Lightning

by Mrs. Smith on July 28, 2018

I love lightning. It’s powerful, unstoppable, and spontaneous – that incomparable flash of something so bright it would hurt if it weren’t so fleeting, and almost always against a dark, gloomy backdrop… It’s breathtaking.

You never know exactly when, where, or how it’s going to strike. I think that’s why I love a good lightning storm so much — it’s like a game, trying to “catch” it by looking in the right place at the right time, and then when you’ve seen it, there’s the suspense of waiting for the rumble… It’s so fun!

I’d like my blog to capture the lightning that hit me this week, but I rarely write about difficult things as they’re happening… so it’s hard.

It’s way hypocritical of me, because I totally love when people are real about struggles. Some people just have a knack for sharing hard things in a profoundly positive way. It may very well be a “negative,” profoundly hard thing they’re dealing with, but it doesn’t come across as whining. It comes across as REAL. It’s somehow uplifting to hear about it and definitely an overall positive because it allows people to show compassion and serve and know they aren’t alone in dealing with hard things, and all that good stuff.

There’s so much power in vulnerability. It opens the door to so much good.

I know all that. My wanting to show only happy things here is not a whining-avoidance-strategy. It’s probably pride-driven.

If I do own up to real life being hard, I like to do it in past tense. It’s kind of like pretending to be vulnerable, so I like to think it kind of counts. Ha!

“Yes, bad stuff happens to me… but I overcame it and lived through it and learned from it and I’m soooooooo much better now, see?”

Sound familiar?

Yep. Totally my persona online.

The thing is… Lightning is hard to capture. If you aren’t right there, you’ll miss it.

And this week, it was lightning. Right on top of me.

It hit so hard and slammed me down so far I couldn’t even see straight. (That was Monday.) Again and again and again, all week. ZAP, ZAP, ZAP, with hardly any breathing room in between. By the time I could get my bearings and come up for air (Friday)… the lightning was gone.

So…. Bummer.

Sorry, world. I’d like to be more truly vulnerable in that way that blesses others and let’s them know that it’s okay if life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows all the time… I tried with that annoying/endless series of posts about the junk that happened when I took myself off Facebook… but…

That stuff was almost nothing, actually. That was thunder in the distance. After this week-from-you-know-where, that stuff was pretty much like a speed bump compared to a head-on collision.

It was lightning this week.

And I have no idea how to write about it.

But the silver linings are…

Now I can really talk with Mr Smith instead of just wanting to talk, or thinking I’m talking with him. No. None of that any more.

Now I can really communicate with him on a deeper level. Now that I’ve seen the difference more clearly between just normal friend-sharing and marriage-sharing… wow. We did this kind of soul-bonding conversing when we were dating. It was easy. It’s why I knew he was The One right off the bat like I did.

Aw, mushy stuff.

But is hasn’t been that way lately. It’s been months that I’ve been really distant without even trying. I didn’t even really notice I was doing that. So now I’ve repented, seen the light, and I share the hard stuff now.

To be honest, though, telling Mr Smith what’s really on my mind it still scares the sheet out of me quite often, but THERE’S A GOOD REASON FOR THAT.

And the reason is, HOLY FREAKING COW, it turns out that talking openly with him about those little weird PTSD-ish kinds of things that I slightly bump into now that then? Oh my gosh. If I talk about them with my close friends? no big deal. If I share it with him? WHAM. Then they freaking land on me like a 2-ton anvil. SPLAT. It just rips the lid right off of that thing and it allllllllll comes out.

So THAT’S why I did NOT want to open up to him.

Ha.

Now I know.

Fortunately, there’s only so much in each “can” and even more fortunately, it appears that when I talk it out with him, it resolves. It gets healed. It just gets SO much better after that, the trigger isn’t there at all any more. I’m more free to be just me instead of “me with all these things that shut me down.” …But unfortunately, it’s a highly uncomfortable (almost-unbearable) process. BLEH.

It’s so ugly. It’s so hard. It’s so ultra-crappy I can’t even describe it.
Knock you off your feet, punch in the gut grief.
Scared out of your mind, absolutely paralyzing fear.
Depression so thick you can’t see any light anywhere.
Feelings so intense you loose the ability to use almost any kind of cognitive reasoning.

That kind of stuff. For just a little while — maybe 30 minutes? — until it lifts and clears and things are better than they were before.

And yes, I definitely do (sarcastically) say, “Well now. Aren’t you SOOOOOOO glad I’m talking?! Isn’t this sooooooooooo much better!”

UGH.

And he holds me close and gently says, “Yes, it is. Because now we can share this, and really, isn’t that better?”
UGH.
MUSH.
I guess, yeah, I suppose it is.

But it’s still not fun. I hate it. It’s like getting hit by lightning.

But I do like feeling better, so I supposed I should gracefully slip into gratitude here… but the process was too painful and it’s too recent to feel much positivity.

I don’t want to be ungrateful. It’s just that it was ugly-hard. Really really really REALLY HARD. Several times this week and I’m burned out. Pun intended, bwahaha.

So, gratitude?

I’m super grateful that these experiences are isolated to those “therapeutic” conversations.
I’m super grateful that I’m not getting hit by lightning all the time.
Oh, oh, here’s another one — I’m be grateful in advance that it won’t always be this way.

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Uncle Greg September 5, 2018 at 2:11 pm

Love this post. It’s not easy to bare your soul to someone else, however, by doing so the healing process is faster and your awesome husband will better know how to help you and understand you. This post made me feel good, in that we all have difficulties with this issue and that you are not alone at all. I hope you know that and realize that.

Last week I got the idea to pray for correction from God. He is gentle, He is kind, He is loving and will always help us and pull us through our hard time IF we turn to Him. Heaven knows there have many times I have turned away and that never works out good.

How grateful I am for our Savior and Redeemer!

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Mrs. Smith September 19, 2018 at 1:30 pm

Love this! Thank you so much! 🙂

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