Sunday morning. There will be no church visit for me this month. I can not bring myself to it. God comes to me this morning as I sit outside looking at and listening to all of creation. Its rhythm is soothing. Thank God for that, as sometimes I am so numb it scares me. Will I ever feel anything again. It’s like I’m on the inside of a bubble looking out. I want to race this summer, but I don’t feel like it. I crave physical intimacy, yet I am void of emotion. I am a mess, but I don’t even know how to be a mess. I only know how to be numb. Moving through a thick fog. Feeling everything and feeling nothing all at the same time.
SHE IS GONE
There is so much to process about the last couple of months, and I’m sure it will take me time. At the moment, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have had her in my life for a short period. I always wondered if a mother’s love could get through that armor she wears. I think it did a little, I don’t know.
My girl and I are not so different from each other. Maybe, because like her, I understand the crushing weight of the impending doom of instabile housing. In that aspect, I couldn’t separate myself from her situation. Other aspects of her life and choices completely baffle me.
I do miss her. How can I, you ask? I ask? How can I miss all that anger? Because she is a piece of me. Born of my flesh. I will hold good boundaries, and I will be o k. Still, there will always be a piece of my heart missing.
I wonder if she knows how empty my home and heart are without her. There certainly is also a lot less drama. Is there a family without drama, though? I suppose our level was in the danger zone.
MOVING ON
True, joy. It’s not about what you have it’s, who you have. They say pain shared is pain divided. The beams of love sent to me from souls near and far has been nothing short of cosmic. God in us, Jesus in the flesh. In the words of Anne Lamott, “Love is a windbreaker, fashioned of people who sat and listened and got us tea, who did not run for their cute little lives when ours got dark,” I am so blessed with an army of windbreakers.
I have no idea if I will ever see her again. (Full disclosure. I am red hot bitter towards my landlord for contributing to that.) I am betting on love batting last. Without that, I would be doomed to a prison I want no part of. Life is hard and precious. Full of kindness and cruelty, love and loss, but always tenderness wins.
I have always said my brokenness is a better bridge to others than my pretend wholeness could have ever been. This is my life, I will lean into gentleness while life is still a little raw.
Enjoy these pictures of what “trashy” tenant’s do to their landscape. I have planted all the perennials and built all the beds over the years. The flowers really do bring me such delight. I am incredibly thankful to my dear friend Vicki for sprouting this love in me. She first got me started and still contributes. She always builds me the most amazing Christmas pots.
Just planted the Clematis last year. So tickled when it started blooming this year!
The sun did rise this morning. I think I slept a little last night. Let a lot of shit go on the bike this morning.
I got to have three months with her. That’s more than I’ve had in the last 10 years. I love her so much, and I’m so grateful I got this time.
I’ll forever remember the night she laid on the couch with her head on my lap, and I stroked her hair.
I’ll remember watching a couple t v shows with her.
I’ll remember her laugh the first night on her job when I walked into the restaurant and she didn’t know I was there.
In a more gentler way, I’ll remember her anger and what didn’t go well so as not to make the same mistake again.
Today, I will pick up the pieces of my broken heart and carry on without that grey van out front of my house.
I will watch for purpose in this pain and carry it on through the next leg of the journey.
I am hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; (ehh, this one is a little debatable. I’m feeling pretty crushed right now)
perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Today, I am a little unwell, but I will be okay. I will rise one fucking step at a time. (cause if you know me 🤪)
I just walked out into the middle of the frozen lake, and it opened and swallowed me. The water is sucking me down. Everything is silent, I am screaming, but no sound is coming out. Darker, colder, now I am growing numb. It’s over, and I have no energy left to fight. I just lay on the bottom. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. Will I rise again, or will this be my end, too?
DAUGHTER CHALLENGES
Our conversation on Monday went disappointingly as expected but not how I hoped.
I wrote and wrote pages of notes so that when I spoke to her, I spoke with calmness and clarity. Have these past few months been a waste of time. No, probably not. I needed them. And I need to forever remember them. I need to remember that tonight, when I tried to communicate with her, she stonewalled me. I came with a pure heart. I came with a mothers love, with eyes that see the best in her. I asked her to please help me understand. “I can’t.” She says she doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t know what she wants, and can’t do more than she is. I call bullshit. I could list several things she’s done. When she first arrived here, she was incredibly pleasant, helping around the house and actively participating in life with me. She is very resourceful. Now she lays in that van all day, yesterday, bringing some guy here and having him sleep in the van with her and then hang out on the lawn all day. Seriously?! She can do a lot more than she is. She just won’t.
I won’t participate any longer in this mess. It’s a winding, hilly, pot holey road, being a parent of a mentally ill adult child. What exactly is the illness? How do you diagnose mental illness? How much is out of their control? Do meds help or not? How much do you fight for them, and really, that is up to a system stacked against the parent.
They generally are master manipulators, yet they are also very broken. I don’t think my daughter would choose this, I truly do think mental illness chooses a lot of it for her.
