hope

Put Some Cotton On Your Eyes

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Take a cotton ball. Spread it so the fibers thin slightly and it’s like an oval piece of mesh. Now place this over both eyes and live your life. Go about making coffee and love. Plan meetings, playdates, talk on the phone and write a thesis. Buy groceries, mow the lawn.
Remember as you go about doing all your doings, your friends and family still see clearly. They have no cotton. They’re the ones in the background constantly chanting, “You will feel like yourself again. Just wait.”
And when they accidentally let a chuckle escape their mouth because they know your behavior is erratic, that soon you won’t be crying over the dandelion spores and potato chips the kids put in the back seat of the car, try your best not to kick them in the shin and then point.

Welcome to a slight understanding of what it’s like in the midst of mental illness. Everything hazy, stuck, and you just can’t see your way through. Even with all the yoga and fish oil the doctors suggest. I know, I know. It does help, but when I’m on the floor in fetal position, my body rocking from a rush of adrenaline, I’m not so much thinking about the best use of down dog. Not to mention how everything seems to take 3-4 weeks or forever which also is not the best of help for immediate circumstances.

Folks, my cotton has fallen. It’s like I can breathe again. For every minute I was fighting for a sense of reality I am now opening my hands in gratitude for the relief. I mean, I can still be moody over my son’s screeching noises. But even the most sane person would find neverending mouth-farts annoying after awhile. Get ahold of yourself child.

I know I have taken small freedoms for granted when I enter a sixteenth entry of symptoms in my journal which say, very mild, almost unnoticeable. The words track two weeks of acclimation. Two weeks in the trenches of upheaval, finally claiming calm.

It’s as I rummage through the laundry basket that I hear their laughs come unexpectedly. It surprises them because they start slowly until one kid’s giggle feeds the other until they are a mess of silly. I smile broad, full, and feel it deep in the reserves of my chest. I take a second to realize that a smile is progress. I am engaged in my life and not clawing for a sense of normality.

There may be a few final shreds on the eyelashes, but I’ve made it. And not all on my own.

A Good Christian Girl Who Vowed Never to Read a Word of 50 Shades of Grey. And Then Did.

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There is that tinge of shame when I scroll through Facebook lately and see the stones being thrown to the 50 Shades of Grey movie. “Boycott!” urge the titles. “Stop Pornography!” To which I say, yes. Please. Stop it.
I read the articles of damnation, the strong language in blogs with phrases like “stylized sexual violence” and “abuse” and “twisted.” I get it. And I was there only months ago.

The mental judgments came automatically. Never. I will never read that crap. It wasn’t something I declared publicly, it was more of a quiet resolve because actually, I know much on the subject of sexual addiction. A subject I take seriously.

Until the first trailer came out and a single phrase wouldn’t let me rest: “You’re the one who’s changing me,” Christian said.

Aw, come on, I thought with the eye-roll of a teenager. That sounds…like a story…worth reading. But it’s, you know, erotica, which clicks off the tongue like a sin and is not a genre I have ever, ever read. Like, ever. 

So I did what I had to do. Cautiously and with copious amounts of trepidation I lifted the book jacket with the silver, textured tie. Two weeks later I finished the last chapter in the series. I know. I can hear your gasps of fright, but just bear with me for a minute.

Here’s the problem I’m finding with these well-intentioned bloggers who want everyone to donate to women’s shelters and scream with tear-stained compassion to save the generations, many of them haven’t read the books.

Since I have, I’ll give you my perspective. It might just be one you haven’t heard.

It’s Not About the Sex
I’m. Serious. In a fierce wrench of irony, this story is about abuse, freedom, and redemption. (Are you gasping again? You’re even covering your mouth with one hand, aren’t you?) Did you know that most addictions start from childhood exploitation? That the cycle of bullying and shame lead a person to try to survive in any way that will allow them to escape the pain of what they’ve endured? Meet Christian Grey. A very wounded man who was objectified first, then finds a woman who opens him to an emotion he’s never allowed himself to feel- love.

“The image of a powerful man who’s really still a little boy, who was horrifically abused and neglected, who feels unworthy of love from his perfect family and his much- less- than- perfect girlfriend…” – Anastasia Steele

I’d even go so far as to say this is an example of the kind of love we’re called to exhibit.

“And it strikes me like a thunderbolt- that’s what he needs from me- unconditional love.” – Anastasia Steele.

It Isn’t a Perfect Story
Duh. You may be completely uncomfortable with all the bombings. The F-kind. You might not be able to read the types of scenes E.L. James orchestrates because you know what it will do to your heart, or rather, your crotch. Great, have boundaries. I’m all about boundaries. I came across plenty that could be triggering to someone who’s a victim or recovering from addiction and it matters. Tread carefully, be aware when reading, and if you find yourself in a real relationship that is unsafe well, run like hell.
Are there ways other than blindfolding to speak the truth of love? Obviously.
Could she have left out all that sex? Yeah.
Was it a little codependent? In the end.

