Monday, October 26, 2015

Beige.

That's how I feel.  Just beige.

I've had a few people ask why I haven't been writing as of late.  The answer is easy:  I'm a downer.  Even I grow weary of my downerness (pretty sure I just made that word up).

But I just can't shake that feeling.

I guess I'm pretty lonely too.  Even when I stand amongst a crowd of people, I still feel isolated and alone.  Quite honestly, I hardly feel like leaving the house anymore because of it.  At home there is no one to cluck their tongue at me in disdain or pity.

Am I depressed?  Probably.  But don't you think I deserve that excuse for at least a while?  I think so.

I worry that I'm too short-tempered and impatient for my kids.  That I let them watch too much television and spend too much time on the computer.  I know they've had way too much soda lately and not enough vegetables.  Bad attitudes, disobedience, and disrespect seem to be too commonplace in my home now.

But I have no answers to improve the situation.  I'm too tired to make anymore decisions by myself.

By myself.  When I wake up in the middle of the night and can't stop the memories from "that" weekend in January, there is no one to talk with me about it.  No one who understands.  There is no one to tell me what to do with naughty boys and broken cars and full septic tanks.

Maybe beige is the color of loneliness.  With nary a sparkle to be found.

3 comments:

Jeanne said...

My Julie. I hear you. I can only imagine -- or cannot imagine, rather -- the loneliness and overwhelmedness of facing so much without Bill. Naughty boys are daunting with two parents on board; your parenting power is more than halved. More than because I know you guys were like us in that there is Mom, Dad, and Mom&Dad, which gives you three ways to address the challenges. You are down to "just Mom" and it is not enough for septic tanks and broken cars.

I am thinking of you and praying for you. I don't know what autumn is like there, but our Virginia is getting ready for the total burst of color, so I wish for you some of that against your beige, some way for you to find it.

Love you.

Unknown said...

Oh, my dear friend -- how my mother/wife heart aches for you. I, too, have no words which can bring the comfort and aid which your void so desperately craves. While we all have our times of colorlessness (there's my contribution to the New Word Dictionary), living in that space is not where I have been as you are now. But perhaps the monochrome nothingness you are experiencing is like the artist's blank palette awaiting the splashes of brilliant color which he will use to create his next masterpiece that will one day grace the world with new vibrancy. I wonder if God isn't like that; He will one day lift up the palette of your flattened, paled life and use it as the background of a New Thing, rich with those undefinable hues of sorrow and weeping which somehow are transformed under His Perfect Artistry into glorious, unfolding grace. I know this doesn't help you feel less colorless this day, but I continue to lift you before the Father of Light, in Whom there is no shadow of turning, praying you will one day feel the caress of His perfect brushstroke. Loving you this day, dear sister.

Unknown said...

Oh, my dear friend -- how my mother/wife heart aches for you. I, too, have no words which can bring the comfort and aid which your void so desperately craves. While we all have our times of colorlessness (there's my contribution to the New Word Dictionary), living in that space is not where I have been as you are now. But perhaps the monochrome nothingness you are experiencing is like the artist's blank palette awaiting the splashes of brilliant color which he will use to create his next masterpiece that will one day grace the world with new vibrancy. I wonder if God isn't like that; He will one day lift up the palette of your flattened, paled life and use it as the background of a New Thing, rich with those undefinable hues of sorrow and weeping which somehow are transformed under His Perfect Artistry into glorious, unfolding grace. I know this doesn't help you feel less colorless this day, but I continue to lift you before the Father of Light, in Whom there is no shadow of turning, praying you will one day feel the caress of His perfect brushstroke. Loving you this day, dear sister.