I did come to my end today. She was not being a good guest anymore. I had tried to talk to her again today. I had offered her an umbrella for shade. She was very negative.
I sat down beside her, my hand on her back. “I am sorry we are having a hard time coming to an agreement.” I say I ask her if she recognizes that things are different. “Yes”
“What changed?” I ask. “You keep pushing me to do too much.”
“What was the thing that crossed the line?” “This! You are always talking to me.”
“Ok, let the record show I tried.” “Ok”
“Do you want anymore work?” “Fuck no!”
I have hit my end.
What lies ahead, I dare not think about it yet. Soon, she will drive her van away for good. Will my heart be ready. No, probably not, but I can do hard things.
LANDLORD CHALLENGES
Tonight, my landlord came, knocked on the slider I could not open, and told me she was done. She came unexpectedly to mow and said there were five pieces of poop. She could find only two, but this was grounds for her kicking us both out. She told me I was trash and she was sick of “my games,” huh? You mean for paying my rent on time for 9 years and keeping the place clean and updated. That game? Oh, the game of trying to help my mentally ill daughter. That game? Fucking Christians…..sorry if you identify as a christian. I have met many wonderful humans, but Christians like her make me wretch.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me.’
Her lawn is her God. More important to her than a human.
There was an end I was not prepared for. That pop can burst after my landlord called me trash. The loathing I felt could not be repressed. I felt a thousand pound boulder crushing me to the ground. I have fought to believe I am worthy and to be told I am trash raised up a force in me I did not know was buried in my soul. I have bit my tongue year after year when that repugnant woman knit picked everything I did. I knew she viewed me as not Christian enough. When other neighbors would exchange their Christian speak with her, and her tone with them was so pleasant, then she would talk to me with such disgust. I let it go. I knew who I was, I fought the lies that the devil was slinging at me.
Tonight though, that fire burned up from the depths, and I let loose. I held my ground, I dropped calm and collected, and the inferno roared out of my eyes, then my mouth, and then my daughter pushed me, and I errupted. Years of frustration exited me without hesitation.
That’s when the lake devoured me. Here I sit, trying to write me way out. I’m afraid to stop writing because then I’ll have to sit alone with my feelings, with my fear. Can I?
The nights are always an empty abyss anyway. Shit, I am scared to be alone. I have to go back into my place that slumlord wants me out of. I will have to look at the nothingness I have. The housing market right now…ugh 😭 The swirling water keeps pulling me into the darkness. I can’t even raise a finger to fight. Maybe tonight I don’t. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe?
In one week, I will be 59. What is this life? What am I doing? What have I done? Tomorrow, I will revisit these questions. Tonight, I pray the peace that passes understanding finds me and sustains me. Let the wounds stop bleeding.
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Ps 143:8
“You are so kind to me, Anne. Kindness is how I feel the movement of God. ~ Homeless Woman in California
Continuing my journey of going to church once each month this year, April served up some really interesting situations for me to chew on.
First, let me say I have thoroughly enjoyed hearing from many of you what you enjoy about your church. There are as many different ways to worship as there are flowers in a wildflower bouquet. Thank you for sharing what lifts your spirit. As I stated in month one, this is about me and what’s best practice for me. Others may not come to the same conclusion for their lives. As I journey through this path, my conclusions are not meant to be a guide for anyone other than me.
C-SuiteFor Christ
My friend Beth Fisher, author of the wonderful book Remorseless, posted that she would be speaking at a Christian business meeting in Wisconsin. Beth is a fabulous speaker and always has a fresh word, so I was excited to attend. Since I would not be traveling to Wisconsin, I signed up for it virtually. I blocked out the 40 minutes that she would be speaking on my schedule that day and never gave it another thought. The day before, I got a few emails, one stating it was a link to the small group I would be placed in. Umm…..small group? Nope, I did not sign up for any small group. I immediately started to reply with a message that I did not plan to attend the small group. Then I remembered that my theme for the year was curious. Well since I am already signed up, I’ll be curious what God has planned for me?
If you look up C-Suite for Christ, it says it’s a networking group. However, this was the info I received.
What we are not:
– A networking group
– A professional development organization
– An entity that works to drum up new business for each other
What we are:
– A spiritual gas station where you can have others breathe life into your weary soul
– A safe place where you can take the mask off and lay it all down at the foot of the cross
– A body that encourages and inspires each other to tell the world about Christ
I found it to be a really warm and welcoming group of high-level business professionals. This was the first faith-based meeting I had been to this year that I truly felt the kindness of Jesus. I felt more God there than any church so far. I would want to go back.
Church
The last Saturday of the month, I knew I had to go to church the next morning to keep my commitment to attending once each month. We were leaving around 11 AM. Sunday morning to go up and help our daughter pack up for college. So I did a search of churches around me and tried to find one that had an early service.
