So much has happened since then. My little world looks so different. The big world I read about in the news has changed so much. But the truth remains the same.
If you feel like it's in your job description to keep it together, I am sharing this for you.
(Written September 3, 2013) September 2, 2012. One year ago. It was a Sunday - I was making my list of all the things I was going to accomplish the following day, Labor Day. Since I've returned to full-time work, three day weekends smell sweeter and feel full of possibility and promise. The children had 3 days in their new school under their belts. I had completed 8 months of working with my team at work and was enjoying my teammates and responsibilities. My husband was going to weekly counseling appointments, and though I did have to hear on a regular basis how much he didn't want to be with us, I at least no longer was having panic attacks and was feeling, physically, a bit healthier.
It's strange to look back at your year-ago yourself, before the bombs had gone off and your world fell apart, and think about the difference a day can make. How unaware I was of all that was preparing itself for me. Similar to watching a horror movie, as you watch the heroine turn the knob on the bedroom door, unaware of the danger that lurks inside - but you know what's about to happen and you yell at the screen, "Run away! Turn around! Don't go in that room!" - that's how I feel as I consider that day.
Perhaps we all have a day like that. A turning point. A twist in the story. A key battle.
The next day, as I carried out my list of tasks, between the Verizon store and Staples, I got the news that my dad was in the ER. Within an hour - maybe it was more, it feels like an instant now - he was gone.
As I drove the 8 hours with my children and husband to Delaware, with feelings raw and senses heightened, I started to see how dark my days had become. I felt suffocated with fear that my children would make a noise and receive the words of wrath from their dad. I couldn't listen to the radio, or enjoy the noise of children being children, because I was scared of how he would respond. As I helped my mom at the funeral home make preparations, I received phone calls - how dare I abandon him with the kids for this long - I could feel my insides twist and churn with hurt. As we pulled into our driveway, and he ran for his vehicle and took off for destinations unknown, never to return until the next morning, I was left with 3 children's faces looking to me for answers.
Within two months he moved out. Perhaps we see him once a week. Often less. When the youngest is hurt or doesn't get her way, she cries for daddy. The middle child has periodic meltdowns, when she no longer can be brave. The oldest didn't say a word, just prayed for him. And I was alone, doing the work of two, trying to hold it together.
Then my team at work dissolved, as several moved on to different positions, different states, different employers. And I was almost alone in my job with only one other member of my team remaining, doing the work of several, trying to hold it together.
Then my son started having problems at school, hitting himself, biting himself, severe anxiety, hiding under desks and in bathrooms, ripping up papers, staring at schoolwork unable to start a sentence. A battery of tests came back with an Asperger's diagnosis. Weekly phone calls from teachers and principals reporting on the latest, asking me what they can do. Doctor's appointments, tests, counseling services, long evenings of homework, re-creating torn up assignments, researching, dietary changes, planning, negative self-talk, discussions of suicide and worthlessness and brokenness, navigating medicaid and insurance and support services and IEPs. And I was alone, doing the work of a full medical team, trying to hold it together.
And then I was promoted after a long process of interviews and nausea-inducing waiting, and hired a new team and started fresh. Difficult goals, stretching, learning new things, identifying strategies, making it up as I go along, trying to hold it together.
Friendships have taken a back burner as I lack the energy to talk or make plans, schedule lunches, even post on Facebook. Isolated, alone, self-absorbed. Trying to hold it together.
This year has nearly broken me.
Everything I know has been stripped to the bones. Exposed.
I wish I could say that's all behind me. But I'm still in the same place - still wandering through marital separation and lacking clarity about our future, still looking at the bite marks on my son's arms after a school day, still forming my plans and teams and identifying best practices in my job, still not able to keep up with friends and family as I'd like.
But this isn't a triumph of the human spirit story. This isn't about me.
Colossians 1:17,
Christ was before all things. All things are held together by Him.
God throughout this year, has shown me on a regular basis that he is holding me together. Whether it be the treats and meals a neighbor would bring me, or a text from a friend, or the financial provision to pay the bills, or the comfort of praying in community with others.
I don't know what I'm doing. I screw up daily.
But I'm not responsible for holding it all together. I'm going to try to remember that. Because only God knows what a year will bring.
