words I never thought I'd have to say.. Places you shouldn't have to go again part 1

Yesterday I got a call from my cousin, her sister had been admitted to hospital that morning so I was expecting an update but I wasn't expecting the update I got & I don't even know if I can explain the reaction I had or an having to it. There were two people in my office when the call came through, they were looking for something & at some point they must have left because when I got off the phone they were gone. I guess the world blurred like it does in a bad movie & all I could hear were the echoing words "mass", "bottom of brain", "transferring to Brisbane", "top of neck". Other words were spoken, I said I'd let my mum know, that we'd meet them at the hospital - all that logistical stuff but the words echoed. Those familiar words.

It has been 14 years & around 4 months since we first heard those words & to this day they haunt me. Those words changed our lives & we live in the reality of them every day. I remember where I was, I remember who I was with, I remember my mum delivering them to me as she spoke about what they had found was wrong with my dad. Yesterday I spoke them back to her & I listened on the other end of the phone as her heart broke for her niece and her sister, I heard it break again the way it once broke for her husband. I heard her cry out to my dad & listened the sound of a deep pain broke out from within her soul as her memories met this new reality.

Our hearts broke together & I longed to be with her, near her, to see my dad, to touch him, check he was real, to be together so we could go to the hospital together. We had done this before, we had done this before, my emotions spun out of control. Like a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean during the eye of a storm the emotions crashed down on me - this is how she must have felt when she told me all those years ago, hope, fear, doubt, faith, anguish: "she's only 19". Confusion. "I need to get to the hospital, how can I get to the hospital?" Life, responsibilities, commitments, "I have an important meeting in 2 hours & I'm going away next week". "mass", "bottom of brain", "transferring to Brisbane", "top of neck", reality: "I need to be with my family now!" This can't be happening again, I know these words, I know what they mean, as the final wave hit a deep calm washed over me. I delivered the news to another auntie, spoke to my boss & rushed to be at my mother's side. We needed to do this together.

The rest of my day is a blur. We met at my mothers mum, dad, an auntie, a cousin we drank tea & tried to distract ourselves while we waiting for word that they had arrived in Brisbane. We cried together & laughed a little but mostly we waited together. I spent the afternoon on the phone to my cousin on the coast as she sat with her mother & sister waiting for the ambulance to transport her little sister from one hospital to another. Each time we spoke it was as if time stopped as everyone froze & listened to my end of the conversation, no-one moved as I spoke, not even daring to breathe in case they missed something. Finally they were in the ambulance on the way. We fidgeted & fussed about for the next few hours while we waited for them to arrive. Would we go? Wouldn't we go? Who would go? Would they want us? Were there too many of us? Would they be here yet? Should we call them? Would they be waiting for a bed? I'll text. They were in the ques. Should we go or should we wait? Mum you should call. We're going mum, me & dad. More fuss as we got ready, said our goodbyes & got into the car. It felt like it took longer than it should. No-one wants to leave, we all want to go, we want to be together. This is about to get a lot more real. You can't un-see the things you see in hospitals, the images burn to your mind, you can't escape the reality once you are there, you can't escape the feelings & the helplessness can be suffocating if you're not careful or if you are alone - we must leave & add support to my auntie & cousin.

Hospital. We are practised with hospitals, we've spent a lot of time in them over the years. They don't intimidate us. We spilt up my mum to the ATM, I go to find out where she is & dad supervisors. We meet in the middle & I lead us to emergency where she is waiting for her MRI. MRI - the word makes us shutter, we speak it every 6-12 months. An MRI once saved my dad's life but it also changed it forever. We snap back to reality & proceed to the ward. We find my cousin; auntie; engulf them with hugs & kisses. We cry, we hug, we hold hands, we chatter, we hold each other; cry some more, we keep holding hands, we will do this together... to be continued

Innocence lost

I don't know old I was the first time it happened.. was I 13 or 14 or maybe only 12. It all seems like a blur now, a big giant blur that merges together and I can't see the beginning, the middle or the end. I just see one giant muddled picture and when I look at it all I feel is numb. Numb and a deep sense of hatred for the place where it occurred.

One of my friends said to me last night that I associate places with people and the memories I have from being there. She is right, that is how I see the world and the places I have been. I see the pictures, the memories and the people in them. I guess that's why I hate where I grew up so much because when I look at the picture I see a big giant mess. I used to think that it was because of me, because I never felt like I belonged there but tonight I realise that it was because of the people I loved when I lived there and the things that happened to them. The horrible, horrible things that are stored deep down in my core, the moments that shaped me and broke my heart.

