I am a grown up, and monsters are real.

I haven't  been as dedicated to this blog in the past two weeks as I wish I had been.  A LOT has happened.  I feel like my mind is in perpetual processing and re-calibrating and developing mode.  Like an emotional/spiritual growth spurt of sorts.
Graduate school has started.  Exhale.  I'm so ridiculously excited.  I was even wide awake before my alarm on the day of orientation...NERD.  You know when you start something and then you get little hints, snippets, pieces of validation and confirmation that this is right where you need to me at this exact moment?  That is this counseling program.  It feels good and safe and engaging and full of the meat and bones that I need so desperately.  They can handle my hard questions.  More to come on that later.

I've had a few moments, conversely, that I don't know what to do with.  There is a point in time, in crisis particularly in which you realize that the "system" isn't what you need it to be.  Good, bad, or ugly; maybe, and definitely inadequate.  Things that are set up to help, hurt.  People that exist to protect, damage.  Places designed to teach, restrict.  Supports there to prevent, only respond.
Monsters are real and I wish that I could pull the blanket a bit further over my head.  I'm the grown up, damn it!  I have a voice and words and countless communication techniques to help me navigate conflict and resistance!  I can't protect this one.  My words fall on deaf ears.  I can't protect those ones.  My words would make the situation worse.  I thought that when I got big the monsters would be scared of me, and I would be brave and scare them away and it would be okay.
But, the scary things aren't tangible or fuzzy or three-headed in my closet.  I can't chase them or hit them or blind them with flashlights.  I can't lock them in a cell or medicate them away.  The scary things are inside of us waiting to creep out.  The scary things are ignorance and fear preventing action and selfishness and anger and judgment and pride.  Pride is the scariest monster.  Pride is the monster that deludes us into thinking we don't have scary things inside of us.  Pride is the invisible monster that destroys and terrifies and jumps out unpredictably.  Pride is the blind monster crushing others in its path while criticizing the Anger monster for yelling.
If someone asked me to create a "system" that was what I needed it to be...to help, to protect, to teach, to support...I would say "everyone find their own monsters---label them, lean into the fear of seeing them face to face, and supervise them as often as you can."  Leaving all the lights on and turning out the closets isn't meant to be an external monster fix, but an internal one.  Find your monster, and don't let it out of your sight.  

"'cause I'm playing for keeps"

I'm getting better at this.  I'm averaging two, okay maybe three, failed attempts to complete a task before I stop and think, "Why am I avoiding this?"  Last week, it was ordering my textbooks.  Last month, it was certifying my financial aid.  Last night, I wanted to flake on some friends after ditching a day of work (and seriously contemplating a second day of nothing).  Don't get me started on how many miles past due I am for an oil change.
I could can feel it creeping.  That pesky nudge to leave, to be impulsive, to drive without destination, to escape the boxed-in-slightly-panicked feeling.  It wasn't isn't that I am simply lazy or undisciplined or selfish.  I am taking a huge leap into a three year program in less than two weeks, while continuing to work full-time.  Nailed it.
Do you know when you get a rush of adrenaline and any unnecessary information or sensory input just fades away?  I can feel myself shutting down pieces, closing windows and doors, shoving the muse out of the spaces it has managed to burst through.  It's like a progressive movement toward emotional hibernation.  I'm hoarding acorns dang it!!  I've been here before.  This is what I do.  Before I started this job, I was very honest with the Lord about how things were going to go down.  "When the going gets tough..."  Well, I get going but I don't think that's what they mean.  And it always feels so stupid.  Really, you're going to put off ordering some books?  Wow, tough guy.  I'll give Amazon an offer it can't refuse!

"Cause I'm an already but not yet resurrected fallen man

Come break this limbo"

Even a Klondike bar isn't going to cut it.

Write what you know.  Write what you know.  Write what I know?  What do I know?

