Life's been good to me so far

We have Christmas pandora playing, and just finished putting lights, a star and a few things on our Christmas tree - which we purchased earlier today from some Methodist kids who are doing great things for foster children in central Florida's DCF system. Their explanations of their work made me cry, after I had written the check, such that I ended up rushing back to the van, Grant and my purse to find stray dollars for their tip jar.

Our Christmas tree is always a little barren at first, since we have to string up and bake most of our ornaments (popcorn, cranberries, gingerbread and stained glass cookies...and candy canes we just haven't bought yet since we have to find corn free ones).

Izzy is over and helping Annie string ribbon on baskets, and using it to attach pine cones to wreaths. Jake and Elise are mostly using the ribbon to get cats to chase after them.

Our Thanksgiving was pretty great :) It was smaller than some years - we "only" had Shaun, Robbie and Correy, and Gloria and LJ here. My Dad is really sick and couldn't come, and Laura got too excited about finally having a big kitchen and space for real meals, and did her own thing. She and Brian and Isabel are also all sick, now - we took her some drinks and popsicles and things earlier because Frank's back on shifts...

Last night, though - I get pretty overwhelmed with how wonderful it is to be able to host a big feast, and with our resources for making it special. Grant always does a ton of yard work, deck cleaning and furniture moving beforehand.

I snagged this "almost ready" picture from inside the dining room:


And then Grant took this after people had started to arrive:


Neither shows the food tables set up with plants, candles and a ton of stuff. I was all silly-satisfied with it :)

Interestingly, I didn't feel the horror of moving that I expected to - I felt like this is great, and having an adventure and finding other great things is cool, too.

It was really cold (for us: 57 - keep in mind everyone is barefoot in totally inappropriate clothing) outside, and as the evening wore on we decided on a projector movie in the yard, so in addition to being the AV guy G set up electric blankets on the trampoline, hammock and bench swing, and passed out little "hot hands" packs. He even put a bunch things in the dryer for people. I made a big pot of hot chocolate and ladeled it for a line.

Great stuff :)

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I keep having these horrible, epic-length (feeling) dreams about people close to me dying. It happened again today, during a nap. They twist and turn through so much plot. I had one where Grant died, and I had time within this freakin' dream to cry until I threw up, and have to talk to our kids, and be so so freaked by having to call his mother, and discover some tampering with our back windows (we lived in some other house) that made me think he'd been murdered and get scared that there might be a killer out there - just FUCKING UGH. Today's was about being told by one of my mom's exes that my brother was dead up in Lakeland and some other ex of hers was responsible. Again I had the burden of sharing news with people who could not cope with it, in addition to dealing with my own grief, and again the fear of somebody dangerous still possibly being out there. There was another one in between them that sucked, but the details faded with time. I wake up from these with a stomachache, feeling tired inside.

I swear.

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Grant and I are at such a weird point, as a couple, and sometimes I really want to write about it. But I don't know how to convey it properly, and always come back around to it not being anybody's business, anyway. We love each other, and say that a lot - we talk honestly and enjoy each other's company. We're both also in separate individual counseling, and unsure about whether or not the two of us make a lot of sense together outside of the context of the family. There's a lot of affection, but no sex, and (surprise!) this time it's me that just isn't into it. I think each of us is growing, as a person, and we're both thankful for the other...neither of us has given up on the marriage, either... but we're both really thoughtful, and open to a lot of options we haven't been in the past, and - taking it one day at a time? I guess? With the understanding that we both need a lot of patience and that the one day at a time is gonna go on for months. Neither of us can tell if all the traveling he has to do in the coming weeks, for work (and has been doing) is a good, serendipitous thing because we each need some space...or kinda horrible because we never have any time for "us," and are having to learn to live without each other whether we like it or not.

There is no doubt whatsoever that we make a great team.

I am really, really enjoying "the holidays" already, and it's a good thing to share.

I have these dreams, recurring dreams for years now, that involve us living in some place we have lived for a very long time - often what seems to be either a two story house or a big suite in a hotel - and suddenly remembering some long forgotten HUGE CRAZY SPACE behind a closed door.

It's not at all like discovering the space or finding it for the first time, it's very much "Oh yeah, how in the hell have we just forgotten/not used AN ENTIRE GIANT COURTYARD FULL OF GARDENS AND SWIMMING POOLS, we should be out here every day with the kids, talk about wasteful!" or "Whoa...how have we continued living here as though THAT MASSIVE TERRIFYING HAUNTED WING WE CAN'T BEAR TO SET FOOT IN IS NOT JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF AN UNLOCKED DOOR!! We need to move, stat, before the horror within gets out and finds us here in the hallway, not just let it slide for another YEAR."

The many-roomed scary wing of the two story house dream (it's easily bigger and far more lavish and interesting than the entire rest of the house we're using as living space) way pre-dates the other one; I've been having it for several years and wtf'ing over it to myself on many a morning. Velvet tapestries and chandeliers and staircases, bedrooms with chests at the foots of beds. But air thick with BAD BAD BAD.