I found my thoughts on the different churches very intriguing. How do these preconceived notions get such a hold in my thoughts. There was a lutheran church that had an early service, and I had first contemplated going there. But then I remembered someone I know that is Luthern telling me about how they worship, and I got scared. What if I don’t know all the right things to do at the right time, and what if I’m not Luthern enough? 😆 oye vey I then looked at another church, and my first thought was, “Yikes, it’s all these squeaky clean white people.” Oh goodness! I’m fairly white myself, and I don’t know,I definitely got some dirt in my life, but what was my fear of these squeaky, clean white people. Then, the church that I did go to that I really did like (more on that in a minute), I noticed as I drove out, was a Christian Reformed Church. I didn’t grow up in Jenison, but depending on who you talk to, they have a bad rap. Where does this come from? How does it affect my worship experience? And is church for worshipping, or is it for learning God’s word. One person told me that their church is for worshipping. That their sermons are never be more than 15 minutes. When I told them that our sermon was 45 minutes, they said, “That’s not church that’s bible study.” I thought church was for learning and studying the bible 🤷♀️
The church I ended up attending was really wonderful. What I have found so far this year is that no one has talked to me except for greeters. As I walked into this church and stood in the back looking for a seat, a lovely young woman motioned to me that the seat next to her was open. Wow! This really warmed my heart. I felt the movement of God.
Home Church Sermon
I listened to my home church sermon on Monday as I generally do. Seriously. I swear to God someone’s looking at me through the screen! The pastor started out this week by noting that we are all back here again in the same black chairs, in the same circle, doing the same thing we do every week. Do we ever wonder why we do the same thing every week? Yes! Yes, actually, that is what I am trying to figure out. Is there a conversation bubble up above my head? Did he know that I was doing this? He shared why he feels it is important and that scripture tells us to gather. It does. I kinda wondered about this, so I went and looked up some of those verses. It seems to me that all of them are saying that church is for believers. Just my random thoughts, but why are we working so hard to make it attractive to everyone. I’ve already discovered that we can’t decide if it is worship, bible study, or a combination of both. Bear with me here. I am just running all the thoughts. Does anyone who’s not a believer just wander into church. They might, I think Anne Lamott did. Isn’t most of our opportunity to share Jesus’ built around relationships outside of church. Once you’ve developed a relationship, you invite someone to church? Does an atheist ever wake up in the morning and think I’m going to try that Catholic church today? I suppose people are seeking, but church is for believers. Just do your thing, and if a seeker feels they have found a home, they will stay.
The second thing that struck me in our sermon was Gen. 28:20-21 Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing, [21] and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God.
Stated this way, it looks very transactional. If God does/Then Jacob. Our pastor pointed out that there is some debate over this and that some scholars believe you should use “since” instead of “if.” Here in lies my biggest pet pieve. Not even scholars can agree on exactly what things mean. But churches are going to tell me that I have to do certain things because the bible says. How do you know it says that? You don’t.
I love the way our pastor addressed it and said that if you look at it from God’s perspective, he’s gonna do it whether Jacob does or not.
All arewelcome
I had a really great conversation with a friend about this. “All are welcome.” Of course they are, but is everyone welcome to join. In my experience so far, I don’t feel welcome, I feel quite the opposite at my own church. (I just love the sermons so much) Churches want to be welcoming to everyone, but as stated above, not even scholars can be sure what the bible is saying. So now we have many churches and many different doctrines and hurt feelings because one church says we accept this belief, and another church says we don’t. My friend falls into a people group that isn’t necessarily accepted at all churches. I asked her how she feels when there are certain churches that don’t accept her beliefs. Initially, she said, “I think that as a christian, you should accept all people.” Fair… but where do we draw a line for our beliefs? If I’m not standing for something, then I’m falling for everything.
This church is just about 2 blocks down from the church that has the sign that says all are welcome. I found it rather ironic.
She and I both felt the weight of this conundrum. For me personally, I will stand by my belief, and I will share with you my reasons. Yet I also acknowledge that I don’t have all the answers. I may be wrong, and if new information comes to light that reveals my erroneous thinking, then I do better. As Maya Angelou stated, I will do the best I can until I know better, and then I will do better. I believe it’s about relationships. Jesus was about relationships. Those relationships created trust, and then people believed. If you and I can not agree on doctrine, I hope that our relationship is built on trust that I love you as a flawed human just like myself. Yet there remains this struggle for unity.
For me personally, it’s about the totality of the Bible. The way I understand it is that it’s about God’s redemption of His people. I don’t know how I feel about every story in the bible. I see a lot of contradictions and things that don’t add up for me. Yet, life delivers the unbelievable enough that I might as well believe there is a God, He loves me, and Jesus died for me.
Is going to church good for some people? Absolutely! Is it necessary for me as a believer? I don’t think “necessary”, still, I am trying to discover what value is in it outside of the “shoulds.”