I know that I am tired.  Today I am wearied by the Mom who has postpartum depression and a personality disorder.  I am wearied because she does not want help.  That is her right.  I am also wearied because she has three children and doesn't understand the gamble.  That is a gray area.  She doesn't understand what I understand.  She has had a very difficult and traumatic and unfair life.  I understand that the odds are stacked against her.  She is desperate to feel secure and loved but doesn't know how to make that happen for herself.  She is a walking hallowed shell.  Her emotions and attachments change like the wind.  I also understand that her six year old is mimicking her mood swings and that the odds are stacked against him unless something gives.  I understand how she feels disgusted by her infant because of her depression.  I also understand what's happening in that little brain that is being chronically denied what it needs.  I understand that I don't want anything to do with that mess, in my heart.  What if they walk away and I never know what happens?  What if she does something to those kids and I will have to blubber over multiple failed attempts to engage her in service?  What if I just tried harder?    I want to walk away.  And what kind of person does that make me?  Does that make me one of those haggled on TV anonymous yet clearly guilty of failing the person with mental illness that has caused so much hurt and trauma and policy changes in our country?  Is that me?  I want to walk away. There is nothing easy or pretty or simple about this case.  It will be irritating and frustrating and unfair to me and the children and the family the entire time.  It is a lose lose lose.  I know that I can't just walk away.  Beyond that, I don't know.

When the word 'no' is an inadequate response.

I love these moments.

One second you are established; understanding life, your philosophy, God.  The next...even though you  look the same, and have not moved your physical body, you feel as though a small part of you will never think or feel the same way; good or bad.

The best part is that it's usually an off-handed remark, a phrase, an unintended-for-my-ears comment that will grab hold and refuse to let go.  Random and unplanned.

A word.  A lyric.  A tempo.  It stirs deeply and I often don't realize why, initially.   

I think working with children appeals to me, in part, because their concrete thinking is a magnet for these moments.  As adults, we are good at complex and abstract thought.  However, I think the concrete resonates more with our emotions.  We think in the abstract, we believe in the concrete.

A child told me today, "my Dad doesn't like it when I talk."  This child has A LOT to teach me.

I suspect he has Asperger's.  For those of you unaware of what that means, it is an Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Children with Asperger's have a lot of problems with social interactions primarily because they don't understand social cues or reciprocity of communication very well.
This child has a problem understanding why it isn't okay to sabotage my art activity that he doesn't enjoy outside of "If I scribble on Ms. Laura's paper I will get in trouble."  He needs reminding of how that damages our relationship and even then his reciprocity is often structured around my leading.
He is most engaged in our relationship when it is most interesting or beneficial to him, because he can't quite understand how doing that impacts other people.

I am often exhausted after only one hour with him because it is a perpetual cycle of resisting a power struggle.  The endless attempts to negotiate my activity to his specifications, or attempts to sabotage the activity all together.  This is often preceded or followed by very pleasant interactions about his preferred topic of choice. I should chart every time the interaction flips.  I am confident it would resemble a roller coaster.

I am reminded of the verse that talks about if we, as imperfect and fallen beings, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our heavenly father bestow on us?

Sometimes I believe my Dad doesn't like to hear me talk.  But He is bigger than that.

Writing on the front page whilst glimpsing at the back

I don't like writing on the back of a page in a notebook.  I am right-handed; writing on the left page feels odd and awkward.  Sloppy.  Imperfect.  And the notebook is thicker on the right which lends to more stability.  The left side shifts or the pages lift slightly.  Insecure.  Messy.  You know this conflict.
If I dare to write on the back page in a notebook, I have to cope with random glimpses of my could-be-compared-to-a-grade-school-child creation on the page opposite where I am writing.  Writing on the front, whilst glimpsing at the back.
So I don't acknowledge that back page anymore.  You assume accurately; I have whole journals half full because I don't want glimpses of the back page.

The only problem, aside from my rigidity, is that every front page has a back side.  My stories are incomplete without acknowledgment of those pages.

If I can't acknowledge the back pages, how I am sabotaging the front ones?

A journal full of front pages only is a half-truth.

I write on the back page and I cringe every time.  Can I be brave whilst catching glimpses?  Will the glimpses change my front page?  

Maybe stories aren't meant to be in a notebook.