How do you measure?

One of the really messed up things about the way time works is the feeling part of time.  Maybe you've noticed it too, the way when you're looking forward to something time seems to drag.  Ever notice at the beginning of vacation, especially if you're driving to your destination, it seems to take forever to get there.  You load into the vehicle and you feel like the trip will never really end.  Or when you were a kid and you were going to be with Family at Xmas or Easter or whatever and an hour long car ride seemed to take forever like it would just never end.  Conversely when you get to your vacation destination or when you got to your grandparents or other family members house somehow time clicked back into place, only to begin the process of speeding up.  What looked like a long break stretching out ahead of you turns into the briefest of moments, blinking your eyes seems to make the whole process move so fast and you're already at the end of what it took so long to get too and you know that can't be right but here you are packing your bags into the car, or pulling down the tents or getting in the car and returning home and in every instance what seemed to take forever to get to is over way faster than it should be.

The thing that is amazing in all of these feelings of time going slow and fast there is this one constant and that constant is the fact that the time all is moving the same as it always has.  The hour going to a place isn't any longer than the hour returning from the place, and yet it doesn't feel that way.  I remember the first time I realized if I went to sleep in the car when I woke up I was home and it didn't feel like any time had passed.  Went to sleep in one place, woke up in a different place and there was no time in between, except we all know that isn't true, time kept moving at the same pace it always has or did it?

I've always said perception is reality for people.  That is true in so many ways.  Even if things can be shown or proven to be a certain way a persons perception of that thing that I can prove may be totally different and therefore even though we can prove reality it doesn't matter perception for the individual is what matters, it's what shapes their understanding of something, it molds their ideasd thoughts and feelings about a situation or a person or an activity, it influences the decision making process, many times more than actual reality ever will.  

So while time is in reality a constant, in perception it does all sorts of things.  It crawls, it speeds by, it stops, it shifts there are all sorts of ways we describe it and even though reality says it's not doing any of those things the truth is it's doing all of those things because the way we perceive it, dictates the way we interact with it and the choices we make because of it. 

I've been measuring time between the tears lately.  I know this may be getting old to some people I mean it has to be right.  No one would ever say it but that doesn't make it any less true.  I know that people are heart broken with us.  I know that they wish they could help, I know they would love to be able to just make it better, that goes without saying, but.  That's the thing that's so hard because even though people love and feel and are sad they are also not measuring time between the tears.  They feel it all, they cry when the see any of us and when the put their arms around us if they can.  They reach out and you can see and hear the sadness, the tension the bewilderment in that moment but their reality has all the other things that they deal with and so they love on us and feel with us and for us and then they slip back into their own life, their own time stream where things are not like they are in this one.  Time moves on for them in that way that time does and they move throughout their day doing all the things that have to do and get to do and that's how it should be and that's what they need to do and that's what I want them to do.  No one should have to be here it's messed up and it's unexplainable and I appreciate it when people take time to wade into our time stream and try and spend some of it with us but I have to say that I envy them when they move back into their own time stream.  

There's this song in RENT called Seasons of Love.  The lyric says how do you measure a year in the life and then it goes on to say it's all about love.  You measure life in the love that you have the love that you share the love that you feel the love that you give.  It's true on so many levels and when I apply that measure to the 4730400 minutes that we got to have it gives the alternating feelings of warmth and light and then gets slammed with anger and confusion and all of it and time slows to a crawl and I watch the clock click over from moment to moment and then well then I find myself falling into this thing that can be approximated as sleep, and I wake up and when I do time slams into place again and the day stretches out and it's full of stuff to do but there's just this big jagged hole and so I do the stuff and then find myself on the edge of the hole trying to figure out a way to get that hole to not have to exist at all and no matter how hard I try and how much I want it to it's just there and always will be.  

Rolling into the next...

 This post has been sitting in the pit of my stomach for days now.  I look at my laptop and I think about opening it to push the words out of my mind and heart and I shake my head and I walk away, only to be greeted with it sitting there calling my name like some dealer promising me that this time the feeling will be better than the last, that getting the words out will make it better except...

That's the thing for someone that writes like I do to process things, and in many ways for at least a good chunk of my living, (those sermons don't write themselves you know) getting the words out, seeing them crawl across the page and then seeing the reaction from the people that consume them, good or bad offers a bit of , I guess the word is validation.  The problem that happens though is when those words are all a jumbled mess of angst, and sorrow wrapped into memories that, I'm told at least, will one day be soft warm places to go but that right now illicit an never ending torrent of tears. 

A few things that I am learning.  