Growing and learning with each new experience inside a church and out,
Yesterday was my girl’s 31st birthday. She once told me she didn’t care about how she lived her life because she wouldn’t live past 30 anyway. For many years, I never saw her on her birthday because she lived out of state. So there are no words to describe the delight I felt when I woke up yesterday and saw her van out front! My own selfish heart wanted to love on her all day. I started out the morning, bringing her a couple of little flowers and a coffee. She clearly had already made up her mind she was not going to have a good day. I chose to keep my cheerful attitude throughout the day, even giving her a big bear hug once while she rolled her eyes and huffed. Honestly, to this, I could only chuckle. I asked why she was so grumpy today, and she grumbled, “Here we go again”
It’s true this day was about me. Who knows, I may never see her again on her birthday. I only know that I get this day, and I wasn’t gonna let it slip away in animosity and disappointment.
Today, we’re back to the grind. “How can I help you? Is there anything I can do to help you be prepared to leave?”
She’ll likely disappear beneath her anger again. Not hot anger like the lava from a volcano (although I get that sometimes too), no today will be icy like a frozen lake. Her eyes have that distance in them as if standing in the middle of that frozen lake. I feel as helpless.
Often, I find myself standing in the middle of a frozen lake screaming. All I can hear is my own heartbeat, pounding. Each beat, I see my little girl. Sometimes, it is her little adventurous self, and then sometimes I see her sadness. Could I have done something different about that sadness then? I felt like I was present then, I felt like I was advocating for her at school and with therapists. What did I miss?! What am I missing now?! Out there in the vastness, emptiness, and coldness of that lake, no one answers me.
During the day, I am mostly okay. I keep busy, and I’m surrounded by good people and meaningful work. The nights, however, are hard. The tightness in my chest finds no relief. It takes hours for the exhaustion to finally pry the tight grip of aloneness and uncertainty off me, and I get a few hours of gentleness in my life. In the morning, I quickly head out for a run or a bike ride to keep the tight grip at bay a little longer. It affords me the window to escape the nighttime vise grip.
This journey is my pilgrimage. It moves me closer to God, further from myself.
“When you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward.” ~ Paulo Coelho “The Alchemist “
I can’t go back, and the only way forward is one step at a time. I gather up my broken heart and carry on. Love is my guide. “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too”
“Making the decision to have a child is to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body.” Elizabeth Stone
I did it. I let my hope get too far in the door. My daughter had been trying, we enjoyed some really lovely moments together. I knew I was treading on thin ice, but I so badly want her to rise.
Last week, we had to discuss that her living in my driveway is temporary. I know she hoped it would be an option longer, and truthfully, so did I. She has just started to make progress. My slum lord has drawn a line. She can stay, but her dogs can not. Which normally would seem reasonable, but let me tell you a little bit about my rental and my landlord.
Let me digress for a moment. When I moved here nine years ago this month, it was a dump owned by an 80 year old man. Sweetest man, but he didn’t do much to this place. The carpeting and everything in it was shit. In the last nine years, I have painted almost every room, laid new flooring in one of the rooms, and landscaped. I have cleaned it up really nicely. I have lived with shitty appliances with mice living in them until I put my foot down last year. I have a shower that leaks that, oh my, if you could have seen the disaster she created trying to fix it and didn’t get it fixed. I have a sliding door that won’t shut all the way. I have rooms that carpeting has just been laid over other carpeting and never properly laid. The front door doesn’t shut properly. I mean, the list goes on. I do the best that I can with it. I pay rent every month and it’s not cheap rent. When my daughter first arrived, I let my landlord know that she was here for a little bit, and she had 2 dogs. She said that was okay as long as she cleaned up after them. Then she was here mowing one week and saw that the dogs were big and said they had to go. I explained to her that the dogs are not allowed in the house, and I would pay her an extra hundred dollars a month if that would help. She said that was not necessary. So last week, when she was here mowing, I gave her my rent check, and she complained I hadn’t given her the extra $100. So I went back in the house and grabbed another hundred and gave it to her. I asked if, by chance, she was going to fix the slider anytime soon. She told me she wasn’t fixing the slider until the dogs were gone. SLUMLORD
So this is why I do not feel bad having dogs here when it isn’t a part of the lease agreement. Not to mention the string of drug users that have lived on the other side that they agreed to let live there because they were trying to “witness” to them. She is the kind of person who gives Christianity a bad name. She is so far from christlike, but her husband always threw his “God bless you’s” around every time he was here. 🤮🤢
My daughter has done a 180 since a couple Fridays ago when I told her she had to leave by the end of May. Where she was up doing school work, walking the dogs and engaging with me, now she is sleeping, drinking, and yelling at me.
I have warned her twice that I will not be made to feel uncomfortable in my own home. Both times, she acknowledged my feelings and apologized and seemed to try better. Today, though, was my final straw. Her outburst is unacceptable.
It’s Mother’s Day. She has walked through the house 3 times and not said a word to me. And then she finally asked me if she could have a mirror that I had laying in the basement. She comes in to cook some eggs, and I ask her about her day. She explains that she has a lot of schoolwork to do. I lay a housing packet down that had been given to me with some really good information. I say that it would be good to look at it. She gets angry and says she does not have time. I very gently try to ask her to help me understand why she can’t make the time to look for proper housing. Two minutes later she is storming out calling me a “fucking cunt” again 🤷♀️
I again find myself straddling this chasm. On the one side, my heart breaks for her. She just started working and will have no place to live by the end of May. She’ll be back living off the streets, and then it’s so much harder to do the right thing every day. On the other side I am frustrated that she isn’t trying while she has use of my place to get herself in a better position by the end of May.