What The Characters Taught Me

“And now here you are- brave and strong…giving me hope. Loving me after all that I’ve done.”
“I’ve avoided intimacy for so long- I don’t know how to do this.” -Christian Grey

There is hope for those who have lost their way. Sure, we all make our choices and some of them have grave consequences, literally. Selfless love, however is powerful enough to bring the darkest of circumstances to light. The deepest of scars to healing. Christian had to face his demons, do the work, and stretch himself consider change that made him more authentic. Anastasia had to ask herself if she could love him through the process.
I suppose if I’m being this honest I can say that I have had to ask the same questions. Do I want authenticity in the face of pain, shame, failure? Yes. When my relationships fall short, wound me, need forgiveness, am I willing? I want to be.

Know Why Society is in a Tizzy
I was raised to be fearful. “Don’t let your lips touch alcohol! Don’t utter a single disrespectful swear word! Don’t even think it,” they’d say at a whisper. These can be helpful principles. Instead, it left me disconnected to the extreme that I was afraid of anyone who didn’t believe the same as me. Of four-letter words that frankly, some situations call for.
I often think of the adulterous woman in the New Testament who was dragged naked to Jesus’ feet. Or Solomon, who was likely a sex addict himself with all those concubines, and didn’t hold back a racy few poems in the Songs. Or David, who was a murderer that needed the sultry legs he saw on top of the veranda. Truth tells me God uses the broken, the damaged, “the bottom of the barrel sinner” (as in all of us who know we need grace). Fear can keep us from coming eye to eye with people who need to know they aren’t alone.

This is not some sort of have-to-it’s-the-absolute-best-book kind of rant. Maybe you’ve read all you want to know from this post and I respect that. I also support all manner of efforts to cease pornography. With nearly $3 billion dollars a year in revenue and the average age of exposure at eleven, it’s an epidemic that is ruining our marriages, culture, our souls. It alters brain chemistry, for goodness’ sake. Perhaps we should consider 24,000,000 adult internet sites combined with the accessibility of smartphones which lends me to think, this single movie may not be the ultimate tipping point.
The movie, I have not seen. I may never see it nor am I condoning that it’s a good way to spend your time. You’ll have to decide that for you.

What I am saying is this is a shockingly moving story of the power of unconditional love and healing.

Oh and that women’s shelter? Let’s give whether we see the movie or not.

“It’s more like walking around after you’ve had your eyes dilated.” (Two Parts)

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“Oh, it’s a fluffy novel,” I said to the man who’d gotten me to pull my face up. With a cup of sugar and cream, and a little coffee I had been waiting for my friend to slide into the booth with me. While I waited, I read. Mindlessly. Until I was interrupted.

His skin was as richly dark as the cocoa he kept with him, which he almost forgot.
“You’ll need this for tomorrow,” the waitress said with familiarity.
“Thank you.” And he turned to me. “Now this, this is my chocolate on one side and cinnamon on the other.”
A regular. A man with plenty of time and a keen sense of down-home, old-fashioned, save-your-soul food. I liked him already.

“I just read a great book called The Historian,” he said beneath the weight of his book bag. “It was on the bestseller list.” 

“Oh OK. I’ll have to check it out. So what do you do? Do you write or work while you’re here?” 

“Yeah I write. I learned when I was about eight or nine.” 

Huh. Retired, and losing it. But then he laughed.

“I’m kidding. No I just ride my bike and come here every morning to read. And I ride my bike. (He said it twice, which for some reason I need to note. It’s part of how he charmed me.) Sometimes I mow. What do you do?”

“Well I have three kids-” 

“You? You have three kids? I thought you were in high school.” 

Mr. Rudy, my new friend, I love you.    

*

That’s what I planned to write today. And though I love it, I need to get brutally honest. It is the best writing, isn’t it? The kind that’s actually relatable. Not to say that cute, retired men in hole-in-the-wall restaurants aren’t relatable. But it’s not what is really in me.

How do I say it? How do I start? These are the words that I penned in blue at the top of my journal this afternoon. “I’m speechless. I am without speech,” Elaine from Seinfeld would say. And it is where I rest right now.

Some would call it a fog, a black cloud, a sheet covering, depression. I think it’s more like walking around after you’ve had your eyes dilated. It’s like being in the bottom of an empty gravesite and looking up without a clue how to climb out. It’s blah.

I haven’t been able to shake it for more than 24 hours, and I don’t often come to this place, though I recognize the décor. I have been here before.

I don’t know how I came, what pushed me in, but it sucks. And if you’ve visited, you know.

I could eat. If I do I’ll go for carbs, and sweets. Lots of them. Chips (my weakness), chocolate (my other weakness), peanut butter with chocolate (wait a second…there’s a pattern here), pasta, or anything else that would fill the void between my fingers and not in my heart.

I could check out with movies. Seinfeld, always Seinfeld. In good times and bad it is eternally a good choice. Ever After, Twilight, anything Jack Black, a multitude of Nicholas Sparks, What About Bob, The Princess Bride. I would be distracted, it would work. For a little bit.

Undoubtedly, I would still come up empty.

So I stay in it. I accept that this is where I reside.
And I wait, because God never lets me suffer forever.