swinging and bending, part 8: Elastic Heart

"And I will stay up through the night

And let's be clear, won't close my eyes.

And I know that I can survive

I'll walk through fire to save my life.

And I want it, I want my life so bad

I'm doing everything I can

Then another one bites the dust

It's hard to lose a chosen one

You did not break me

I'm still fighting for peace.

Well, I've got thick skin and an elastic heart,

But your blade—it might be too sharp

But I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard,

Yeah, I may snap and I move fast

But you won't see me fall apart

'Cause I've got an elastic heart."

--Sia

{somewhat} continued from this series.  

I am no stranger to mental illness.  

Physically, Mental Illness hurt--the raised welts left by a wooden spoon or a hard plastic brush on my small naked backside and thighs subsided.  The stinging red finger marks pulsing with my own heartbeat across my cheeks as a teenager faded.  The headache that was a result of being hit more times than I can count on the head by a heavy college textbook while I sat hovering on the floor, both arms wrapped around my face to withstand the blows only took a couple of hours and 800 milligrams of ibuprofen to melt slowly away.  

But the emotional pain Mental Illness inflicted, those are wounds of a different nature.  Those are the wounds that do not fade--they create.  They create three children with no sense of self, no ability to express healthy emotions, no idea of what they need or how to ask or even have room in their lives for needs even if they could ask for them.  

I sat at the dinner table and watched as Mental Illness hurt my sibling with their words and their hands.  I stared down at the cooked broccoli on my plate, silently pleading with my sibling to just agree--to anything--so it would calm Mental Illness and the storm could pass.  When I began to work through some of these scenes years later in therapy, my silent pleadings for their submission morphed into internal roaring as loud as a lion's--an indignant rage over the knowledge that I had been witness to the breaking of the soul of an innocent child, one I loved so deeply yet could not protect.  

I heard Mental Illness tell my siblings and I why they were choosing to leave our family to be with another, full of self-lies so thick and deep they were convinced those lies were now reality.  Months later I watched Mental Illness sweep back through the home with promises of a fresh start, of trying again, of this time being different.  My ears heard the words but my heart knew--these would fall short and fail as they had already so many times before, as soon as Mental Illness was triggered and rose to the surface once again.

Mental Illness used God to shame, to manipulate, to twist, to control. It wanted the outside of our family to look a certain way to deflect from the inside chaos.  It told my siblings and I that we were only lovable if we played this part--cutting our hair to depict our righteous dedication, wearing clothing that covered the bodies they had created in the way they felt was appropriate and pleasing to God.  Otherwise we were not Good, and Mental Illness made sure we knew it.  

Mental Illness was addiction, divorce, rage, shame, lies, self-loathing, deep chasms of insecurity, manipulation, jealousy, control, and unending amounts of fear.  Mental Illness took every ounce of Safety and replaced it with internal chaos and torment.  It wreaked havoc through my childhood, destroyed a marriage, shattered a family.  In its path of destruction it left pain, confusion, fragility.  

A book once described me, the role of the All-Good Child of Mental Illness,  as "a porcelain soul with tiny fractures," and when I read those words I cried and cried.  They were my worst fears written on paper, naming what I had suspected for so long:  I was broken.  

I have worked and dug and inspected the darkest corners of the fractures inside of me with a magnifying glass.  I have laid out my most terrifying vulnerabilities on a table and offered them up as a sacrifice to Healing.  

I fill the cracks of my own fractures created by the lies of Mental Illness with Truth about my worth, with gentleness and forgiveness for my shortcomings and mistakes, with calling myself out on even the slightest shred of dishonesty and forcing myself to admit to myself and others when it exists, with admiration for not quitting the often-draining work it is to Heal, with acknowledging and often clinging to the beautiful and bright pieces of my experiences, with expressing gratitude for the Life I have been given, and the gift it is to know I can make choices that not only defy the laws Mental Illness tried to place upon me, but to completely abandon those laws and forge a new, healthy path.  I fill the cracks with having boundaries for every relationship in my life--including the one I have with myself, these boundaries creating the ability for me to feel Love all of its forms while also continue to maintain living in a space of emotional integrity.  I fill the cracks with God, and a self-love that can only come from Him.   