• There is a never ending source tears.  My buddy Jim the Episcopal priest (no I don't know why I always call him that, perhaps it's because it's cool to me that my bestie turns out to be, well an Episcopal priest and anyone that can love and serve and all that and can also pull off the "uniform" every Sunday and look good doing is a whole other level of cool) anyway Jim told me the other day that there is a never ending source, you can deplete them sure but once you rehydrate, something we all need to do, they come back.
• No matter how much you know people are trying to help, sometimes you just want to tell everyone you know that they can take a walk into a herd of roamers while you watch the carnage.   Would you feel bad afterwards sure you may even feel bad while it's happening but at the same time there would be a sense that they would at least now have a partial answer to the how are you doing question.
• Knowing God is always there is not enough when he feels so far away from you.  Through this whole process there's the understanding that God is there, knows, cares, fill in all those blanks, and yet he feels light years away.  I'm told this will change, shoot I've told people this will change but right now this feels like a hollow promise at best.  
• There are responses that will forever be removed from my vocabulary when dealing with things like this.  No more it's all part of his plan, no more simple answers revolving around God, no claims of being able to empathize or sympathize for that matter, shoot most of the time it will be "I'm sorry and I'm here and then I'll sit there as long as the person wants and leave when the person needs to be left alone.
• Sometimes being alone is better than being with people, and sometimes you need to be with people but not people you know.  The thing is the people I know are great, they have been loving and caring and compassionate.  They check on us, they love us and it shows and that's an amazing thing to have.  But here's the part that's going to seem kinda odd.  When I'm with people I don't know, weather those people are at a store, or when I play a game on Xbox, or when I'm getting  gas, I can be somewhere else for those few minutes.  They don't know me I don't know them and while it's likely obvious that something totally messed up is going on and with my face in this kinda permanent puffy place, they don't look at me with the sadness that they feel on my behalf and that can be a good thing because for that small moment I can live in this alternate moment where the world isn't what it really is, where our reality isn't what it really is.
• A dear friend, who is part of this club that no one ever wants to be in, was right.  Sometimes I'm mad at you dear reader and everyone else that I see because you're doing life you're moving on you're having good things in your life, good feelings, neat firsts with your brood, a funny joke that posts to your social media, the sound of lawn mowers and the sight of bikes rolling by and all the every day things that people do is infuriating because don't you know don't you understand that the world has stopped turning and makes no sense and, and and...

All of these things I've learned along with a whole bunch more things and it all just adds up to a bunch of why, and while I of course know the "Jesus" answer to this question, that answer simply does not work, it doesn't fit, even if it's right. 

People deal with the jagged edges that things like this rip into their souls in different ways.  I can honestly say I don't know how I'm dealing with it.  I'm not taking a step at a time, I'm shuffling my way through, sometimes a second at a time and sometimes even in half second breaths.  

I've found myself driving the roads in Youngstown late at night wanting to find some rip in the fabric of the universe that I could drive through where none of this is true.  I've stood in the shower with my head leaned against the wall so that I can pretend the tears are from the water instead of from my eyes.  I've sat with J worried about what is going on in her head willing her to know that she's loved and that I would take every bit of the things she's having to do and deal with away, feeling helpless and like a failure because I can't.  I've taken all of these things and picked them all up and I do that because I don't know any other way to do it.  I know I have people there for me, I know all the things that I'm supposed to do in times like this and I'm doing as many of them as I can but lets be honest there are some things that no matter how much I know I just can't do them and so I have to realize that I'm going to be this way for a very long time and then a longer time after that. 

So that's it, a window into me.  Pretty messed up isn't it.  Thanks for listening, well reading not listening but you get the idea.

Not Okay

 It goes without saying that I process things through writing.  It seems like that's just the way my brain works and so here I sit on the 17th of May 2021 attempting to process the unthinkable. 

Back in 2011 something amazing happened.  Our family of four became a family of 5.  I've been blessed to get super amounts of quality time with all of my children when they were little.  Each of them spent time at my office with me, and I relished ever second.  Which brings me to 2011.  In 2011 we went from four to five.  I'll never forget the day, the amazement and the joy of adding this person that was all amazing.  

Lots of starts happened with the fifth Newell.  I started running pushing the stroller as I did so.  Time in my office in the swing was so fun, and then came the best part of that time.  Daddy Daycare was in full effect watching this bundle during the day and working on computers in the afternoon and evening.  Getting to live every moment with this person that was so just...there are no words.  

Sweet, caring, opinionated, giving, loving, accommodating, smart, fun, creative, sensitive the list that I just made is by no means exhaustive it pales to be honest but it's a start. 

Fast forward to 2021...the edge of double digits.  The creativity full and fun and amazing.  The servants heart that always said...I'll help, I'll do it, let me help you.  The time playing Animal Crossing, or Among Us or Mario Odyssey together finding each moon, and being excited about it, more excited than you will know.  The snuggles on the couch watching a movie or show.  

The jar of marbles on the mantle,   growing smaller by the day...now arrested never to shrink again.

We have joined the worst club in the world.   No one ever wants to join this club, and I can guarantee you that the people in it don't want any more members, and yet here we are.  This club takes a toll, sleepless days and nights, tears that wont stop and come unbidden out of nowhere except that's not true at all they come from this gaping hole that has been ripped not just into your heart but the very fabric of your being.  That place that is who you are, because lets be clear the ball of love and light becomes a part of you in ways that no one can really explain and to have it torn out leaves a mess.  

Age is an interesting thing.  Someting that always happens until suddenly it doesn't, when in a screech and a lurch all is stripped away and the hole is made you have nothing left but the pain and sorrow and hurt and anger...so much anger.  

"Dad wait don't leave me."  and so of course I waited, loading into the SUV heading to church, precious cargo in tow.  Only to now sit and pray that it's really Sunday afternoon and I'm in the middle of a nap and I'm going to wake up and hear all of them...but then that's not what it is...now I'm the one that's saying..."Josie wait...don't leave."  and there is no sleep...just this yawning jagged hole in my heart and soul, a jar of marbles on the mantle that will never empty, a family screaming at the gates of Heaven  please give her back....