Suppression Unto Deprivation

My first week in Texas was… rough. I was tired and overwhelmed. I felt my confidence completely deteriorating. And I found it unusually difficult to engage in a real way with the people I was giving time to be with.

Every time I opened my mouth and said something real that came from a place of any depth, I felt that I could, at any moment, completely fall apart. It didn’t matter where I was. It didn’t matter who I was with. If I dipped anywhere below the surface, I was sure to break down and begin bawling.

This was a problem. I did not want to burden my friends with my emotions. There was a lot of catching up to do. I didn’t feel like crying in public. I didn’t have time to go there. I didn’t really want to be that vulnerable.

So, quite naturally and with little thought, I suppressed my emotions. It took a lot of energy and an almost sub-conscious intentionality. But my once-perfected skill of shutting down my emotions kicked in and I was able to numb myself with very little conscious thought.

I stuck to the surface. If I felt myself about to crack, I would alter my course and steer away from the touchy things. I said relatively little. I felt very little.

There were two major consequences to responding to my emotions in this way. First, it became virtually impossible to relate to anyone in a real way, as I was setting apart significant time to meet with people. It’s hard to connect with a person with any depth when you are determined to stay at the surface. Simple contradiction. Second, I COULD NOT sleep.

Yes. I suppressed my emotions so thoroughly that it was keeping me up at night. It was exhausting.

After about a week of sleep deprivation, I finally realized what I was doing. So, Thursday morning, as I was failing again to fall asleep, the floodgates broke and I just started to cry.

From that point, I resolved not to shut down emotionally, for the rest of my time in Texas. Since then (the last three or four days)… I’ve cried A LOT.

One week to go. A lot of pain remains that I haven’t even touched. But the Holy Spirit, my Comforter, is with me. So I’m feeling pretty hopeful about the next seven days.

Magical Morning

Well, I did end up going outside and playing in the snow after that last snow post. I couldn’t take it anymore. The snow was too amazing to not be in the middle of it as it fell.

I bundled up well. I would spend three paragraphs describing how awesomely warm-sustaining my outfit was… but I would probably be the only person who was excited about the drawn-out explanation of my moose PJ pants, wool socks, boots, jeans, scarf, two pairs of gloves, and leather jacket.

Nothing Much

I drank painful quantities of  incredible wassail on Thursday night. INCREDIBLE. We found the most magical apple cider in the world. I don’t think future wassail could ever top that.

I have a prophetic egg-shaped alarm clock that is really fun to spin like a top. That’s right, prophetic. I’ve had the thing for one week and it has done 4 crazy “Ummm… OK, wow” things already. Hey, if God wants to talk to me through an alarm clock, I’m game.

New Jersey is really funny. My news magazine had a little story snippet about a two-hour stand-off at a bank… between the police and what was apparently a really threatening CARDBOARD CUT-OUT. Way to go, NJ!

The socks I am wearing right now are ridiculously warm. I can hardly stand it. But I didn’t properly warmify my feet last night when I left the house, so I figured I owed it to my feet to over-warm them tonight.

We’re about to reorganize our fridge. That makes me really happy.

Timothy Edwards fascinates me. I know I probably shouldn’t be so impressed… but he seems super smart for being so tiny. (Though tiny is also beginning to seem rather huge.) It’s REALLY fun to watch him organize things. He has a gift! (It made my organization-loving heart really happy.) And he’s super cute. Especially when he’s wrestling with his dad. Watching that little guy was one of the highlights of my night.

I’m a little sad about the fact that I will be out of town on my birthday. But I’m really excited about being in Montana for Christmas. I hope it snows in KC before I leave… REALLY huge drifty flake-clusters of glory… that’s what I’m looking for. And it has to snow in Montana on my birthday… it just has to.

I glitter-glued happy trees tonight.

Wendy: Yeah, but I don’t think that makes me weird.
Christine: It makes me different.
Wendy: I know, it’s weird.

OK… so maybe it was funnier when it was way past my bed-time. Wait… it is past my bed-time. Oh well… whatever. I’m still amused.

I am in one of those “stay up late crying” modes. So I thought a random blog post would be a nice diversion for a little while. But now… back to the prayer room.

Missing the Sleep

Sleep has ALWAYS been a problem area in my life. I remember regular times in elementary school when I would lay awake for hours before I had any hope of falling asleep. When I first learned the word insomnia, I remember thinking “Oh… wow… so other people have this problem, too.” High school and college were especially sleep-deprived years. (My junior year in high school, especially.) And here I am, now… still struggling with the sleep thing.

I think I get more sleep on the night watch than I have at any other time in my life, on any other schedule. After staying up well into the AM hours, I tend to sleep rather soundly. But most of my friends still know me as sleep-challenged.

Considering how little sleep I get sometimes, I actually tend to function rather well. Usually, people can’t even tell the difference. I’ll confess that I am somewhere around hour 30 of being awake, and the person I have been working with for the last several hours will respond with great shock. I can sleep for two hours and have several people tell me that I look bright-eyed and well rested. And I tend to especially crush my opponents if I play Settlers of Catan after a night of little sleep.

I wonder, though, if people can’t tell the difference because they have rarely (if ever) seen me when I am actually well-rested. Perhaps they think that I am always that inarticulate. Perhaps they think that my face just… looks like that. Perhaps they have never encountered me when my mind is sharp and my body isn’t longing for a break. Perhaps they don’t see anything out of the ordinary because that is the ordinary.