I have looked at my past with an objective eye, taking my siblings and I out of it and looking at Mental Illness for who and what it is--two souls even more broken than my own fractured one.  Forgiveness and unending amounts of Love poured out for Mental Illness, when I could view it this way.  Understanding and compassion replaced blame.  

Then I brought the three children back in, and saw us as innocents who--regardless of the broken state of Mental Illness--deserved better, more.  I gave myself permission to allow the emotion for these three who deserved better to take over and drag me under...to Anger, Fear, and extreme Sadness.  I sat inside of these rooms of often suffocating emotion and felt every inch of their walls.  As uncomfortable as it was and at times continues to be, I know I cannot leave the room until I allow it to be as consuming as it needs to.  Only then does it pass, I rise to the surface, and can move on.  

These three children grew up to sit with therapists to help them search for a reality outside of Mental Illness.  They constantly worry and check in with one another, terrified Mental Illness has found its way inside of them.  Any anxious thought, any insecure feeling, any moment of depression has them second-guessing.  They wear Mental Illness like a shadow.  Is it their turn?  Will the shadow catch up and envelope them?  Their ability to gage what is normal is forever skewed.  

For years they have clung to the hope that with time, work, and loving themselves and each other through this, they can break the cycle.  They cling to this hope still.  It is the only thought that keeps the shadow where it belongs, sitting on the outside edges of their lives.  

My sister, my brother and I, we are the ones who Know.  We have sat next to each other on the couch in the middle of the night, wearing pj's and rubbing blurry eyes, our young, bewildered minds trying to make sense of Mental Illness as it fought, yelled, pushed and shoved only feet away from us.  We have heard each other's tears through the adjoining wall.  We have had a front row seat to the screaming, the locked doors, the damage control, the hammers breaking through walls, the uncontrollable sobbing, the consequences, the open-hand slaps, the silent treatments, the barefoot chases on snowy afternoons, the shattered mirrors, and the betrayals.  

We have cried to each other as adults over the pain we experienced, still trying to make sense of it all.  We have called in the middle of the night, showed up on doorsteps, taken last-minute flights and fought for each other to sort through the shadow of Mental Illness and cling to the Light and Love we can feel, and the Worth we see in one another.  We bond over the Knowing--a deep, interwoven bond that at times finds us tethered together, unable to decipher where one of us ends and another begins. 

It is from this tethered place that I write.  It is tough to find boundaries here.  When one of them is in pain, I can not help but feel it with them.  When they are breaking under the pressure of the memories and the faulty core beliefs placed upon them by Mental Illness, I feel the pull of their breaking as though it is an actual part of me.  When the Shadow that has followed for years finally looks as though it may be catching up to one of us, I know I must do all I can to push it back where it belongs.  Internally I struggle between the person I have been, and the person I have worked so hard to become.

I do not know what this last-minute flight will bring.  I do not know if the Light I can still see and the Love I will always feel will be enough.  I worry it will not, I worry I'm too late.  

But I have to try.  

living in a Moment.

Yesterday's late March afternoon was unusual for the simple fact that Ben was home.  Most weekdays, it's rare when we are in the same place at the same time before 10 pm.

The girls were playing in the toy room, and I could hear their squeals and screeches as the ponies in their hands danced and jumped.  They had purposely dressed themselves alike today, in matching grey t-shirts and poofy skirts.  In between fighting, they have become very good friends.

I found myself laying stomach-down on the white comforter of our master bed, only feet away from Caleb who was sitting at the desk finishing homework.  In between helping answer his questions, I was reading a sentence here and there, desperately trying to finish the book I had started over the weekend while I was away on vacation.  I was determined to finish it--the pile on my night stand of half-read novels was getting too high.  Besides, I had been swallowed up by the characters and couldn't leave them until I knew what happened in the end.

It was right as I read the sentence when one of the characters in the book died, that Ben joined me on the bed, laying down the same way so the sides of our arms were touching.  He was texting a friend who needed advice about a car their family was buying.

