Shiftin and Twisted
I'm sitting on my couch snuggled up with my favorite blanket. The sound of whispers and steady, deep breathing coming from the girls' room tells me that one is still up playing with her teddy bear and one is already asleep. The clock is ticking. The fire in the fireplace sounds like the rustle and snap of freshly cleaned sheets hanging on the line.
Everything is quiet.
I should be at peace.
I should be content in my life right now.
Finances are tight, but since when is that anything new?
Church life is... church life. I love being there. I love serving. I love the people. I love our pastors.
My home is as clean as it will ever be with two small people growing here.
And I... I am treading water in a vast and endless sea. It's dark. And though I twist my body in all directions looking for a distant light - some sign of a heading - I am at a loss. Every now and then, from the corner of my eye, I catch a glimmer of hope. I jerk my body this way and that, only to discover that, again, the moon's reflection has mislead me, shifting and twisted as I am shifting and twisted.
Still I tread water, because giving up is not an option. Because people depend on me to do what I have always done - stay afloat. Their survival depends on mine, and so I will keep kicking my feet into the inky swirl that pulls me downward. Shifting and twisted, as I am shifting and twisted.
As I look back over the past seven years, I realize that - despite my planning and plotting, despite my dreaming and visualizing, despite the busyness and stress - we never had a plan. Not really.
We went whichever way the wind carried us. At several points, the wind was violent and cruel, but we just opened our sails wider and let it pull us farther and farther away from the shore. We were blown from Georgia to Tennessee, back to Georgia then to Korea, and finally back to Tennessee. Every heading felt new and fresh and like it would push us toward our goal - the horizon.
Now all I see is horizon, and I can't make heads nor tails of it. I never bothered learning the stars. I never took a moment to figure out north from south, east from west. We sailed head first into the wind and waves and let them carry us away.
I feel paralyzed. Head in the wrong direction, and I will only be pushing myself farther into the damp abyss that surrounds me. Head in the right direction, and I may end up on shore, only to long once again for the horizon.
Either way, I see a long agonizing swim with no guarantee of what lies in wait at the other end.
So I tread water. Because giving up is not an option. Shifting and twisted, as I am shifting and twisted.