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.