I left off lamenting for my son's education in Texas. I got a job (or thought I'd gotten a job) that took us to Arkansas, and to a kind of "ground zero" type place in our lives.
These thirteen months have seen:
Homelessness
The death of my mother
My son excelling in school while twice skipping grades (and dealing with everything else on this list)
The indescribable kindness of strangers
Betrayals that have bleed my soul
Life-long friendships sacrificed to fear and greed
Unconscionable rudeness from those meant to be helpful
Unspeakably beautiful new friendships
Moving to the other side of the world again
Unemployment, under-employment, and desperate poverty
Greater wealth than I've ever known
Breathlessness from the blinding speed of all this (and more) in the last 13 months and the difficulties of trying to adjust and keep up.
So you can understand why I say that I don't know where to start.
I couldn't keep the blog for a long time because upon the move from TX to AR my laptop was stolen. There's a book to write just about that and how, several months later, it was returned to me.
There has been so much pain. So much.
The scales of disillusionment about many of my most coveted relationships have been torn from my eyes.
I've felt more alone than ever in my life. Hollowed out, wasted, useless, and discarded kind of alone.
I've felt cared for, too. By strangers and by new and old friends who have never spoken up before.
The truth is, we can not simply keep up and adjust when things are happening so very, very swiftly. I still mourn my mother. Still find myself in tears for no reason, or unconsciously weeping. And that makes dealing with being an expatriate again in a very foreign place all that much harder. I'm too emotional and have such a hard time adjusting to the new job.
I still have trouble sleeping wondering about the callousness of people who call themselves Christian.
My faith was shaken good and hard this year by the necessity of going to "Christian" brothers and sisters to ask for help and being turned out, again and again. With no one but Christ to vouch for you, among Christians at least, you are not to be trusted in the Bible Belt. So many other single moms with their various needs and sob stories, I guess. But most didn't even offer to pray, or did but only as an afterthought.
My wonderful Atheist friends, every single one of them, offered to help if he/she could find a way to help. Many had nothing to offer but a kind word, but it was more than what most Christians held out to me.
I don't understand that. I still don't. I don't want to. This is not what the Christian faith is about. But it's what has become of Christians in AR, at least. Far and wide, the truth is that true Christians are hard to find.
I've also, through all of this, managed to somehow have more of a relationship with my brother now than since we've been 11 and 12 years old, or so. Maybe mom not being there to be the middle man has opened up an ability to talk. I don't know. I really believe that for some reason my brother has hated me with passion for a long time. No idea as to why. Honestly. But talking after mom was gone, maybe he realized that I'm not that different than he is in many ways.
Yes, we have some radically different political views, but we both are mature enough, and intelligent enough, to respect that we have our rights to these views. But we both like good music and enjoy some good jokes and both have a good sense of humor. I've lost my mom, but gained a brother, I guess. He gave me the gift of telling me he realized that he's missed me all these years. He right, of course. He has missed me. I'm fairly cool, too, in my own, words-y, unique way. And he's made me to miss him, as well. I hope he'll continue to keep in touch. I think he's still scared of me sometimes, like a feral animal trying to get used to it's new human. Or something. Or maybe I'm the feral one, or we both are. What an odd analogy for a siblinghood.
Too much has happened for any greater clarity or continuity than this.
Glad to be back "home" on the blog, because "home" anywhere else is surely a place that doesn't exist.
You can never, ever go home again.
No comments:
Post a Comment