Though I was engrossed in my book, I felt my senses becoming aware of my surroundings--something I usually tune out when enveloped in words on the page.  I heard the soft whirring of the ceiling fan, the light scratching of Caleb's pencil on his paper, the tick-tick-ticking of Ben's phone as he replied in text, and the girls' sometimes shrill but happy noises.  I felt the comfort of skin from my arm touching Ben's, and became aware I had absentmindedly hooked one of my feet around his, bouncing it up and down on the bed as I was reading.  I saw the afternoon sun coming through our bedroom window, softly enhancing shapes and shadows.

As my senses heightened to the moment I was living in, I remembered words from a television show I had once heard,

"You know how people talk about the Good Ole' Days?  I wish you could know they were the Good Ole' Days when you were actually in them."

I closed my book, laying still, focusing.  I thought of taking a picture so I wouldn't forget what was happening, but didn't want to disturb anything.  Instead I climbed on top of Ben, resting my head on his back, my cheek against his shoulder blade, wrapping my arms around him so they were in-between his chest and the bed.

I knew I had been caught up in the story of the dying character, but as I clung to Ben I faced the thought that one day I would not have the opportunity to wrap my arms around him, or help Caleb with his homework, or listen to my girls happily imagine.

"Well this is nice, what is this for?"  Ben asked about my sudden change in position.

"This life, that we've created together," I began, and stopped because I could feel emotion welling inside of me.  "We just have a really good life, and I'm grateful for it."  

I lay there quietly for a few minutes, letting the beauty of our right now consume me.  And then Caleb finished his homework, and the girls chased each other into our bedroom, and life began moving forward again.

scattered.

It's getting to the point where I'm no fun anymore

I am sorry

I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are

You make it hard

Remember what we've said and done and felt about each other
Oh, babe have mercy
Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now
I am not dreaming

I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are
You make it hard

--"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"

Crosby, Stills & Nash

aside from ben's school, there have been other difficult things going on in the past couple of months.  writing honestly?  my dad is going through his second divorce.  unlike my parents' divorce seven years ago, this one came as a surprise, and (also unlike the first one) was finished swiftly.  i know that how it appears on the outside isn't necessarily the truth of the inside, but my brother, sister and i were very surprised--and devastated.

after years of my childhood spent in an unwanted front row seat of a somewhat fractured and chaotic marriage, i found myself ready to see both of my parents start over--beginning with a new person, hoping this time would be different.  coming from a fragmented family made me peer through leery eyes as to what this new picture would look like, but i was willing to be open, and try.

what i found on the other side was the gift of getting to know some new really amazing people... most importantly, my stepmom.  brenda has this incredible capacity to immediately love and accept others, without judgment, question, or conditions.  because of her,  i was given the ability to heal pieces of my heart broken long ago, ones i thought could never be healed by another.

though i understood that this decision of divorce was made with a lot of thought and prayer, to hear that she and my dad were no longer going to be together terrified me.  truthfully, it still does.  i don't know what a fractured-family-from-a-fractured-family looks like, and i'm worried.  about my dad, about my siblings, about our relationships with those who have become a significant and important part of our lives for several years.

as i was driving caleb to school this morning, a song from my childhood came on ben's classic rock station on the radio.  i turned it up, yelling back to caleb, "i love this song!"  and started singing along.

immediately i was flooded with happy memories as a kid with my dad in the family car, beating his hands on the steering wheel like it was his own personal drum, belting out harmonies with a smile on his face as he sang these same words.


I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are

Something inside is telling me that I've got your secret
Are you still listening?
Fear is the lock and laughter the key to your heart
And I love you 

in my memory, i could see my young father, probably around the same age as i am now.  he was full of music and corny jokes, even amidst the havoc in his life.  i imagine that he visualized his life in his 60's as a time of stability and calm, watching grandchildren grow as he retired and looked forward to hobbies, traveling, and family barbecues.

right after we learned of the divorce, he spent a couple of weeks with us here.  through him i saw such a strong desire to feel hope again that was palpable.  it was difficult to know how to help or what to say.  i was also working through my own complicated feelings, but because i love him and wanted to be supportive, i tried to put those on the backburner.  i wanted to tell him everything was going to turn out alright for him, but i was no longer sure.  i worried he would sense my hesitancy, so i hugged him and told him how much i loved him, and that he could come back whenever he needed.  as i watched him drive away, i felt hollow.

after dropping caleb off this morning, i sat in the car in our driveway and continued listening to the song that reminded me of my young father.  the tears came, and i let them.  i cried for what has happened, for all he has lost, for his present day that looks so unlike what i'm sure he had idealistically pictured his story to become, for the choices he's made in this life that require him to start over yet again.