Awww, motherhood…..the most complicated job I have ever had. Sometimes, the emotions are like the spinner dial at the carnival. What will I get today? Win the big prize or the booby prize? Big prize or booby prize (btw, where did that term come from? Now that I have typed it twice, it seems really weird 😅) It’s the most wonderful job I have ever had. I now have two grandkids, and my oldest is a fabulous mother. Grandma is certainly the BEST job.
My mom has walked with me through EVERY valley and mountain. I simply do not want to imagine life without her. She has endured a lot in her 81 years and continues to be a source of joy and encouragement. If you know her, you know this is no one sweeter than my mom ❤️
At the end of the day, I love all my girls fiercely. Sometimes, that love has to be framed with some healthy boundaries. Tomorrow, I will have to give my homeless daughter two weeks to be out of my driveway. That was the agreement.
If a situation arises that any of this becomes a problem, I will talk to you about them before revoking the privilege. I will give you 2 weeks’ notice if any of these options change.
Several warnings regarding disrespect seems to be an unresolvable situation 😕 For today, I will enjoy motherhood knowing I did my best.
Some fun memories of all the girls.
Mom and dad with Elle and KendraMe, Elle, Kendra, Aunt Ann, and Uncle Brad (my best friend Kim’s bother and sister in law) In Sarasota Elle, Kaleigh (with Baby Sophia) KendraMe, Kaleigh, Kendra, and mom ❤️
In the words of Anne Lamott, “Are love and compassion up to the stark realities we face at the dinner table, and down the street and at the melting ice caps….? Maybe; I think so.
As a mother am I up for the stark realities of motherhood? The really tough days? Maybe; I think so.
I thought it time to pop in here with an update on my daughter who is experiencing homelessness. Since late March, I have seen situations I could not have imagined. I have experienced a super natural force directing my words and actions that are without explanation. I have no idea how this will end, but I will be forever changed for the better because of this experience. Before I tell you about these past several weeks, there are a few terms that I feel are important to understand.
Homeless by definition is having no home or permanent place of residence.
Shelterless is defined as affording no shelter or cover, as from the elements.
In 2011, I found myself no longer able to afford the rent where I lived with my two youngest daughters. For just shy of a year, we found ourselves living in various basements or someone’s unused apartment. We were homeless. I finally found a place to rent that I could (barely) afford, eventually leading to me reconciling with their dad (now divorced from 🤷♀️)and moving back in with him. It was a very discouraging time in my life. Yet I always had shelter. We never had to sleep in a vehicle. To this day, I live knowing that every month, I am only months away from homelessness again. I share this very raw fact about my life because unless you have experienced it, there is no way you can imagine it. There is no way you can understand the background noise of uncertainty that you continually push down. There is no way you can understand that feeling of needing to deprive yourself of every fun thing to survive, yet needing some fun frivolous thing to survive. There is no way you can know the loneliness, the hopelessness, the disappointment in yourself, the constant longing for stability. I used to see homeless people and think to myself, “Your choices got you here, make different choices, and you can change your situation” Now I look at homeless people and I so badly want to sit with them and hear their story, I think to myself “that is someone’s child.” There is no doubt choices play a huge role in each of our lives. Every day, I try to make choices that widen the gap between me and homelessness. There would never be a divide between me and homelessness without the support and mentorship I received from some amazing people. They helped me help myself.
So, how does this relate to my daughter? Well, it’s complicated! Knowing what I knew, I suppose there was a little more fire in me to fight for her than someone who may not fully understand a homeless mindset. Also, I know from my experience with panic attacks that sometimes you have to scale WAY back.
After we could not come to an agreement about her living with me, I sent her an email. This is what it said….
I am sorry we couldn’t come to an agreement on a living situation for you.
Here are the things I can offer you. * You are welcome to use my phone for appointments * use of my bathroom (shower, toilet, etc) * You make park in the driveway. No need to give me notice. You may come anytime, day or night, to use the driveway. * You may use the kitchen for eating or studying
If a situation arises that any of this becomes a problem, I will talk to you about them before revoking the privilege. I will give you 2 weeks’ notice if any of these options change.
My therapist suggested I add “no need to give notice to park in the driveway.” And sure enough, one blustery snowy morning, she was parked in my driveway. Since then, things have been one step forward, and many steps not moved, but none necessarily backwards, I don’t think 😬 One evening I told her “I believe in you, I need you to meet me in the middle and believe in yourself ” She adamantly told me she could not meet me in the middle. We discussed an initial timeline of two weeks, and if she was trying to improve her situation, then we would re-evaluate. In those two weeks, I saw her try….teeny tiny baby steps, but they were huge compared to what I have seen. So we set a new date to re-evaluate. I’ve come to realize. I don’t need her to meet me in the middle, I just need her to meet me on the road. I am constantly having to remind her I am not the enemy, I am not trying to punish her. On the flip side, she is a very conscientious guest. She cleans up after herself and sometimes after me.
