Worry-free...I hope

Lent.

My favorite time of year is finally here!

This is the time of year that I work my hardest to live a better life. I always try to give up something that will help me to become a better person, in the past I tried getting rid of all of my "extra," worked to finish everything I started, stop procrastinating and being late for everything. For those that know me, please regain your composure and have a little faith that one day, I will be awesome at one of those things...maybe.

This year?

I am going to trust God and I really want to succeed.

What does that even mean?

I am truly going to put my life in God's hands. I know that I am supposed to do that anyway, but I usually fall short. For the next forty days I am really going to work hard at trusting him and it is so important that I do it more than ever.

About a month ago I got fired from the job that brought me to Terre Haute.

Well, to hear my bosses tell it , I am not going to be renewed for the next fiscal year. Geoff worked really hard to word it so I shouldn't feel fired and even told me that I was exceptional at the job I was doing. But really? I am not going to have a job on June 30th and it was not my idea to stop working and in my book that equals fired. Right?

I am not at all surprised because though I am pretty exceptional at my job, it wasn't exactly the job they'd wanted me to do. I had been struggling for a while with their expectations: they want me to be more administrative in my role  and I...want to do outreach. So, when I left our meeting knowing I would possibly unemployed in four months that along with everything I was feeling, I experienced relief.

That was when I made the decision to trust God and His plan for me.

Please don't think this has been easy for me, relieved or not, getting fired offers a quite a blow to the ego. I can't help but question if I could have made it all work if I would have tried harder. Even though I knew there were certain aspects of my job that were not making me happy and I was sacrificing so much of my sanity just trying to get it right, I felt like I should deal with it. I mean, there was a reason I came here, right? It hurts a lot that I couldn't make this work, that my flaws outweigh my assets. That no matter how you slice it, I wasn't good enough. It might take a while to get past that.

As I make plans to leave, I have been trying to wrap my head around what all of this means. What have I learned? How have the last two and half years made me better? What was the point of me coming here at all? And more importantly, what's next?

To find the answers to all of those questions (especially the last one), I am going to work hard at not worrying. When I fail to trust God, I make pretty horrible decisions and manage to make myself and everyone else miserable as we all try to pick up the pieces. Through my reflection, I am going to better understand God's plan for my life. I am going to follow the adage of praying as everything depends on God while working as everything depends on me.

My hope is to make this Lent a time of transformation and I can't do that if I am constantly worrying about what comes next. I want to make it so that even if I don't know what I am doing by April 20th, that I will have a peace that will carry me through the Easter season until I know what that next step will be.

I am on my way to get my ashes now, and even though they won't show up (they rarely do!) I will don them proudly knowing that with this season of sacrifice, I am going to let all of that worry fall away. I am going to trust that this next step is in God's hands and this Lent is going to great!

Do me a favor:

I might not do so well as this task, please remind me of my trust in God's will in two weeks when you find me in the corner sleep deprived, with tear-stained checks frantically updating my resume for the millionth time while trying to figure how this whole Linked In thing works. I would really appreciate it!

Divine Mercy

I walked into my Holy Hour with the wieght of the week as I usually do Fridays at 1a.

Life and work on my mind and I feel like I am at the end of my rope. I am usually in a rush because I snoozed my adoration alarm more than I should have and pull up to the chapel praying that God will keep me awake for the next hour so Kay won't catch me sleeping like she has more than once. By the time I get there,  Hazel is ready to go and I feel a bit guilty that it is one on the dot. I sign in, grab a rosary and finally face the reason I am there.

Him.

My Lord and My God.

That is what my heart says when I see the Blessed Sacrament and I forget all it took to get me here. I just kneel before the altar and let my week fall away.

Today is no different. After having a stressful work experience today that threatened to ruin what was a pretty good week. An experience that made me wonder if this Faith of mine was something I could really grab on to when needed.  And if it was worth all the trouble.

When I got here, I didn't need wonder anymore.

I knelt before the altar and let my week fall away.

Now I sit here in awe if the power of God that allows Jesus to present to is in the Blessed Sacrament and my faith is tangible once again.

One day. I'm gonna learn

I don't know when, but one day I will accept that I can't do it on my own.

Today's lesson involves a couch. Remember the (porch) couch I got from Maggie when I first moved here? Well, the time has come for it to leave my apartment!  Actually,  the time came when I was rearranging my apartment and cursing out Katherine Heigl and bought a new couch, but the old couch is SO DARN HEAVY!!! Sassy and I had a helluva time just sliding it to the other side of my apartment one night...indeed it was another (positive) rearranging fit.

Anyway, I was having coffee with a friend the other day and she mentioned that she didn't have a couch and I jumped on the chance to get it the hell out of my house.  Out damned couch, out!

That leads me to this morning where I decided I could move it and load it onto my friend's pickup truck he was letting me borrow...all by myself. You know me, stubborn as hell problem solver I am!

It's stuck.  The couch is stuck inbetween landings and it has no intention of leaving.  I believe it discovered it has squatter's rights and has taken up residence in my hallway.  This wouldn't be so bad...if my neighbors didn't have to leave to home to live their lives and stuff.

So now I am waiting for Roger. He was super excited to wake up this morning to get me out of an avoidable jam, but I am his hag and he will do anything for me. I should have just called him in the first place...

Fakin' It

I am in a weird place. 

Have been since I had that break down on Isaiah's tenth birthday. I have been struggling in my confidence and self worth and really having a hard time not seeing myself as that really messed up, sad and confused 23 year old.

