep going right now, to do the next right thing. I need the stamina that only the hope of Jesus can give me, to keep speaking truth to myself and pressing on in endurance for the sake of my family. I can do that even when I had what felt like a total zero of a day yesterday. It's okay. God gives do-overs, and thankfully, so do the people I live with. They are a gracious bunch, I tell ya what.
In my last post I talked about cultivating our awareness of what we feel during this time as sort of an optional exercise that might bring us into greater levels of self-awareness. Boy was I wrong! The last few days didn't feel "optional". It would have taken some strong medicine to numb out from those big feels. I guess I should be careful what I ask for.
This Feelings Wheel hangs on our kitchen cabinet. I have often looked at it, as a guide to help me get to the bottom of why I'm feeling anxious or angry. Much of it comes down to fear.
My prayer for me and for you is that as we navigate all of these new circumstances that can make us feel afraid, we would have extraordinary grace for ourselves as we wade through these new, and often complex feelings. Shame is the enemy and will only keep us stuck. Feel, maybe fail, maybe learn something, and keep enduring. God is the best of guides here, and all of the truth any of us needs to overcome these fears, is found in Him and Him alone.
Much love to you during this time of crisis and change, and I'm praying hope over each one of you that reads these words.
For more on how to feel safe in this current time we find ourselves in, check out this video my friend Cam shared with me:
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