She at the moment has made some small steps to getting back on her feet. A couple of restaurant owners I know have offered her jobs. She met with one of them last week. There are absolutely no words to describe how amazing this person was. She and her husband not only met my daughter on the road, but they took her by the hand and said, “we’ll walk with you whatever that looks like” It was rough getting this to happen though. She agreed to a job interview and then felt incredibly overwhelmed by that. So I said, “Let’s just have dinner. You have to eat anyway, and you can meet the owner.” She reluctantly agreed to that, but the day of going there, she was very disregulated. However, once there, the owners and staff loved on her, and she brightened up. I saw the amazing young woman I know her to be.
I can potentially give her another month to park in my driveway, and honestly, after that, I don’t see any good options for her. It’s really frustrating to find housing right now. I myself am struggling to find affordable housing and I have a full time job. Getting her back on her feet is going to take time and we just don’t have that much time until she is back on the streets living out of her van……shelterless. When you are in that state of just trying to survive its so hard to have energy to do anything else. Praying for a miracle, praying for wisdom, for clarity, and for super human patience. Which, I have already witnessed all of these. God is for sure revealing Himself in this story.
All of this makes me think about the fact that I have connections, I have resources, and I am advocating for her. People have done and still do this for me. What about those who don’t? How do we meet people on the road they are on? Some of us never see that road. I never would have if my daughter hadn’t landed on it. Jesus sought out those people, He loved on those people. It’s a challenge, for sure. I have lost my shit a few times lately. It’s not pretty. I have laid on the floor scanning around me for a sharp object to put me out of my misery. Just this morning, as I was cycling on my bike trainer and feeling overwhelmed by it all, I had the thought that people had survived Auschwitz. Wtf, is wrong with this picture, I can do this! A few minutes pep talk later, and I am ready to come out swinging again. That’s how it goes when you love. Love is really fucking not fun sometimes. The other night my daughter came in the house to say good night and leaned in for a hug. ❤️❤️ The best reward for all the hard work. I want to be around for those moments so I have to hang in there through all the uncomfortable moments.
I just arrived home from Sunrise Service and decided it was probably a good time to update on my goal of going to church once a month for the year.
February was the month we got handed some big life challenges. I had resigned myself to the fact that maybe I wasn’t going to make it in February and I’d have to go twice in March. God had a different plan, and it was a wonderful plan. A new friend out of the blue reached out to me on a Saturday night and asked if I could join her Sunday morning. This couldn’t have been more perfect as I was babysitting my granddaughter that night and would be dropping her off too late to get to my own church on time.
The thing I loved about her church was the music. Which if you know me that’s a big deal. I generally avoid the music portion of church like the plague. Music is not my form of worship, and I find most church worship music these days to be really annoying, like you are at a large concert. Loud, lights, showy…ugh Anyway, personal preference just not my thing, however, this church had music that was recognizable, felt appropriate, and I loved it. I enjoyed the sermon, and the people were lovely. Overall, it was a wonderful experience. Yet nothing that made me feel like I was missing something by not being there. It’s definitely on the short list though, I wouldn’t be opposed to going back.
As this month was shaping up, I had something I was committed to every Sunday, and it was looking like I was going to have to attend church an Easter Sunday. I can’t even express to you how much I dislike church on Easter Sunday. It literally wraps up nicely everything I dislike about church and Christianity in general. Shallow and showy.
Let me digress here a bit. Easter weekend is the most confounding concept to me.
First of all, why do we call Good Friday “good”? What is good about someone dying. Not only dying, but brutally dying. I feel like this is “Sad Friday” or at the very least “Somber Friday” It seems to me it’s most people’s “leave for spring break vacation Friday” I find it really intriguing that some Christian companies I know don’t give the day off, but almost every secular company does. On the flip side, Martin Luther King, another person murdered in the place of many, is not a day everyone gets off. Anyway, I’m getting off-topic. My point is we start it off with a day someone was murdered and call it a good day and take a vacation. Before I get emails about this, I do realize it’s a day our tab was paid, and that makes it good for us, but in general, it was not a good day for Jesus.
Saturday seems to be a day that the stores are PACKED with people shopping for food and fancy clothes for the final day. It’s an incredibly busy day for most people celebrating Easter, yet it’s the day that Jesus chose to rest. He rested on Sabbath when he created and when he was crucified. Rest, we are not.
Finally, Easter day, the day He rose, the day He conquered death for all of us. If you are a believer, this is a big day in our lives. A day I know I am personally grateful for. The things I find odd about this day is that we celebrate it with a bunny, Easter eggs, and most hysterical to me a ham! We serve ham on the day a Jewish man rose from the dead. 🤣 All of these seem so irrelevant, but hey, who am I to judge.
