My name is Jennifer Gray and I am a Co-dependant.

Your breeze blows warm when it wants to.
Cold when you’re consciously cruel.

Your leaves are waving in that wind, I am swaying in
Their rhythm. When I close my eyes I can feel you breathe
See your passion seethe
While I fall asleep and dream you want your night to be over.

My words fall fresh while I shed your tears
Feel for you the hot flush of released despair.

You claim you’re an addiction, a bad habit to break.
So if I breathe you in and regret it, only my life is at stake?

When did love become a drug? A bliss from which to recover?
It seems yours is the only heart worth your time to discover.

Do you think my eyes are bound when you look
At me the way that you do (that look reflects the eyes of many saviors)…all I know is that I want to see you through…

Sometimes light is more painful that darkness
Truth more deceptive than lies.
Beauty can put nails in your heart, create longings
No mask can disguise.

Close your eyes quickly now sing softly of your sorrow
Sift through seasons of darkness and discover
Sounds of joy that stand in bold relief
Against the back-drop of your grief and be at peace…
Sleep deep… dawn will come if you let her.

G. MacDonald's Beech Tree

Love is the song I sing to send you
you to sleep, sink your head in my lap
and dream of me. Put away
your smoking guns and rest from the best of reason.
Slip into mystery while I
whisper words of righteousness in rhymes
that will make your old-soul feel young and
sublime with beauty.
I am wide awake and will guard your mind from evil
with Orion's sword and September's moon
as a shield. Let weariness slide in and
leave you pale, breathing evenly, pain evanescent.
Linger there long, living in a faerie-tale with me.

"Only the shallow know themselves.” Oscar Wilde

So it seems God is never done unraveling. Which is exasperating. Think about how easy it is to get things messed up in knots. I tried crocheting once. Totally stressful. Not peaceful at all. I could never get my yarn to be where I wanted it to be. Most of my necklaces are unusable because I need to sit down and make a project of untangling them.

Unraveling knots is a complete pain. It’s tedious, eye straining and frustrating. Sometimes its just not worth the effort.

Having and caring for children reveals things about oneself that are unfathomable before they come into the world. I am not talking about mere selfishness. Yes, of course one realizes that one is selfish after having kids. Clearly having little people depend on you for every basic need will reveal impatience and self-absorption. I am talking about deep deep deep characteristics that are knotted and complicated and when loosed feel akin to an earthquake. And stupid. Yes! Stupid. I want to just wave it all away as thirty-something middle- class angst but I consider myself a spiritual(ish) person and my spirituality keeps hitting this stupid wall of stupid knots. So I have to at least validate them by calling them real.

For example. I have always thought myself as a laid-back person; accommodating and easy to please. Ha! It turns out that actually I have control issues bordering on neurotic. Before I had kids I could indulge myself in them to a degree that resembled religious rituals. Personal hygiene, food, legal substances, and relationships all had rules and regulations. If I did not obey these rules self-flagellation would begin. Shame would colour my days until I made things right.

I know! Sounds OCD. I honestly just thought that it was how life is lived. But here's the thing. I love my children more than myself. So I don't have time for these rituals. I don't have the brain space or the energy to invest in them anymore. But I don't know how to live without them either. It’s scary to live without them because they are my source of worth and accomplishment. I don't know how to organize my day without all these rules and regulations that only include me, not the two little people waiting for their breakfast and their hair to be brushed.

So I have this vacuum now. In the place of these rituals I have a sense of chaos and need. I can't think straight. I am insecure & unregulated. Like I am perpetually in a high school cafeteria searching for a place to sit. And I am naked. It is particularly obvious to me that I am not adjusting well after I spend time with a group of women friends. It used to be a necessity for me to play a particular role with people. My image and appearance and persona were practiced and intentional. What's funny is that three years ago I would have insisted that I was completely authentic and unguarded. Without the carefully cultivated image I feel spastic and eccentric.

How do I reorganize and redefine thirty-six years of structure? I don't want my babes dealing with my neurosis. That would be sad.

So I can only assume that this unraveling is God's work. I think I must see it as a blessing. If He can show me a healthier way of living and being there will be less of a risk that my babes will inherit my dysfunctional legacies- directly or indirectly.

I have a feeling life will be lighter and clearer if I am open to this untangling. Maybe I will feel less anxiety. Maybe I will sleep better. Watch less TV. Have deeper faith. Care more about others than how I am perceived. There's every reason to hope.

