I couldn’t sort out my feelings, but now that I have, it’s too late …
“I couldn’t sort out my feelings,
But now that I have, it’s too late.
Right now, more than anything else,
I wish that time could wait.”
Earlier this weekend, I found this (poem? prose? sliver of a journal entry?) on a crumpled piece of notebook paper in my “I’ll get to it One Day or my kids will throw it all out for me one day when I am gone” area of my work space.
Do you have an area like that? I used to PRIDE myself on NOT having an area “like that.” But then I woke up one morning and realized that all of the people I trusted and enjoyed had areas “like that,” and all of the people who didn’t have such piles tended to scold everyone around them with words of “FAILURE! FAILURE!”
And man alive! Why did I EVER give one whit about what those people thought?! WHO. CARES.
You wanna know who your real friends are? Glance around and see if they let you into their piles. The messy places. And see if you let them into yours.
If you share the parts of your lives that DON’T make it onto Pinterest or FB or whatever the current hot social media app is? If you share your REAL lives?
Then HOORAY!
And guess what?!
You are HOVEL WORTHY, Baby!
Hovel Worthy friends are real.
Hovel Worthy friends don’t need to schedule a visit six weeks out.
If you are Hovel Worthy, then you are the friend who will be honored beyond honored by the call in the night or the knock on the door when your friend says: HELP! And you don’t need to hear even one more word because you are SO. THERE.
You don’t straighten. You don’t hide a little dust. No. You open your arms wide and then you snuggle one little one in on this side, another little one on the other side, Papa warms the bottle for the baby, you both make sure the dogs have fresh water and then? You keep one eye on the texts from the hospital all night long until you find out what the next day’s needs are going to be. Because you know you will move Heaven and Earth to be there for them.
Oh, dear God. Please help me to be this kind of friend! The kind of friend who “makes time wait” to use the phrase from my little poet friend.
(This poet, by the way, I’m fairly certain was a child without a forever home who was desperately trying to get to stay in ONE place, but she didn’t quite have the “right” words fast enough. After years of childhood trauma, every time something happened in a foster home, or at school, or on a playdate …. something happened and she froze. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t act. People called her “rude,” ”unloving,” “cold,” or “defiant.” And by the time her brain could sort through all of the DANGER DANGER adrenal responses so that she could find even just one or two words to speak … by the time she could take a breath and have sound in her throat again, “It was TOO LATE.”
The people who said they loved her kicked her out. Again.
Oh. Sure. The P/C term is “Asked to leave.” But the results were the same: She was a human being who longed for a home. She thought she had found a home. She was trying to risk and trust and be friendly and “normal” (and NOT give in to the deep deep fear that if she messed up, she would be kicked out).
But then something happened. She’s not even sure what happened because no one would even talk with her. Teach her. Give her the time to “sort out her feelings” and find her own voice. No.
She was “asked to leave.” It was “best for everyone.”
So I sit here today and I can’t help but wonder how hard it will be for her to risk and try again.
If you are in a situation like this, please risk and try again!!
“Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.” Psalm 27:9-10
With prayers and hope—
And tears—
Yours,
Tara B.