It's March and I haven't written since September of last year. That time frame depicts the busiest season of work, October through December, followed by the toughest part of my year, January through March. The high followed by the low. The best times followed by the worst, and almost completely unrelated.
I've been in business just long enough to realize that the last quarter is where I shine every year-I absolutely enjoy its busyness and promise of happy faces and clients. I'm at a spiritual and emotional high and energy abounds in ways I'll never understand due to doing what I'm made to do. Then comes Christmas in all of its glory and I enjoy the rest and time with my family. These are the best times and I look forward to them every year. Work excites me. It energizes me. January comes and things start to slow down to buckle in for the toughest part of winter in south Texas. Unfortunately, however, it's the time that my body and mind remember the hardest loss I've ever endured-the death of my father-and it pushes me to depletion. This year was harder than the years before it for reasons even I don't fully comprehend, but it's been a very hard couple of months to say the least on the spiritual front. Work is fine, but my heart and head is not. I've endured a lot of loss, depression, and rock-bottom moments to be honest. I've felt poured out and didn't have strength some days to face them alone.
Lathan, my six year old, came into my office and sat in my lap.
"I need your help. There's something you should know," he said.
"What is it?" I asked.
"That movie," he added. "As I was playing and talking to myself, I kept thinking about it and I'm scared." It wasn't the first time he mentioned the movie. Days (or weeks ago), he witnessed a scary part in a children's movie watched with his sister. There was a part where a character had to walk into the darkness and there were witches waiting for her there. For the life of me, I can't figure out why a children's movie would feel the need to add this kind of element of surprise and fill children with fear, but I can't turn the clock back now for him. It was enough to rock his little being. I never knew it bothered him until days later.
"I can't figure out how to get out of it," he said. He wanted to stop thinking about it and he needed my help to do that. He didn't want to let it consume him and change his decisions. The first time I heard it bothered him, I was asking him to get his shoes from the front hallway. It was during the evening and the hallway was dimly lit. He simply couldn't. He said he needed me to come with him and told me why. His memory of the scene decides where he can walk in this house, how he plays, and whether or not he can fall asleep peacefully. He came to me because he admitted that as he played using his imagination, the movie kept creeping in...and he wanted to get out of it.
As a parent, I want to fix it. I give him tools like, "Think of something that makes you happy. What makes you happy?"
"Power Rangers," he says laughingly. I laugh with him. I try to coach him into those happy places, assure him there is nothing to the movie, it's all made up, and there isn't anything dangerous in our home. He can play happily all he wants. But truthfully, honestly, I can't take the feeling or the fear away. I can't control his mind or heart. Although so many people would say he can, I have to say their solution of "just don't think about it" isn't actually controlling thoughts, it's more like avoiding them. Rerouting them. That certainly helps, but how do we obliterate them completely?
Every year before my Dad's birthday, my mind is occupied with his death. The grief is simply overwhelming. I try and try to forget it, but my whole body remembers and I dream dreams beginning in January. My body remembers how I wept and it returns to that state for the time being until it resurrects itself slowly after his anniversaries pass. He passed the day after his birthday, so they are two events in a row that I cope with. I always know it's coming and I tried to prepare this year like I do every year, but the grief hit with a force bigger than the world this time. I was completely poured out. I wanted to get out of it. I did. But I couldn't. I just had to go through the grief and let it pass. I couldn't control how long it would take or how it would feel. I just controlled if I reached out for help or not. If I stayed in bed or got up. If I called that friend or didn't. If I let myself go and cried or tried to hold it in. If I left the house or stayed in. To be honest, everything felt like a dream except the actual hurt. That felt more real than anything. Thinking happy thoughts, trying not to think about him, and picking myself up off the floor just wasn't going to work. The exact same strategies I would present to Lathan wouldn't work for me. I doubt they would actually work for him. He and I both needed help. God and a loved one that could usher us into peace.
Lathan and I are cut from the same cloth, which is good and bad. Our emotions drive us and we are passionate about our feelings. We feel deeply and it consumes us. We're all heart, I guess I would admit. But you know hearts...they're unpredictable and chase things they shouldn't. They feel things they shouldn't. But, they also keep special things more dear, serve others bigger, and love deeply. That's me and my son. It doesn't surprise me he can't figure out how to get out because I'm the same way. I am careful with what I watch or listen to-even now as an adult. Images and words stick in my mind, and the feelings they invoke in my heart affect my decisions. Seems like an unhappy life, but it's extremely wonderful, actually. I don't experience every part of the world, which is a blessing, for obvious reasons. After all, it's not "the world", per se, I'm trying to experience in my lifetime anyway. Places are important to me, yes. But it's the people of this world I want to know and love. It's the people that drive me. What I can do for them, pray for them, or help them with drive me. I don't always have much to give or even the strength to give a lot, but thankfully I've not been so foolish to believe that the help comes from me anyway.
So where does it come from? It comes from God. My talent, my service, and my help all come from a Source that lives deep within my heart. Spiritual traumas may win some battles, and the Source may be squelched by me or the evil that entangles me periodically, but my prayer is that I always allow the Spirit to come back and eventually win throughout each season. I went through a huge spiritual transformation about four years ago, and as a result, I've been given a new name and purpose. I pray I am forever growing and getting stronger in the Spirit, despite the lows and spiritual tragedies I face with the help of humility. And that's the coaching point I have for Lathan. Humble yourself and realize that you can't fight your fears alone. There is a Greater Power that will come as soon as you call. He will tell you what to do and send the right people to help you. Always seek and always come back to the Goodness.
"There's a battle going on in your heart, son....who's going to win? Jesus or the devil? Who's stronger?" I've asked. He always knows the right answers...those of us that are familiar with Jesus's story know how it ends eventually. But the battles still take place every day and we have the freedom to choose who the victor will be at that moment by our head. The Good victor enables us to get out of the nightmare we're in, in time...
"Speaking of, how’s your relationship with GOD? Have you prayed, worshipped, read the bible, or gone to serve the lord recently? If not, get up and do so NOW! I don’t care what point in our life we’re in right now, do it! He was mocked, beaten, tortured, and crucified for you! A sinless man, who never did you or any other person any wrong!" ~12 Year old Taylor Smith to 22 year old Taylor (assuming her birthday was the date she wrote the letter).
I'm pretty certain I wrote several letters to myself as a child in the future but I lost them along the way. I do remember thinking about all the wonderful things I would accomplish as an adult because I had high expectations as a child. I believed I had purpose in Christ and I would do great things. The mind of a child is such a gorgeous thing and mine was no different. Rio, my nine year old daughter, reminds me of it daily. Her mind is beautiful. I crave the positivity and innocence I had that she possesses. I try with all my might to preserve what I remember and resurrect it to my current being. It's a goal of mine to keep my childlike positive mindset throughout my lifetime, despite the trials and ugliness I face as an adult. As the letter Taylor wrote states, "Stuff has happened, good and bad. That's just how life works, and you have to go with it."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leave a comment