Tearing yourself away from me now you are free
And I am crying
This does not mean I don't love you, I do, that's forever
Yes and for always

I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are
And you make it hard


between this and the roller coaster of ben's school situation, the month of january shook me up, leaving me feeling separated and tossed into the wind to be scattered around.  the month of february helped me find and gather my scattered pieces, and march is already helping me to patch myself back together, preparing for wherever the wind tries to carry me next.

a blogging duel, how marriage is a crapshoot, a look back, and my theme for 2013.

looking back into 2012, i can see it was a really great year, probably the best i've experienced in a long time.  not because things were perfect, but because somewhere along the way i came to a place of peace.  of feeling comfortable in my own skin.  finding a balance in certain areas that i've longed for and thought i would never achieve.  i feel closer to God than i ever have, and the itchiness of fear that once creeped along the edges of most of my thoughts has been scratched and settled.

my theme for 2012 was faith without fear, and it was tested many times in many different ways.  i would name them all, but it would take me hours to type and you would probably fall asleep drooling on your keyboard.

being able to write this last year...well, for me it was big.  and hard.  it was the culmination of what all of my previous semi-hard posts had led up to.  and not just my hard posts, the story behind it is what caused some of the hardest lessons i've had to learn in life.  i've wondered since i've written it, is there more to come?  more hard to dig up?  harder than that was?  i don't feel like there is, at least from the past.  getting that out, realizing where almost all of my inner struggles have stemmed from, i have been able to lay it to rest.

sometimes i'm sad about this little blog.  it's seems so....emo.  you know?  where did funny lynsey go?  is she ever coming back?  my friend told me that funny lynsey still lives on facebook, that's where her outlet is. apparently my funny side just needs only a couple of sentences to emerge nowadays, no longer dedicating to entire blog posts.  maybe it's because lately funny= surface, fun, everyday things and emo = deep and life-changing.  and i've been swimming in the deep end of the blog for a while.  well, whatever the case, this season is what it is.  and i have learned so much--through my writing, but also through responses from loved ones, friends and even strangers.

i can't thank you enough for your kindness and love.  even through the change of the past couple of years.

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i'm starting off 2013 by forcing myself to write more, whether i have the time or energy or brain capacity for it or not.  the talented and poem-y Clancy and i are having a blogging DUEL!  and my competitive side is DETERMINED TO WIN, while my non-competitive side wants to shrug and do it anyway because i love writing so much.  and it will push her to write, and i love her writing so much.  


and now, a look back on the year:

2012 was the year my marriage took a shift.  in a surprisingly hardbutgood way.  not sure how to expound on that more right now, but i do know that it has something to do with this post, and the finishing of it....when that comes.  ben and i have been extracting our unhealthy pieces, and doing our best to change the dynamics of our relationship that sprung from those pieces.  what i also know is that i have never loved or felt closer to ben than i do right now.  the shift has brought a lot of discussions, some more difficult than others...but all of them ending in a good place, with a deeper understanding than we have ever had of ourselves and each other. 

{warning:  extremely fuzzy picture ahead.  how do people take such CLEAR pictures on their phones??  i'm trying to figure it out, and failing miserably.}

so there we were, on our 10th anniversary, eating at the fanciest restaurant i have ever been to.  we felt so out of our league, but tried to play the parts of acting natural while looking at a menu with a salad that cost $18.  and the meal itself took almost 3 hours, but it was exactly what we wanted.  just time together, and an enormous bill afterward.  ha ha!

we asked each other questions, we went through our history.  man!  marriage really is kind of a crapshoot, isn't it?  i have seen the tough roads that some close to me have had to trudge through in marriage and have done my best to offer love and support as they have been drug through hell and nasty cesspools of emotional fungus.  but i haven't actually been in those cesspools, i've only seen them from the sidelines.

