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April 22, 2006
Here's a New Post
I have decided to just start writing...because I know that it has been way too long since I have written. And I said that if people gave me suggestions, I would write. So here I am.
Some very good suggestions were submitted. The first one was submitted by someone who posts under the name of "mers." This person asked that I write some memories of my younger sister, Meredith Lee Di Natale Morris, and discuss how great she is.
Merry and I are vastly different. We always have been. I was always the good girl and she was always the black sheep. Now I am the one with all of the issues. Go figure.
In elementary school, I was always stressed out and uptight and trying so hard to get good grades...trying so hard not to get into trouble. Meanwhile, Merry was smoking behind the church building when she was supposed to be in Pioneer Girls. I always tried to stay as far away from trouble as I possibly could...and it seemed like Merry looked for it.
I always cared to the point of paranoia what everyone thought about me, and she couldn't have cared less. I was careful to coat each and every word in tact. . .she told it like it was. I would always try to make her more like me...cause I couldn't stand it when she got in trouble. And then at some point, I wished I could be more like her.
Sometimes we would fight like cats and dogs. I remember getting into knock-down drag out fights. And then our mom and dad would put us in a room together and we weren't allowed out until we put our arms around eachother and sang this song called "We love eachother." The song originated as a ploy to make our parents think we were so cute that they'd let us out of our room. But then it backfired and they made us put our arms around eachother and sing it everytime we fought, before we were allowed out. as penance.
So we would, through clenched teeth, sing that we loved eachother as fast as we could, hating every moment of it. And our parents would say, "nope, go back in there and don't come out until you sing it like you mean it." Infuriating! If we wanted to get out of our room, we would have to work together to sing our song like we meant it. Eventually we ended up laughing, anyway.
For many years, Mer and I shared a double bed. We both were sent to bed at 7:00 pm every night. Of course, we couldn't fall asleep at that point. So we would while away the hours trying to make eachother laugh. Eventually, she would fall asleep first. And I would be left alone, wide awake. And i would pry open her eyelids and try to get her to wake up and talk to me, but she'd already be in dreamland. It wasn't nearly as much fun after she fell asleep.
Even to this day, if Merry and I happen to be somewhere where we have to share a bed, we will not be able to contain ourselves...we will end up laughing until we are crying. At the stupidest things that no one else would understand. Two years ago, I was going through such a difficult time that I asked Merry to come and spend the night. Jason was out of town and my kids had been totally sick and I was struggling inside with a lot of things. So she came. And when it was time for bed, it was just like old times. We just started laughing about stuff, some of the same stuff that used to make us laugh as kids. I felt like it was the first time I had laughed in ages and ages. And then, as always, she drifted off to sleep. And i was left wide awake. But this time I restrained myself from prying open her eyelids.
Merry ...as I write her name, I think to myself, are we really grown up now? Could it really be that all of these years have passed by? It's crazy...it feels like yesterday that we were laughing in bed on a hot summer's evening...she, four...I, seven... the sun still completely up, our neighbors mowing the lawn, and the neighborhood kids coming up to our bedroom window to see if we could play. We had to pretend like we were doing something super fun and not let them see that we were in our nightgowns and in bed...we couldn't let everyone know our mom sent us to bed at 7:00 pm. It would have ruined us socially. It was our secret. We kept it well.
I guess it doesn't matter how much time has gone by, those two little girls live on. And I'm so thankful that they do. And she's still the same Merry, and I'm still the same me, and we are still very different, but we are always an inseparable part of eachother. We are eachother's history.
And if you ever hear two small girls laughing on a hot summer's night, you can go up to their bedroom window and ask them to come out and play, and they will tell you they are involved in something way too much fun to discontinue. And if you think they may be bluffing, stick around outside and listen, and you will learn that this is indeed more true than even they know.
Posted by darby on 08:37 PM | Comments (19)
April 19, 2006
I Will Write If You Will Give Me A Topic
I would totally love to write something, but I am sitting here at a complete loss of what to write about. I have thought about it every day for a while...I just can't think of anything that inspires me. The things I think about lately would be pretty intense and depressing. So, give me a topic...ask me a question...anything, anything at all....and then I will be happy to write!
Posted by darby on 04:42 PM | Comments (16)
April 08, 2006
More Lyrics to A New Song
Here are the lyrics to the most recent song I've written, called A Lullabye for the Broken Heart.
Your night is long, the sun is slow in rising
This I know cause I hold every tear you've ever cried
And the answers you seek I am not free in providing
Even so, it's gets darker before dawn's saving light
But I know you'll see someday everything will be ok
Though the hour is far away, hold on til tomorrow
And if heartache greets you there, I'll shoulder all that you can't bear
You protest but this despair will all make sense
You'll understand someday
Your mind can't rest, you wrestle with this question:
If I love my child, why all the senseless pain?
If I'm good like I say, what then could be my intention
To allow such grief and not take it away?
Do you remember when you were a child
All those dark nights when you'd pray
Closing your eyes, you'd wish someone was there
So you wouldn't be afraid
You thought I never heard you
Or turned a deaf ear to your cry
But it was I who gave you slumber and sang this lullabye
Remember? You'll see, someday everything will be ok
Though the hour is far away, hold on til tomorrow
And if heartache greets you there, I'll shoulder all that you can't bear
You protest but this despair will all make sense, you'll understand some day
Oh....one thing you need to know...you were never to blame
Posted by darby on 07:39 AM | Comments (10)
April 05, 2006
Crying So Much That Snot Is Dripping Into My Hair
I haven't really been able to cry much over the past...well, almost 3 years. I've always hated to cry, but up until the past three years, at least I could cry, if I really needed to. But being unable to cry has felt a lot like having a stomach virus and not being able to throw up.
