It's another sleepless night. These sleepless nights are a part of the reason why after 5years of being a stay at home mom I decided to go to work for Wendys, at least at work I am physically doing something productive, which in turn makes me emotionally feel better and then by the time I get home from work I usually pass out and get the sleep i don't get other nights.
These sleepless nights are the nights where I feel the most lonely. When everyone I love is in bed, sleeping, or trying to sleep. I don't have any distractions, I am left with me and my thoughts which often feel so bleak in these early morning hours.
The truth is I often feel so abandoned in these early morning hours. During the day I can get through without receiving a "I'm still thinking of you note." or a call from a good friend because I'm busy. At night though, is when I start thinking about all the reasons why" I don't get the "I'm still thinking of you notes" or calls. See life goes on for the rest of the world even though I am still grieving.
It's easy to feel forgotten, or not important, when you are constantly told by others that care.."I've been meaning too....I've wanted too....but I am just so busy with......" Yes, I know, your life keeps rumbling forward while mine has just seemingly felt like it is frozen. While I am at time "busy" myself my grief doesn't take a rest. It is with me every single day...and while you may say "You don't have to do this alone..." the truth is "Yes, Yes I do." because unless you can step into my aching heart, and or actually take the time out of your busy schedule to initiate interaction with me outside of a "church" or "grocery" shopping setting, then no, no you can't walk this road with me. In order to walk the road with someone you have to come along side of them and go on the ups and downs of the roller coaster even if you are only in the back seat. But if you are standing on a completely different road that bears in completely different directions but only occasionally crosses my path you are not walking this road with me and you are just merely watching me.
That said many people reading this may be thinking..... "Invite others over. Ask a woman you would like to get to know out? Reach out yourself. If people say that they are willing take them up on it" My response to this usually is "I have, but I'm the only one doing it and it's exhausting." See, the truth is, it takes me so much energy to just wake up and get out of bed and to just breathe some days that I don't emotionally have what it takes to go to someone and beg them to help me. And when I put myself out there and say in many different formats "This is what you can do for me" No one really listens, and it gets ignored or brushed to the side in the midst of every day "busyness."
Then there is the perspective of "Well, it's not that people don't care it's just everyone else is going through their own crap." Yep...ain't that the truth we all have our own crap that we are going through every single day. Your crap matters just as much as my crap matters and that's the truth too. I know this and this is why I try my best to extend grace over and over again to well meaning and well intentioned people who say things but don't follow through; this knowledge also keeps me from asking you to walk with me in my own crap.
The truth is I see how tired those that have helped us greatly are. I see the weight that I have placed on them. I see their own weariness and their own struggles to keep loving on me, a grieving parent. I see the emotional toll I am on them in the midst of their own crap and so I step away, and I wait until I can see that they are ready to take "me" on again.
I said to another momma friend the other day that what often hits me the hardest the most is the realization that at 31years old I am going to have to learn to live with this pain for the rest of my life. The grief will always be there it will just change as time goes on. I also said that I don't want to do it. I don't want to have to carry this pain with me until I die....because it is a hard burden to bare. It is a burden that the more time goes forward the more I realize I alone must bare it. Yet, I do have hope. I am thankful that Jesus often carries me when I can't walk on my own two feet anymore. He doesn't take away the emotional pain but he often helps make it bearable. I am thankful that when others are caught up in their busy lives and though may not "forget" about me, don't show that they remember me, that Jesus is always here to cry on.
In the midst of my loneliness I am hopeful because I know that I am not alone. God has walked this path before me and he walks it with me. I am thankful for that. I still feel lonely, but I am still thankful that God is with me.
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