Red dot.

Larry Crab calls it your red dot.
 I guess you can say I'm still into him. I trust my father-in-law.
Who I know trusts Larry.
Which makes me feel like he's a safe guy to unpack christianity and the internal and spiritual world. And I happen to find that as my heart catches up to my head, the stuff he unpacks about these realities, really is the stuff Jesus talks about.

So, that red dot. Its what you see going on internally, presently, NOW.
Maybe it happens to be descriptors and information about the stuff going on, but he beckons a deeper look at what is beneath that.
I still like descriptors. Processing brings me to that Red Dot. So here are my attached strings, my spiral, my junk that will maybe bring me there.

I'm snuggled into Rand's comfortable sweats and a sweatshirt because I feel really uncomfortable. I feel like I wear them in part because yes, they still are comfortable and I'm cold, but also to mask the internal realities that I am feeling.

Part of me feels not valuable in this comfort because I feel insecure about how my appearance. It feels like there is a club of the "cute pregnant lady" that I shift in and out of wanting to be a part of and that jostle's that insecurity. I feel like I am looked upon more highly when I strap on my competition mask, which often takes on the form of (sometimes) incredibly uncomfortable, tight fitting clothing that boasts my bump, but suffocates my already limited breathing space.

Another seems to be shame.
I feel like I should be more active and I am ashamed that I am not. Talk about intermixed passions. I happen to love exercise. Since about 25 weeks pregnancy has been incredibly difficult for me and I feel worn down.

But I feel like that is just an excuse and thats where the harshness seems to jump out.
I get that it's not all or nothing. Work out everyday or don't ever, but the gray is difficult for me to navigate admist the rollercoaster of transitions I feel between parenting a 1.5 year old and the babe in my belly. It leaves me worn down and not ready to enter the junk that surfaces when I excercise.
I guess I'm just not a big enough person right now.

That spirals me into another.
My head goes to. Well if your not a big enough person to exercise right now, how the hell are you going to be able to delivery a baby naturally.
I've got no armor against that one and it is likely 3/4 of what prompted me doing Yoga this morning.
And to try and find the perfect words for my birth plan.
And to try and suck Rand into it all.

Which is half of what brought me into a low and meltdown yesterday evening.
Don't get me wrong, 10 hours with your 1.5 year old is never all rainbows and butterflies.
Nor is not getting an opportunity to connect with you husband at the start of your week or sort through conflict.
But it felt like there was more beneath that. That those things were just the lava coming out of the real volcano.
In that moment I desperately needed my cocaine, people, because I did not feel okay. Nor did I want to give myself room to cry, I wanted to fight, victimize myself and pull someone else into my misery.
Part of me felt shame over this because my head even knew what I was doing.
All the harsh words sat on the tip of my tongue, a few escaping before I was able to give myself space.
Ironically, space for me typically looks like the back corner of my bedroom closet, where it is dark and I feel safe, so there I went.

I let the pain out, releasing it, as my heart so desperately needed. The wound of feeling rejecting over the past few days flowing out with the tears.

So I think thats where my red dot was at. I felt rejection and it hurt, lots.

Ironically, I felt able to rejoin my family in the basement. Sitting in silence initially and then playing with them and a zillion little plastic balls when I felt able. I feel like my heart got to feel the release there.

Its funny. I started writing this Wednesday. As I finish it I'm reminded of the roller coaster that my heart can sometime feel it is on.
Little Ellie got a mosquito bite on her eye lid that swelled up like a baseball bat. She doesn't react too well to bites just like her momma. I'm just beginning to digest and catch up to where my heart, and red dot, has been there.

So cheers to blog writing, my fall candle, jug of water, fresh grapes, digesting handful of fall colored m&m's and to finding a warm soup recipe on pinterest.

Happy Friday.

Prickly porcupine.

I've been reflecting a bit lately. Today, as I was sweeping the patio, it struck me how at peace I felt. My day had no agenda outside of a doctor appointment and I was completely okay with that.

NO. Even past okay. I was enjoying it. Seriously.

I was savoring watching Ellie play with her stroller.
Struck by the beautiful weather.
And was even dreaming about what I was going to bake next.
This was after a content time of putting away dishes even...

Over lunch I began to put words to this peace with Rand and I wanted to, again, process through where I feel I am.

It began when I started counseling.
At first it had just been our premarital counseling.
Then, after Rand's dad had mentioned he thinks that it is helpful for couples to have "routine maintenance" done, it continued.
Then, Rand's dad mentioned to me this group he has all his employees go through on codependency and I thought, eh, why not? I laugh now because honestly it could have been a cult and I would've trusted him and gone. I had no idea what codependent meant, really.
Then I started to go to my own individual sessions once a month.

Something awakened in my heart. My soul, really.
And HOLY HELL, did the beast get unleashed, which I now commonly refer to as the F*** you woman.
That woman was so incredibly angry. It was like an explosion, really. I had botteled up all of my emotions for so long, not really allowing myself to truly feel the emotions life brings us through like anger, saddness, and even happyness. I had been spinning in the same circle for so long. It had to come out, really. But it had been bottled up for so long that it was like a tea kettle that had been simmering and simmering and then finally let to steam out. That loud ass whistle that you hear when that water is done seems octives quieter than how my soul felt.

So there I was, this angry, bitter woman. For the wrong that had been to me and that I had done to myself. I sure as hell wasn't going to let that happen to me again.

Up the walls came. With spikes on the end and grenades waiting past those. I was not going to be hurt again.
I was so incredibly defensive. On edge, still am at times, honestly. I wouldn't let most people in. There was an incredibly small VIP list and more often then not those people didn't even make the cut.
But a small few stuck around, including my husband, and especially my counselor, Marna.
I was laughing, near tears, about this one on monday night. I was the biggest damn porcupine in the whole country and I had no idea why I felt so alone. Most people don't like to be around porcupines, their thorns hurt. I'm grateful for the few that stuck by me in that mess. There love for me brings me tears, as I type now.
They didn't punish me.
They didn't play games with me.
They let me be and still tried to love me the best they could in that.

My soul learned the love Jesus talks about in that time. Like it tasted it.

I've hurt many in that part of my journey.
The accuser, so quick to judge, so stark and harsh to myself and others.
My husband.
My parents.
My sisters.
My in-laws.
My friends.

I feel sadness and sorrow for that, tears are filling my eyes now.
But I know that that part of my journey is what gave me a taste of true life.

For so long the mountains and valleys have felt so high and so low and so on top of each other.
But I notice, they aren't as high and low, faster to work through, and more few and far between.

I'm still an attict. An approval seeker. A perfectionist.
But I'm in withdrawl.
Often, I want to give in to my version of cocaine.
That voice that tells me I have to get my finances figured out before I can go to Target.
That I need approval from my husband to buy clothes that fit my growing body.
That voice that says what a true friend should look like to numb out the silence that sits.

But. Eh. Maybe fixing all that isn't even really the point?