It's like having a lifetime of pain trapped inside...with no way to get it out. There have been times when I have started to cry, but then I am so aware that I am crying that I stop and lose the ability. It has been a very strange psychological defense mechanism of some kind. . . and the only time I have really been able to cry has been in my dreams. I wake up and my pillow is soaked.
Today, however, I cried like I haven't cried in ages. I've never really cried in therapy before (and I've been going for over two and a half years.) But today we were talking about something that I have wrestled with for my whole life. I've always wanted to believe that God is real, and I've lived much of my life like I do believe this. But I have never been able to grasp any kind of constancy or permanence about God. Any time there has been some kind of a peace inside that "yes, there truly is a God..." it quickly fades away, like a mist.
And then I am left feeling worse than before the little glimpse of peace came to me. Because I am left to everything within me that says, that was just your imagination...you wish there was a God...so you imagine that he is trying to communicate with you...
Yes, I do wish with all of my heart that there is a God. Although, I wish with all of my heart that he is not the God that I have heard about so often....a God who hates those who aren't Christians, a God who created some people to suffer eternal damnation...a God who gives us exactly what we are afraid of to make us better people... an angry God, a God of judgement and wrath....this god, well....he is a fucking asshole. And I hate him.
Of course as I write this, I battle the voices inside of so many who have instructed me over the years...I can't just make up the kind of God I want to worship. I must worship the God of the Bible, I must accept the Truth about God, and all of that Truth is to be found only in the Bible.
Unfortunately, at this point, I hate the Bible. Ashamed to admit it, but it's true. I read it, and all I see is condemnation. All I see is death, not life. All I see is a dictator who created me against my will, abandoned me in this evil world, and commands me to deal with it and worship him.
The thing I want most of all is a relationship with God, if he is there. I want that so badly, I wish so hard for it, just like I wished I had a magic wand when I was a little girl...to make everything better. It seems to good to be true that there is a God who is kind and gentle and merciful, someone who understands and loves me, someone who really wants me to be his daughter, just because. It seems too good to be true that there is a God who loves all people, a God who cares about people's suffering more than I do, a God who somehow balances Sovereignty and the gift he gave mankind to make up our own minds. It's hard to believe that there is someone good who has everything under control. That even when things look completely hopeless, there is someone actively working to turn what looks like an impossible situation into something better than what I thought was "supposed" to happen.
If there is a God, why can't I find him? Why can't I find him in a way that I can hold onto him? I'm crushed that I have been looking for this God for three decades...doesn't he want me? I've been searching for him for years and years and years, only to catch those fleeting glimpses here and there that vanish as quickly as they came. I cannot survive on that. I am left with only doubt. Zero percent faith. I want to believe, but I can't. How do people know for sure? Is everyone just wishing? Just hoping? Just imagining something they need to imagine...to ease the bitter pill of living in this terrifying world? Conjuring up their own faith, like a child makes up an imaginary friend?
And if God is just imaginary, well...I'm devastated. I want it to be true more than anything. I am desperate. I am so lonely inside. i am so hopeless. I am in such despair. Such torment. I am exhausted from searching with all of my heart for the One who is supposed to fill the emptiness. I'm supposed to have him in my heart....and yet, I am empty. There is no life. Only fear. Terror, really.
Well, I'm running on reserve battery power and I can't find the power cord. So i will soon be gone. But just so you know, the reason I cried like someone was wringing me out like a sponge....my therapist suggested something that we've never done before...(we usually work on the psychological and don't bring the spiritual into it at this point.) We were both to remain silent after she said "I'm going to ask God where he is in all of this...in all of this pain of wishing there was a God but never knowing, and see if he has anything to say."
So we were silent. And thus the tears began. I felt like someone was squeezing the air out of my lungs, and wringing my heart, and crushing my head with pain. I was overwhelmed with sorrow over the God that I have looked for all my life, but cannot find.
Posted by darby on 09:10 PM | Comments (7)
April 04, 2006
Thunderstorm
Last night, as I was getting into bed, there was a wonderful thunderstorm. A good thunderstorm is one of my favorite things in the entire world. For some reason, they make me feel so safe, even if I am standing outside.
I know I inherited this love of thunderstorms from my Dad. I remember him standing outside on the porch, looking up into the sky, watching the storm...it always seemed to bring him peace, and it does the same for me. There is something strangely soothing about a huge storm, and I don't really know why.
Maybe it's cathartic. It's just so amazing....all of that noise, filling the sky. All of that light, especially when you can actually see the lightening bolt tear across the sky. It's absolutely overwhelming. It fills me with something that I need, something that I can't find anywhere else. I don't know exactly what it is.
I have never been afraid of thunderstorms, even as a child. My Mom was deathly afraid of them, and when they would happen when she was around, we would sing, "When You Walk Through A Storm" to help her calm down. But like I said, my Dad would feel the wind start to whip up that meant a storm was coming, and i could see the excitement in his eyes. He would invite us out onto the porch and we would calculate how far away the storm was by counting the seconds between the thunder and the lightening.
Last summer,when my kids were in bed, and when I knew the storm was still relatively far away, i went outside and swung on our backyard swing and watched the thunder and lightening. I'm sure I must have looked a little insane, because it was getting dark, and when the lightening flashed, there was my illuminated silouette swinging like a madman in the pouring rain. But it was wonderful. So very wonderful.
Anyway, I love the storm season, and I'm glad it's on it's way. And if you happen to drive by my house during a storm, take a peek into the backyard, and the crazy one on the swing will be me.
Posted by darby on 08:47 PM | Comments (5)