I start treatment on Tuesday.
I am scared. I’m so glad I feel scared.
I am also ready. I am ready to begin this winding, crooked road.
I used to think I was unafraid, tough enough to handle the hardest things. But in truth, I was so disconnected from my body that when it told me I was afraid, I refused to hear the message. If you do this enough times, you’ll cut off from your very own self. I was good at it.
I don’t recommend it. It’s a long, hard journey back.
Once, I watched literally paralyzed as my brother was dog-piled and beaten by a group of young men none too pleased with the cocky white kid dunking on them. I felt pure terror, helplessness and then I felt … nothing. I was so afraid my beloved brother would die that I cut off from the fear and the terror. The fury with which they attacked him was matchless and twelve-on-one is hardly a fair fight. I disconnected from my body as it sent all kinds of terrified, horrified, panicked messages about the threat I was helpless to stop. I had already developed this skill throughout my life in much less terrifying situations. It was a literal miracle that saved Ryan that night. And there have been many small miracles since that have saved me from this disembodied way of doing life.
Having a baby was one of the first things that broke open my disconnected way of being human. You cannot ignore the very embodied experience of pregnancy and birth. Giving birth, partnering in creating life, broke me wide open to life - to really feeling things in life. And there have been many other openings since; some as blissful as a baby and others much uglier, more difficult. Two sides of the same coin.
Lyme is one of those, I think.
So I am ready to start treatment. I am also scared. And I am glad to feel these things. I am glad to be living grounded into the human experience I have been gifted.
It is not much of a secret that I had given up on life in the spring. I kept going through the motions but Jason already knew it, even before I did. I felt nothing and I didn’t care. (This is called depression.) I gave up on my fight, my life. Maybe I only gave up on my fight with life – to order it, control it, to get my way with it. It felt like the same thing even though I know they aren’t. I gave up on my will to live. Under the weight of the uncertainty for the future, of all of my fears and guilt, I just quit.
Salvation came for me in that dark place. Sozo (to be saved; salvation) to be kept from danger, restored, made well (whole), preserved. He reached down and pulled me from the mire (sinkhole). Psalm 40:2
I was pulled out, pulled into the heart of God where I knew with certainty the whisper to choose Life. The whisper in my soul spoke of God’s will for me. I heard this question over and over again. Will you be so vulnerable and brave to choose this fragile, beautiful, uncertain gift of life?
Sometimes choosing life, showing up for life, is an act of vulnerable courage.
In loving kindness, God whispered and waited for me and ultimately let me choose – life or death. I still believe the Spirit of God grew hope so deep and raw in me so that I could choose life that day. And every day since.
It was a turning point being met by Life on the bluff at King’s Fold. The point where I chose consolation of God’s presence instead of life on my terms, in spite of the desolation and darkness I felt in overwhelming circumstances. I chose the consolation of recognizing the tiniest flickers oflight in the darkness and knowing it was enough for contentment and life.
I chose life. In the act of saying yes to Life, without realizing it, I gave my broken heart back into the hands of a loving God who keeps on healing it. Sozo.
I am ready for treatment.
I am also scared.
I feel a constant anxiousness in me vibrating just below the surface. There in the anxious buzzing are the unanswerable questions.
How sick will treatment make me?
Will I be able to care for my family? For myself?
Will I be able to care for my family? For myself?
Will there be pain? Agony?
As the spirochetes die off in my brain, how out of my mind will I be?
Can I handle the pain?
Can my children handle me in the pain?
What can I do to keep this process from harming their sense of security?
What if I cannot function at all?
What if nothing happens?
What if it doesn’t work?
What if it doesn’t work?
Maybe these are only worst case scenarios and I’ll be tired and nauseous but able to hobble around attending to the basic needs of our life.
Can Jason bear the weight of all the extra responsibilities when I cannot?
How much help can I really ask for?
When and who will I know to ask?
How do I plan for all of these possibilities?
Question after question keep coming all with the same answer…
I cannot know. We won’t know until we get there. There is no certainty.
Instead, I have decided to focus on different questions. Questions to guide my new year and this uncertain treatment process. And these bring a sense of peace. They lead me to a still place where the anxious buzzing quiets a little and I see a bigger picture. (And also make some plans around the most basic needs.)
(Questions taken from one of my heroes and teachers – Parker Palmer)
1) How can I let go of my need for fixed answers in favor of aliveness?
2) What is my next challenge in daring to be human?
3) What is waiting to be birthed in and through me during this time?
I continue to ponder these questions and am learning to live into them. But one thing has become clearer to me as I consider these.
My next challenge in daring to be human and to be alive, to choose life is this:
To accept and companionably live into the fragile side of life. I feel sure there are real treasures to be found in this fragile place.