at 22 i felt like i knew everything about myself and him....and at 32 i can say that i truly knew nothing back then.  how can you know how someone is going to respond when they become stressed?  or anxious?  or experience heartache that lasts longer than just the few months of dating?  pregnancy?  grad school?  hard babies?  financial struggles?  a group home of mentally unstable teens?  external family issues?  how can you know the way someone is going to treat themselves and you with the curveballs life throws?  the truth is, you can't.  you get hints of it along the way, and a general idea when you're dating.  you hope for the best.  you tell yourself that your immature love for each other will certainly conquer all.  and then you leap!  and watch married life unfold.

we talked about our gratitude, to go through so many learning curves and growing pains and feel this way about each other when we're now on the other side of some of the big ones.

in my book, it's all about trying.  not just trying to spend time together or be happy or be a good mom/dad and wife/husband, but trying in the way of being willing to look at our own selves through microscopes that show all of our ugly little pieces and hang on through them.  to not stop communicating, or showing love or doing our best to meet our own needs and then the needs of each other.  to not shut down or give up, or become complacent and uncaring.

only a few years ago, i remember patting myself on the back in congratulations.  that ben and i were one of the few couples that i knew had a really fantastic, sturdy marriage.  i thought we were unshakable because we were us.  but that pat on the back was made of a house of cards....not because we didn't have a fantastic, sturdy marriage, but because the things i built us upon were made of fluff.

i will expound more when i finish that post.  :)

but now i don't just pat us on the back, i figuratively wrap my arms around the married version of us, ten years in, through stretching and pulling and pushing, still dedicated to each other and the family we have created.  and still laughing and having fun along the way.

anyway, 2012 was the year that caleb turned 7 and learned to whistle and finally {FINALLY} has his first loose tooth {STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND CHEER RIGHT! NOW!}  it was one of the first years that medically, he has thrived.  and that blessing has not gone unnoticed in my book.

it was also the year where he turned a corner and {i'm sorry caleb, but it's true} kind of became...how do i say it kindly?  endearingly obnoxious.  rumor has it, this stage end around 12, when he becomes a more obnoxious teenager...but we will love him through it.  plus the good qualities of him are still heavily outweighing the...need i say it again?  obnoxious qualities.  

he wants so much to be grown up, and smarter/stronger/faster/bigger/funnier than he is.  he wants to be an adult and for life to be fair, and i have told him to get used to being disappointed about that one on a regular basis.  he does amazingly well in school both academically and socially.  another blessing.

he has been an amazing, gentle, kind and funny older brother to june.  the two of them get along so well.  which constantly makes me wonder why he has continued to bump heads with leah, because i know he has it in him to get along with a younger sister.  he wants so much to control leah and she refuses it.  but in the past couple of months i've seen them turn a corner in the way they are interacting and treating each other.  he really has been an amazing example of a big brother.  he is honest, and sensitive and really tries to do what's right.

he is a reflection of both the best and worst pieces of me as a mother.  and so far, i say we're both doing alright.

the year of leah as a 3 year old has been one of the most fun so far as a mother.  

she is bright and silly and beautiful and kind and most of all....imaginative.  caleb only had a small slice of what she has been given in imagination and i love to just quietly watch her as she creates animals and friends out of anything and nothing.

but the struggle has arrived as she has pretty much thrown in the towel when it comes to sleeping through the night, and i have resigned myself to letting her come in at some point in the wee hours of the morning and sleep in my floor.  i just don't have it in me anymore--i feel like i have tried it ALL, and she stays quiet so it's better than what we've had to work with in the past.  

she has a stubborn streak and a sassy side and is constantly testing me to make sure i will hold the line and boundaries i have set. and she flies off of the handle when she's in a mood and i hold the line, but in the end it calms her because she nows what to expect.  when i make exceptions to rules or consequences, she becomes confused and doesn't like it.  

for leah, the line between truth and un-truth is kind of blurred.  i don't really think it's a conscious or sneaky thing {yet}, but because her mind seriously creates situations to be her reality.  and luckily so far, it's been an extremely hilarious thing to witness.