I realized the other day that I have been employing the "fake it 'til you make it" way of life. I have been doing a bang up job of faking it, but I don't know if I am gonna make it. Also, it is getting a hell of a lot harder to maintain. People are starting to notice the cracks and at some point I have to come out of hiding.

I haven't felt like myself in a long time and I have no idea what to do about it. By the grace of 

God I got through the month of May and I had mission trips all of June, but when July came around I kind of just gave up. 

I had the opportunity to face my demons, instead I just ignored them and wallowed. I don't know how exactly to get on track, but I plan to. 

I just need a little help.

Railroaded

Ok, one thing I haven't mentioned that much are the trains.  The trains are just AWFUL! I have been stuck at this train for a half an hour now. While I appreciate the downtime, my boss at the mall is going to start to get peeved if I don't show up to work soon. 

They always seem to show up at the most inopportune times, like when I am running late for work or a movie or when I have to pee.

As I sit here eating milk duds and listening to showtunes,  it doesn't seem so bad. I have the windows down and the weather's nice so I am going to enjoy the remaining moments of peace until I have to paste a smile on my face while helping last minute shoppers look for Mother's Day gifts. 

When I first moved here, I remember telling my teens that I have started to get "trained" all the time and I never know what to do. One of them turned bright red and said "No, Lainie, no! Who else have you said the to?"

"I don't know, anyone else I talk to, I guess. "

He violently shook his head and looked to his friend for guidance. Sensing my confusion he tried to explain in the most appropriate way that saying I get "trained" all the time is like telling people that I get gang-banged on a regular basis.

Poor guy. No kid should ever have to tell an adult that they sound like a slut.

I learned a new word that day: railroaded.

Looks like the train is moving so I will get on my way to selling moderately priced soaps...it is my calling for one more day.

Friends in Low Places

Prue wasn't taking no for an answer.

After spending an hour and half in my car trying to stop crying earlier tonight, I drove to Cheeseburger In Paradise to meet the girls for karaoke. I pulled into my parking spot and wiped frantically at my eyes  and decided that maybe I wouldn't go in tonight and was ready to head home when CeeCee pulled up right next to me.

She comforted me for a while and then agreed when I told her I was gonna go home. I asked her to get Prue so that I could see her before I left and that was my first mistake.

When she walked to my car, Prue looked like a woman on a mission and if I were smart, I should have hit the gas and I would for sure be spending an evening at home.

Prue had other ideas.

In the time it took her to walk out to my car, she had convinced CeeCee that the best place for me to be was with friends and like I said, she was not taking no for an answer.

Once inside, I did have a good time. It didn't take my mind off Isaiah and all the things going on with me, it did make me feel better.

We spent our time being karaoke regulars (which is much cooler than it sounds), complete with laying claim to songs, swooning over the group that comes in every week to sing boy band songs and commenting on the vocal improvement our fellow singers have made over the last six months.

By 10 o'clock, we were treated to the rhythmic stylings of an incredibly awkward girl that may have been drunk. Then we named her Drawkward.

I laughed for the first time in at least a week. And I laughed a lot.

I even played the part of Drawkward when her and some friends sang "Fantastic Voyage" while trying not to laugh. CeeCee wasn't so lucky. She cried her eyes out from laughing by the time I got back to the table.

By the time I got in my car to drive home, I had a smile on my face and I was singing under my breathe.

Though Drawkward helped, having friends that know what I need may have just made my week.

I just wanna feel normal again

I have been crying or on the verge of crying for the last few days. Since Isaiah's birthday I have been falling apart more and more.

These two weeks are the worst.

Every year from April 29th until Mother's Day, I am a complete wreck. It takes so much work to function properly, but somehow (definitely by the grace of God), I manage.

This is the time of year that I relive EVERYTHING. I don't try to, the memories just keep flooding back and in an instant I am 23, post-partum, feeling abandoned and looking for a clue as to what comes next.

I still looked pregnant a week later and I remember waiting for a bus when a man asking when I was due (rude!) and I broke down crying and told him about Isaiah, the adoption and the stupid cow of a nurse that made me carry him out. When the bus came, he didn't get on. I don't blame him.

I was in Target with friends when I started lactating and I had a melt down as they frantically searched for boob pads.

I didn't think I could take anymore of this.

I remember wanting to end it, but I couldn't bear what that would do to Isaiah once he was old enough to understand. 

The day I had to sign over my rights,  Isaiah was a week old. The clerk explained to me in everyway she knew how that this was irrevocable. That no matter what the Strides has promised,  I would have no rights to Isaiah and Illinois does not recognize open adoption agreements.

I will admit that it felt like hours until I signed the papers,  but once my pen left the paper, I remember feeling like I would survive this.  I didn't know how or when, I just knew that I would.

When the day comes when I can say that I have, I will let you know.

Looking back,  I know I have come incredibly far. Little by little I have been able to move on with my life.

Moving to Terre Haute was a huge step because I have never been more than 45 minutes away from Isaiah and his family. I lost touch for a while,  and I felt both miserable and free not being someone's birthmom even for a little bit.

Though I have no regrets, it sometimes cripples me that I can't shake this title and I am pretty sure my self esteem won't recover from the hit it took while earning it.

I am always going to be Isaiah's birthmom. Though I am in no way ashamed of him, I am still ashamed of me. In my mind I am always going to have to live down the decisions I made almost eleven years ago. 

Don't get me wrong, there are times when I am fine. When I can talk to him on the phone or visit without falling apart. There are times when I can share my story with more peace than I know what to do with.

This is not one of those times.

I know I am not in a good place.

This place is as dark as it is cramped. Only room for me and Jesus, he'll lead me out when I'm ready.

Just pray for me.