"...Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me." -John Donne












.

grace on my tongue

Anxious bored and brittle
Lips cracked with darkling doubts
Ushered through with the dusty
Air of an ancient tomb.

Jesus wept, I remembered
So my thoughts crackled with
Hope pushing through my craven
Brain and cloven hoof.

If he can cry grace is real
And I will feel His tears dampen
My tongue so I can cry out
“Light conquers darkness after all!”

Maybe all that’s bright in me will
Fight and walk through the shadows
To disperse their clinging fears and
Shine like the morning star.

O God my head!
Your anvil slamming my temple
Has got to stop. The throbbing doesn’t
Help me to see what’s sin and what’s not.

Do you hear the twilight in my sighs?
The setting sun is eroding my faith
With colours too bright for purity.

Must evil be beautiful
Or
My beauty be sin?
Is
White, stark, the only shade to sing?
It will make me raving mad for the rainbow you once promised.

All colours make black, yes Lord, black as sin
But I’d rather my eyes grow dim
Than see all hues in me turn into the
Dark inks that I write the prayers with
That I put into my private wailing wall.

Have You read them yet?

Or am I on your back burner boiling over my voice
Evaporating with the steam that disappears
On its way on up to You?

I must be still. Let you choose my pain and illustrate my story with colours more brilliant than a sunset.

Girl Talk

I am not fluent in “girl”. I never have been. By “girl” I mean- All verbal and nonverbal cues, secret codes and unwritten rules the fair sex uses to create allegiances and relate to each other. I blame three parties for this handicap. First, I blame my father, whom I love. When I was young his hero was Spock from Star Trek. He is also painfully Germanic. I thought that if I made myself as logical and stoic as possible I would impress him. The problem is I am pretty emotional; so all the held back exuberance & hyperbole mostly came out as anger. Which is very German. At least in Northeastern WI.

Then I blame the church, for as I entered Bible College my old convictions that stoics know best merged with the fact that if a woman showed anything resembling emotion she was rendered illogical and therefore useless to all professions except those involving organs, kitchens and children. I always found this to be very offensive to children, but I guess logic and critical thinking should be reserved to those who are ready for it- thirteen year-olds. Finally, I blame my height. In the 80’s being 6’0 wasn’t as awesome as it is now (neither was being red headed- that wasn’t cool ‘til the 90s thank you very much Julia Roberts). There were no “Tall” sizes at GAP. Wait. I wasn’t cool enough for GAP. I mean that there were no “Tall” sizes at Shopko. So I tried to hide my scary weird developing body in over-sized clothing (ankles bared & red hair frizzy) and a lot of intellectual and religious talk.

Now some of you may have noticed that I have indirectly associated femininity with illogic and being emotional. Yes, I have been quite a critic of my gender. In my feminism I tried to adopt such stereotypical masculine characteristics that I became, in short, a sexist. It was a way to express that I didn’t give a damn how awkward I was. Contradiction- In secret, I was pouring over Victoria magazine and Anne of Green Gables.

I think also maybe I wasn’t born with the right "girl" hard-wiring. I never knew how to give the silent treatment. I did not have enough imagination to come up with rumors vicious enough to ostracize another girl until she transferred to another school. I certainly had no idea how to flirt. I thought boys had cooties (except for MacGyver) until my sophomore year in college. I secretly loved fashion but was too insecure to do anything about it until I was an adult. And I never developed that certain look one girl can give another just condescending and disgusted enough to send the silent message that no, you are not cutting it, and you never will, so don’t even try.

Now boys (cooties aside), boys were different. They were straight up. You could talk about Star Wars for ages. Play with cars and make snow forts. Later, I could discuss theology and philosophy with them (well, with the ones who were not scared of the six foot red-head who liked Lewis & Kierkegaard). They are also really great at just being quiet. I found my refuge, as a girl, with being “one of the guys”.

Lest I sound bitter…I know now that I created a stereotype as a defense mechanism. I did not feel that I measured up and quit. It did me harm. I missed out on a lot of rites of passage. I was lonely. I also found myself in a lot of complicated situations with guys as the lines between childhood and adulthood blurred.