It's funny because I can talk about it, I can matter of fact tell you about the bullying, the eating disorders, the abusive relationships, the girls who lost their virginity too young, the alcohol, the drugs. I can tell you about it all but I can't feel it, I can't access the emotions that go with the memories. I can tell it so that you can access the emotions, I can tell it like the sad, sorry story that it is, I could probably even make you cry but for some reason I can't cry. I can't reach back to any of those memories and feel them, I can't see any of those stories and weep for myself and my friends. My heart doesn't break for us like I know it should.

When I look at it I just feel numb. A deep still sense of nothing. No fear, no anger, no pain, no joy. Numb. White cold numb. I realised tonight that I have been numb for some long that I don't even remember the first time I decided to become numb. Was I 12? 13? 14 - I couldn't have been any older than 14 so I'm thinking it was more like 13 or 12. But I can't remember the incident! Was it the first time one of my friends was hospitalised? Was it when my first friend lost her virginity because she could? Was it when we started drinking? Was it when the girls I hung out with became so obsessed with being popular that they stopped eating during the day & started doing whatever/whoever it took to be popular? Or the time my friend cut her wrists in the bathroom while I was away? Was it when she dropped off the planet? Was it when the rumors about her started? Was it when a group of boys took advantage of a girl years younger than them and had her perform all sorts of horrible acts - it was definitely before then. I think I was in grade 11 when that happened and by then it seemed kinda normal and no-one really said anything to them, they just talked about the girl. It makes me feel sick in my stomach to think about it but I still can't feel it like I should be able to because in part I am still numb.

Yep I definitely still feel numb and it bothers me that I can't remember when it happened, I can't remember when I first did it and it's frustrating. I can't remember the first time I turned my head away and decided to feel nothing. I can't remember the moment when I accepted that these things were a way of life - when did I accept that young women were to be exploited? That drugs, alcohol and sex were a way of life? I wasn't raised like that at all - my mother would be horrified - yet at some point I became a person who could look at it and simply feel numb. It bothers me that I can honestly say that I can't remember the first time I looked at a lost broken little girl destroying herself and her body and felt nothing but I know it happened. But it's worse than that because I look back at my past and it still happens, I can't feel it! As I write these words it's like there is a big black door between my eyes and my heart and I can see it and intellectually I know that it's wrong but I can't feel it. I can't feel the emotion that goes with what I'm seeing. I still feel numb, I look back at the place, the people and I just feel numb and I don't know how to feel anything else.. I'm scared to feel anything else.

I'm scared that if I were to sit down and look at my past, my teenage years, if I were to look at my life and the lives of my friends with the eyes I have now.. I'm scared of that emotion. I'm scared to let out the cry that I am sure is in my heart.. I'm scared to let the deep, deep sobbing that I'm sure is in my soul out. I'm scared that if I left it out that I won't ever stop.

As I write this my eyes begin to fill with tears, my natural reaction is the try to stop them, to squash this emotion. There was a reason I stopped feeling the choices that my friends and I made, it was because it hurt, it hurt so much that sometimes I couldn't breathe. It was easier to feel numb than to feel the hurt but I can't feel numb anymore. I stop and I close my eyes for a brief moment and let myself feel it, the pain I feel is so great that I cannot move, I am paralysed staring at my computer, a soft tear runs down my left cheek and I bite my bottom lip.

I snap back to reality. I am afraid of these emotions, they hurt so much but I can't escape them anymore I need to let them out and so I begin to let them come free and the blur is not a blur anymore, it is people. My friends, I see their faces in my mind and I just cry and cry and cry. I wrestle with myself and try not to cry, I try to capture these emotions, to lock them away and feel numb like I used to but I can't, so instead I give in and I cry. I cry for our innocence, for foolish decisions, for the years of pain.

I don't know that any of the people I went to school with were still sweet at 16, I cry for their lost souls, stolen and robbed of joy and love, robbed of the innocence of youth. I look at the destruction of our choices. The seperations, the lack of purpose, the addictions and I weep for them and I weep for all of the children like them that are currently stuck in that cycle that we were stuck in.

I have spent a little over 10 years journeying through the mistakes I made in high school and I wish I could tell them what I know. I wish I could tell them that love and acceptance isn't in being skinny or popular or in having a cool boyfriend or career, that numbing your pain with drugs and alcohol is like putting a bandaid on a deep cut that needs stitches, it looks like it might help but when you take the bandaid off the next day the wound hasn't healed and you still need stitches. I wish I could tell them that they are loved beyond measure, that they are worth more than rubies and gold, I wish I could tell them that their life has meaning and purpose and that it wasn't too late to be happy. 

