Halloween is not a happy time for me this year. There is no other way to say this. A year ago tonight Bob told me he wanted to separate. I had taken the kids out trick-or-treating by myself while he was working, and then when he came home, long after they were asleep, it happened. Life as I knew it started to creak and crack and crumble around me.
Today I am being gentle with myself. Although I acknowledge the feelings that come up, I am trying not to "dwell on it," as my mom used to say. I am focusing on getting some of my mountains of work done. I am focusing on having fun with the kids--this year we are teaming up with another family for trick-or-treat. I am going for a run. I am remembering to breathe. I am looking forward to tomorrow.
I am also reading Psalm 27. Yesterday I got a card from my Aunt Jan, my godmother, suggesting that I read the following verses:
1
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?
The LORD is the refuge of my life; of whom then should I go in dread?
7
Hear, O LORD, when I call aloud; show me favour and answer me.
14
Wait for the LORD; be strong, take courage, and wait for the LORD.
Because I cannot for the life of me find the white leather-bound Revised Standard Version my grandparents gave me as a kid (probably around the age I would have been confirmed if my family had stayed with a church), I have been using The New English Bible (Oxford Study Edition) I bought for Tony York's "History of the English Bible" course in grad school. Anglophile that I am, it's the very thing, except that I often miss the familiar cadences I recall.
Yes, Dear Reader, Saint Nobody has just put Bible verses on her blog. No, she has not gone off the deep end. Well, maybe she has, but she is starting to believe that a Presence, a Power is there to rescue her from the depths and buoy her to the surface. She's bobbing in the waves, getting some air, just enough to keep going, and sometimes more.
3 comments:
I hear ya. Hang in there.
Thank you. That helps. That helps a lot.
hi amy,
i'm sorry that halloween has been wrecked by a bad anniversary. if it's any solace, this is a bad day for me too, cuz three days after halloween in 2000 I was involuntarily committed to Harborview hospital for a month with postpartum psychosis. The bats and witches fly, and all I can think of is being whisked away in an ambulance to god knows where--leaving my newborn baby behind except for 1-2 hour visits.
But enough about me. The greatest healer is, of course, my kids. I watch them dance around in their costumes and I forget all about blue scrubs and my pleas for Ativan.
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