I was fortunate in college to meet a few girls who saw in me something to pursue. It is interesting that girls (women) long to be pursued not just by their fathers, boyfriends and husbands, but their friends as well. We all want to know we are of value- that we are worth seeking out. Those women changed my life. I found courage in their friendship. I let out my love for fashion and art. I started to cry at movies. We had sleepovers and pigged out on ice cream. One of these girls got drunk with me after a bad breakup. We had a funeral for my sad, ruined relationship- memorializing it in a swath of wine and rum and Over the Rhine. I woke up between the coffee table and couch while Karin crooned "Suitcase" for the umpteenth time. Crawling to the bathroom I knew I was over him. I learned how to laugh a healthy laughter, and to be OK making a fool of myself.

College friends scatter all over the planet and starting over is hard amidst careers, marriage, children and everyday responsibilities. I was talking with a friend recently and we concluded that making friends in one’s thirties is equivalent to dating in one’s twenties. These are thoughts that have run through my head after coffee with a potential kindred spirit -Did I talk too much? Did she like my dress? Will she call me again? Did I seem too eager? Did I ask her enough questions? Was I too much- or was I not enough…

Perhaps I am neurotically insecure, but I suspect there are a lot of women like me who desire a community of women to go through life with. Independence and autonomy feel more like an illusion. Marriage and children, or the lack of marriage and children have changed the game. Many of us don’t have moms & aunties teaching us about breastfeeding and parenting and laundry and crafting and canning. Those things are remnants of something sacred that seems to be fading. What I once shunned, I now embrace. When I see pretty tea towels, a vintage apron, old copper pots, geraniums in a window box or an antique sewing machine I think of a time when maybe women did not feel quite so alone. When they didn’t have to do it all, all by themselves, to be considered strong. When being soft, emotionally and physically, was considered attractive.

I am not romanticizing the past. Thank God for the vote and equal pay. But I am a little pissed at the modern feminists. And Victoria’s Secret. I guess I blame them too for my illiteracy in “girl”. I think maybe they have made women very lonely in their equality and have portrayed an image that is impossible to live up to.

Maybe there is a certain dialect in “girl” I do understand. When my friends bring me dinner when I am eight months pregnant with my second child. When one of them throws me a surprise party. When a dear friend calls me late at night and honors me with her troubles.

That is a language I can understand.

The wee small hours

It is three o’clock in the morning. I hate being awake in the middle of the night. These deep hours don’t always feel to me to quite belong to God. It feels as if the darkness is allowed to encroach upon one a little more than usual.

It didn’t always used to be this way. When I was younger I remember waking up and feeling cozy. I had a sense of who I was, what I was about, that all was as it should be or would at least work out. I would thank God for my bed, dig a little deeper into the covers and fall back to sleep.

Now when I wake up I screw up my eyes and try really hard not to think. My thoughts feel like a cloud of fear hovering just above my head. For a few seconds I think, “Just go back to sleep, everything is all right- you are safe, your family is safe.” But if I do not the battle begins with images of horrible things that have happened or are currently happening. School children attacked with meat cleavers in China, terrorist attacks, serial murder cases, kidnappings, sexual exploitations of young children, earthquakes, animal cruelty.

Then the “what ifs” make their attack. What if my children are kidnapped? What if my son has to go to war? What if my daughter’s heart is broken beyond repair? How can I protect them when I feel so weak? What if I get sick? What if I die? What if Eric dies? What if my children die?

If I allow the “what ifs” to take over, like I did tonight, I might as well get up. Only the routine of everyday things like dishes in the sink, the dog going outside and the hum of home electronics can make these demons retreat.

When I was younger I was fearless. I lived in dangerous neighborhoods, offered rides to strangers. I walked the streets at night- and slept well. Was I truly brave, or merely stupid? One does after all; feel invincible in one’s 20s.

It seems to me that maybe real bravery is knowing exactly what truly awful things the world is capable of throwing at you and going forth anyway. Choosing to believe that you are not alone, no matter how alone you feel.

I know that God is in the middle of all this somewhere. I don’t doubt that. But I truly don’t know where. At 3 AM I can’t feel Him, and praying doesn’t stop the bombardment of fear that pummels me into a pathetic mess. I have been looking for Him in the middle of the night for a long time. And I wonder how real my faith is if I can believe during the day and be so lost at night.

Something that wearies me about Christianity is all the “someday” stuff. Jesus will come back someday. All will be made right. Someday.

I don’t know. I guess I am not brave. I want life to be safe, to feel safe. Now. I want my children to have magical childhoods. I want anything that threatens them to be cast into hell. Now. I want assurance that all is well. Right now.

Is that so wrong? Maybe I just need more sleep.