I pray for the courage to tell them what I know, to share my journey, to show them how God has healed my pain.. I pray for the courage to be the difference for someone that someone was for me.. I pray that God would take this pain that I feel now and that he would heal it, that he would heal it not only for me but for them and for those on the path that we were once on..

Each of us has a story and I pray that this week you have the courage to let your story minister to someone else..

I made it to the end of today

I sat down - correction - I flopped down on the bed, unzipped my boots & breathed I made it to the end of the day. Suddenly a big smile covered my face, my body. I made it to the end of today! Praise Jesus I made it to the end of today! He is real. Miracles happen because I made it to the end of today!

Do you ever start a day or a week feeling like there is a mountain in front of you, not necessarily a bad mountain just a mountain.  The kind that goes as high as you can see & is as wide as you can imagine. The kind that makes you feel really, really small & really, really ill-equipped. Ill-equipped like you were prepared to walk over a hill or not even a hill, more a slight incline but then you get to the incline & realise it's a steep incline & it's definitely more mountain than hill. Yep it's a mountain. A big, ginormous mountain. A you can't walk around me, you have to climb me mountain. That was how I felt at the beginning of this week. I was at the foot of a mountain & at the beginning of today I was still really at the foot of the mountain.

Yeah I had Monday & Tuesday so you would think that by Wednesday morning I would have made progress but honestly by this morning I still felt like I was at the foot of the mountain. I guess I had made some plans, packed some of the equipment I needed, maybe touched the face of the mountain but I hadn't really done any climbing. I talked about climbing but I was still at the bottom looking a long way up to the top. Yuck!

This morning I had that cranky, argh feeling I get when I am beginning to feel overwhelmed. I had the "nothing is going to go right" humf/sigh thing going on. By about 10am (after our 1 hour so what have you been doing team meeting) I was at the photocopier & could actually feel myself beginning to stress out about everything I had to do. I actually looked at our secretary & said "Deb, I can feel myself beginning to stress out." She looked at me surprised & we both had a giggle. I walked back into my office silently saying to God "I can't do this. I can't do this", I took a deep breath, made a cup of tea & began climbing the mountain that stood between me & the end of my day.

I didn't do anything differently to yesterday or the day before. I just did one thing at a time, one application at a time, one advice call, one meeting. I just stepped one foot in front of the other & before I knew it it was 12 & I was stopping for lunch & doing it all again... One foot in front of the other, one task at a time & suddenly I looked up & the mountain didn't look quite so big. I had reached a different level. I had crossed something substantial off the never-ending to-do list that sits on my desk. I felt great. I stopped & enjoyed the new height I had reached, I breathed in the cool crisp air before jumping in the car & heading to evening college.

I arrived to find a smaller team than we're used to plus a few technical  logistical issues thrown in for good measure :s for a second I felt like I was at the bottom of the mountain again but then I looked down & saw how far I climbed.. Instead of looking up at the mountain in front of me, I put down my bags & got about the business of doing what needed to be done. Slowly more team members arrived & the night fell into place & before I knew it I was sitting on my bed taking off my shoes to the realisation that I made it. I made it to a new level, a new plateau. I don't know what I did to get here, to get to the end of this day having climbed a significant chunk of the mountain but I'm here & I made it & it feels great.

Hmm I guess the turning point in my day was when I stopped trying to be superwoman & realised that I couldn't do this day all alone, that I couldn't do it all at once, that I needed to stop, lean on God & just take one step at a time. It was when I stopped trying to do it all on my own all at once that the shift happened. It was when I let myself be human when I stopped for a moment & went I can't climb that mountain in one giant leap but I can read this application. Ok I've done that now I can do x. Ok I can do y. It was when I changed my focus.

I spent 2 days looking at everything I had to do this week & feeling overwhelmed by it, feeling inadequate & not good enough because when I looked at it all at once it seemed too much & yes I got things done early in the week but it was hard & it didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. Then today I shifted my focus from everything that was in front of me this week to the one thing that was in front of me in this moment & honestly I got more done today than I have in weeks & I feel great. I feel alive & energised, ready to take on the world & all I needed was a shift in attitude, a shift in focus. So simple.

It made me wonder where else in my life do I need a shift in focus? Where in my life do I need to stop looking at the mountain & start stepping into what's in front of me, one step at a time on the path that God has lit in this moment..

We all have our mountains. Everyday there is a new one, some are big, some are small. What are the moutains in your life? What are the things that you look at & say "but God I can't"? What if instead you looked at them & said "God I can't do that but I can do ......."? How many mountains would you climb if you stopped looking at what you can't do & instead focused on doing what you could do? What kind of a difference would that make in your world?

Praying that you stop choosing to look at your mountains & instead choose to boldly walk on the path God lights for you this week. Be blessed Min xoxo