All in all, it just seems like a strange conglomerate. The weekend, it seems, should be a weekend of reflection on sacrifice. Yet it’s filled with excess. It feels to me that like Christmas, we turn these things into being about us. The very opposite of who Jesus was. I do it, too. I’m trying to be more intentional about this. In keeping with my theme this year of curiosity, I tried to reflect this weekend. I tried to ask myself. What does Jesus’ death and resurrection mean to me? How does this change how I show up in the world?
Back to church number 3 for the month of March. It seems fitting for the day of redemption. I go back to my home church for its redemption.
I was super giddy to see that we were offering a 7 am sunrise service! It was heavenly. It was in our upper room, which is small and cozy. Thank you, Jesus, for this precious gift this morning. It felt like the church of my youth only better. Every week, when I listen to the sermon online, we stand for the reading of God’s word, I was so looking forward to this, and we didn’t do it this week! Oh well, maybe next month 🙂
All things considered. There is still no strong evidence for attending church weekly. Other than the greeter and a couple of people, I said hi to not a single person, said a word to us. Not even the lady sitting so close to me she kept hitting my elbow. In fact, most of the time she had her back turned to me talking to the friends on her other side. If she had turned even slightly forward at any point in time I would have said hello to her.
I can hear the sermon online, I can eat coffee and donuts at home, and I can sit alone at home. I did LOVE the 7am service, though. It feels less lonely sitting with 100 people vs. 1000 😁😬
I am only a quarter of the way through this experiment. We’ll see what the next nine months bring. In the meantime, I get spiritually fed daily, I fellowship regularly with others, and I continue to work to make an impact for the less fortunate and underserved in my community. I am blessed, and I pray you are too.
I suppose there are many ends we come to in life. This past weekend, I came so close to one that I never want to revisit again. Our daughter who is currently homeless went silent for 4 days in some really awful weather. It was unexpected as we had just had lunch on Thursday. I didn’t see any reason we wouldn’t hear from her that weekend. Especially since I emailed the next day to let her know she could come in for some warmth and use my kitchen.
Her lifestyle, the past 10 years, has always lent to some uncertainty, and I was fairly okay with that. I don’t think any parent is ever completely ok with a wandering kid. I’m sure there are some who are better at it than me, although I feel I had gotten pretty good at it. Her choices over the last 10 years have left my nerves frayed, yet I also loved her adventurous spirit. Some of those choices and her adventurous spirit have sent her through hell. Every time I think she may have hit bottom, she rises again.
As a parent over the last ten years, I’ve had to make many decisions about where my boundaries are. I can tell you that many of those decisions came from fear, and a lot of them came from wanting my own comfort. For example, we have paid for dozens of phones because I wanted the comfort of being able to reach her. I really didn’t give a shit if she had a phone. It made me feel comfortable knowing that I could reach her or that she could reach out if she needed help. We have always kept our door open to her if she needed a place to stay. Until about two years ago, she never took us up on that.
In May of 2021, she was the victim of an assault in Florida and in October 2021 her dad picked her up from a small town in Georgia, (That had no idea what to do with a person having a mental breakdown). She began the journey of living with her dad for almost two years. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it’s suffice to say it was not pretty. We all, I’m sure, did a lot wrong, but I also know we did a lot, right. We reached out to a therapist to help guide us, and we did the best that we could. It still was continually ugly.
When she left in August of 2023 , I found a new boundary. I would allow her to live with me only if she agreed to family therapy.
When she went silent and we thought something might have happened to her I had to face my feelings about this new boundary. A few people have asked me why this time was so hard for me when she had been homeless before. I would say that there are a couple of reasons for that.
1. When she had been homeless in the past, she was living in another state. When they live in another state, you don’t hear from them regularly anyway. So since she was here and we were hearing from her at least every other day, the loss of contact from her was more obvious.
2. When she was homeless in the past, there was always someone in her life that sort of kept us up to date on her whereabouts. We knew her friends and could reach out to them. No friends that we knew of in this area to contact.
So over the weekend, when it was rainy and cold and my mind started to spiral, I had to face the worst-case scenarios playing in my mind. It was hard. I haven’t cried that much in a long time. There was one brief moment where I completely came unglued. It had been reported to us that her van had been abandoned and was towed away. I completely lost it, thinking that she was somewhere without any shelter. However, we soon discovered that it was a different van and not hers.
Thankfully, by Monday afternoon, she was located and was fine. We are told her van had broken down and she did not have Wi-Fi.
But what if it hadn’t had a happy ending? Would I have been able to live with the boundaries I had set?
My therapist helped me reframe these on Monday, and I think it’s exactly what I needed. She had me write down all the things that I have offered my daughter in the way of help.
She is welcome to use my phone anytime.
She is welcome to come here for food
She is welcome to use my shower or bathroom
She is welcome to live here if she agrees to family therapy twice a month
I have given her resources to get a phone and would gladly help her fill out the necessary forms.
I will love her and hug her at any time.