leah is such a good girl who really loves to be loved, and june has definitely tested her patience in this area, because she gets the brunt of june's newly acquired temper.  but she is slow to react, which i'm grateful for.  {caleb could take a page out of her book here.}  and i have a feeling that the girls may butt heads some times, but are going to grow up to be really great friends.

leah is the child that i need to plan ahead at least 10 minutes before going anywhere, because whenever i say the words "we need to go!  get in the car!"  she wanders around looking for a random toy to bring......or her drink.....or suddenly needs to go potty.....or can't find her shoes.  this honestly used to frustrate me because it put a very big cramp on my leave-things-to-the-last-minute style, but i have learned to work within who she is.  and instead of becoming increasingly frustrated, i do my best now to give her ample time to prepare for whatever journey it is she thinks we're going on.

she still has her adorable listhp, a huge vocabulary, and absolutely loves preschool.  she's a social girl, that's for sure.  2012 was the year we had the joy of finding "my little pony" on netflix and our lives have never been the same.  woah boy!  and her serious obsession with dolphins hasn't died down in the least....visiting seaworld was a dream come true for her.  

and then that leaves us with june of 2012.

june has evolved from the sweetest, calmest baby to a quirky, snuggly, shrieking, independent busy-body of a toddler.  i've lost track of all of the words she knows now, it feels like every day she's picking up a new one...or three.  she counts to five, sings and says prayers with a lot of mumbling softly and then ending them with a lot of gusto in the big finish, "ABEEEE!"  and she prays even if it's not her turn, looking around every time she yells/ends her prayer, wondering why people are quietly snickering with their bowed heads instead of looking up and cheering.

she is extremely attached to me, and i have love/hate feelings about this.  i can drop her off easily at other places as long as there are kids & toys around and she doesn't bat an eyelash--until i come to pick her up, then she acts like she hasn't seen me in years and WHY DID I ABANDON HER??  poor girl.  but when baby-sitters show up at our house, or when she sees me putting on shoes and grabbing keys, she freaks out with a capital F.  it's super fun!  

i love that she loves me though, she is constantly giving me hugs and kisses and when i pick her up, she wraps her arms and legs around me like a little monkey and holds on tightly, saying over and over "mama, mama, mama" with an enormous smile on her face.  

she is still obsessed with baths and it's a good thing, because she has said good-bye to the days of sitting in a high chair, letting someone feed her.  not kidding, if i try to give her a bite of anything she refuses it.  if i pop the same bite onto a fork and hand it to her....in it goes. 

the times when i do need to feed her, whether it's because we're late or i don't have the ability to deal with the aftermath of a mess, she shrieks and cries and twists and turns until i finally have to satiate her with a baby einstein show, or her favorite....pocoyo.  she started saying "COCOYO!" a couple of months ago, and yells it anytime we turn it on.  

and as much as she is joined at the hip with me, this little girl doesn't adore anyone more than her dad.

she is thoughtful about things, picking them up and quietly turning them over and over.  she explores everything about every page on a book.  she is extremely ticklish.  she loves music and sings...duets with her are the best, and usually happen when i'm taking a shower and she's staring at me through the glass, two inches away.  she's continued to remain my healthiest child so far and i was kind of hoping for least emotional child, but the jury is still out on that one.  oy.

2012 turned this baby into a toddler, i can't believe what she looked like at the beginning of last year, and here she is now, the same eyes staring back at me, with a mop of unruly hair and a mouth with teeth and swollen gums waiting to pop through some more.


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well, if you made it to the end of this extremely looooong look back on last year, i applaud you.  instead of picking a word for 2013, i have picked a theme:

out of my comfort zone.

and as much as i feel like it's what i need, it's not exactly what i want.  but i've been feeling that since i've reached a big milestone when it's come to letting go of fear and actually liking who i am, now i need to push myself.  

whether it's to meet new friends, or volunteer somewhere, or sing in front of a crowd, or shave my head...

who knows.  

but i have a feeling it's going to be hard, and really really good for me.

so buckle up!!

and a belated happy new year!!  

love, us