The sprawling, rolling courtyard full of plants, gardens, fountains and pools, which is 3 times the square footage of the hotel suite we're living in like it doesn't WRAP AROUND this entire courtyard which is actually the center of the suite - I just had that for the second time. It's sort of like a massive rectangle with a string of narrow rooms around the outside, but we've been living in the rooms without even seeing or thinking about the courtyard for time out of mind out of...laziness? habit?


Now that there is a second dream repeating and I see a theme, I'm trying to think of what in the world this could mean. Thinking of things like how PTSD almost universally causes a discomfort with long hallways full of doors and why that would be. Also denial, and "elephants in the room", and untapped potential. Feel free to weigh in.

THEN AGAIN, I also had a dream with a NARRATOR last night, that concluded at the end of plotline, at which point I woke up? So the answer could definitely be that I'm just nuts.

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Yesterday was a really difficult, conflicting sort of faith day. I drove up to church, as is typical of me lately, torn between whether or not I'm even still sure I completely believe in literal biblical church Christianity vs how I know, concretely, that I have seen and experienced divine intervention and Real Presence and all that. I was there listening to my sinful music on my way to RCIA feeling all angsty, considering horrible things re: my kids and how I want to raise them.

FOR INSTANCE: say I really believe all this Catholic hoohaw is true, totally and completely the truth - does that mean I start teaching it to them in great detail right now? I'm not sure it should mean that, BECAUSE culpability - knowing something is sinful and understanding why but doing the sin anyway - makes sinning way, way worse. I don't want my kids to have a whole lot of culpability from a really young age. I don't want them growing up dealing with cycles of guilt or fear of hell or any of that. I mean, I'm not saying "I'm not sure I want my kids dealing with stuff that isn't even real" I'm saying "Assuming Hell IS real and evil IS a true threat, I'd still rather they weren't losing their shit trying not to masturbate as teenagers or whatever - they can get to a point of understanding that wraps them up in neurosis when they're grown and choose it for themselves." I've even considered how maybe it isn't fair to have told them about God/prayed with them from a young age because it puts too much spiritual responsibility on them whereas maybe they'd get more rope if things were different in our house. I'll just take it on my own soul and leave them to have it easier.

I realize this sort of train of thought is contrary to all kinds of things. This is me completely unable to not believe God, Jesus, the Bible and church Tradition are real, true things, even when I am not at all sure I can live by any of their precepts or do as I should. ACTUALLY, the older I get, I feel a sort of tug of war - in one direction, there is what I see as Real Truth getting stricter and more defined, pulling me THAT way. In the other direction, there is what I feel like I can deal with as a person, as far as rules and guidelines and accountability go, pulling me way far in the other direction. It's an ever broadening V without any sort of answer. Someone with my history and memories and emotions can't turn off the "being Christian" switch - they can only turn their back on it.

Then I got to Mass and felt personally challenged, like I had to pay attention, like the sermon(homily) and the gospels were relevant and beautiful. RCIA was mostly a discussion of our various individual experiences of the Vatican Splendors exhibit last week and our calendar in the months to come. And I shared my own experiences, down to what seem like obvious "Defenses" for the art and money invested as well as my (for me) weird affection for the last Pope. It's like an echo, or as though I'm in stereo: I hear all these things coming out of my mouth and know them to be honest words from honest feelings, but I also get an irony that I'm NOT sharing with the group - that I'm good with words and with sounding convicted but not always so sure, inside.

THEN, I spent a significant part of Isaac's birthday party (post on that to come...) either listening to my agnostic, new age, vegan friend Michelle wax on about the beauty and necessity of selfishness, thinking how what she was saying made perfect secular sense but would be a scandal to some people I know... followed by listening to myself ramble to Laura about the fullness and poetry of Catholicism and the scriptural basis for confession, and communion, and so on, thinking how it's easy to talk the talk and maybe I can even convince myself in the bargain.

When I read over what I've written here I think:
-I'm really doing a poor job of representing The Faith, and it's because I'm not living my own faith, mostly. Mostly, I am just going through the motions of RCIA attendance and praying with the kids before dinner. When I take the time to pray a rosary alone or light a candle I FEEL better and do better in my life, and if I raise my kids within the church, I am giving them tools like that as well, and maybe their adult lives won't be so difficult.

-my first confession is really going to be a Thing. Either I'll realize that with accountability and spiritual counsel I can overcome some of my struggles and christian life in general will be easier, or I'll realize I can't keep going back to confession saying the same things without true repentance and no real desire to change, and my inability to prioritize holiness will drive me away. ...OR, I'll sugarcoat/the priest will sugarcoat and it will change exactly nothing.

I am just coming around to a point lots of people have always been at. But for me, it's new. I'm finding I don't like church people nearly as much as non-church people or church music nearly as much as non-church music or chastity nearly as much as harlotry, etc. When I became Christian ALL of my best friends were either ministers or in some kind of youth ministry, and all of my very favorite songs were campfire hymns or christian rock of some kind, and I had some sort of ideal that I could be happiest and most fulfilled by following God's plans and that party people were always miserable because they were partying.

THOSE DAYS ARE GONE. Now, increasingly, I find that I can speak honestly about my faith troubles with my atheist and agnostic friends but don't know how to tell my Christian friends even a portion of my real thoughts.

Blah blah blah.