I do love my daughter so very much. So much that I want to offer her a way to be independent, not offer her dependence on me or anyone else.
This is so much easier said than done. I will probably have moments of coming undone again. I pray for the best possible outcome and brace for the worst.
I have had so many people reach out to me with similar stories. Your stories have immensely buoyed me. I’m so sorry that you have to face similar circumstances, but I’m thankful you shared your hearts with me.
I don’t have any answers. Unlike the county in Georgia, I think my county is really trying to meet people where they are. A deputy from our county reached out to me today and then to my daughter with some really great resources. More than the resources, this officer built a bridge to her with genuine concern. I am super impressed with what our county is trying to do to help with the mental health crisis. I think this is what we all need. I know it’s what I needed, and many of you provided…. a bridge off the island. To be connected, to not feel so alone.
I recently heard a story about an olive tree. Three lessons from an olive tree.
1. The olive tree grows with the harsh winds coming off the desert from the west and the refreshing winds off the sea from the east.
2. The fruit it bears is often very bitter and goes through a very lengthy softening process.
3. It’s not the fruit of the tree that so valuable, but the oil from the fruit.
I am growing from the harsh circumstances and the refreshing winds of friends. The fruit of my growth is definitely taking its time to be softened and I hope the oil produced will be useful to others facing difficult circumstances. I know the oil from others has been a blessing to me.
Always growing, always learning, always trying to be a better human for me and for others.
This was first written on Nov. 30, 2022. As I struggled with my feelings and emotions today, I went to write, and I noticed this post. It’s so ironic that it is very much what i’m feeling again today. Some things are better, some are worse.
November 2022
I should not be writing. It’s the middle of the day I should be working. But my mind is clouded with bewilderment. I can’t quiet my mind. It keeps asking, “Should I call her?” Bring her a coffee? Text her? My magical thinking takes over……if I show her how much I love her, she’ll believe me, and the tide will turn. If only….
Last week I met her for a cup of coffee. I bought her a Starbucks Coffee and sat to talk with her about her living situation. She absolutely detests living with her dad, which causes life to be pretty unpleasant. I wanted to see what things she had thought about and if I could offer any solutions. Maybe we could brain storm together something better. “Together”, for all my reveries of us working things out together, today will not be the day. Instead she stands and storms out with her $7 coffee I bought her calling me a G**damn C***.
For a few days I am “done”. Done trying to work with her, done trying to help, done caring. Then Thanksgiving comes and my heart aches for her. Alone on Thanksgiving. This is a state of affairs she has brought on herself of course. Although does someone who’s so mentally ill really know how to be anything else. Anger, bitterness, blame…..these are her daily assessories. She wants to be loved yet pushes us away
I know she was supposed to have a surgery today that she was really looking forward to having. However she couldn’t find someone to take her, and she would of course not ask us.
So I am swung like a ship on stormy seas, vascillating between the “done” I desire and the tight grip of motherly love. Dang it! I am quite annoyed that I care. Or am I? How numb I would have to be to really not care. The best I can do is love with healthy boundaries.
Meeting her for coffee probably isn’t a good idea. A text message perhaps is the best place to start. Let her know she is on my mind, that I love her. Then let it go! Go back to work, go and be the responsible adult I need to be. All I can control is me.
I love you my sweet daughter. You can throw your hate at me all you want, it will never cause me stop loving you. I will no longer support you financially, and I will put a safe distance between us, but my love for you has no end 🥰
March 8, 2024
Yesterday, I took her out for lunch. She is now homeless, jobless, no money, no phone. She and her two dogs live out of her rundown van with one window that doesn’t close. The sickness I feel when I state those realities knowing I could give her a home. We have, others have and it always ends disastrously. So I have to not bend the line drawn. We will not give her a home until she agrees to family therapy. We simply are not equipped to handle her needs without guidance. So far, it’s been a hard no from her.
The gut-wrenching fear at night, oh how my soul screams for some relief. It pleads for the horror movie reel playing in my mind to be stopped. I lay there and pray for God to send angels of protection. I have to release her to God. She has always been His, He loves her more than I do.
What do I do? How can I help without enabling? What would give her wings? I hate this SO much. I can get busy in my day, and there is a slight reprieve from the underlying anxiety. All it takes is a slight shift of the air, and I am snapped back to the room with the shrinking walls. I can continue to meet with her when I can get a hold of her. She has a laptop to check email. The hours/days in between when I send an email and I receive an answer are a special hell of their own.
There are no support groups or resources for guidance. Only this lonely road, buffered by tiny glimmers. It’s such a balancing act, don’t get my hopes up, but also don’t lose hope.
At the moment there is 1300 homeless people in our city. I am not alone, that is 1300+ other people who knows the agony of a homeless loved one. I hope this story has a good ending. I know my daughter is amazing and is capable of amazing things. I pray that like any plant that has survived the harshest winter and springs forth to bear summer fruit that my girl will too, find her way through the dirt to the sunshine that was meant for her.
findingkympossible 