Random Ramblings

I find myself in a funk. Time to type myself out!

I have been out of a relationship for five years. This came to my attention in the last few days. Five years is a LONG time. It comprises almost 20% of my life to this point. The funny thing is I haven't cared to be in a relationship since. The first few years (yes, I said YEARS) I was still healing over the breakup. Then my friend Jeff took a liking to a certain girl...

Jeff met his future bride in June. She was invited to pick rocks on his farm so he could get to know her better. We all should have known there was something wrong with her when she agreed. They were inseparable for the summer. If they weren't picking rocks or cleaning the farm shop on rainy days, they were together in his tractor hoeing until the wee hours of the morning. Soon the summer was over and she needed to go back for her fifth year at school to try and finish her associates degree. Before she left there was a ring on her finger and they had set a date for 12 months from then to be married.

Twelve months turned to four and by January they were married. By February they were separated and he had a restraining order against him. In October they had their first child and Jeff has hardly seen the baby since. The child is now a year old and it is officially from a broken home.

Pain. Pain is something we share with others. It is inflicted on others or borne by good friends. I still can feel the pain caused by my parents divorce. A story will bring it back or maybe a walk down memory lane. The story that brought me back to my pain was shared by a new friend tonight.

Her parents were married happily for 35 years when he turned his back on the church and left his wife and their family. I related my own story - parents divorced when I was in grade school. Our stories are similar, but the freshness of her experience was very startling. She didn't say much about it, but I could feel it. I could feel it when she guardedly made her platonic intentions known when I first contacted her. I could feel it when she matter-of-factly told me she did not care where her father was.

Living alone keeps a person in a bubble. (OK everyone - I am finally getting to my point) Until I finally got ahold of my new friend it had been five years since I went somewhere with a relatively new friend to do something fun. It was refreshing. What I hadn't anticipated was a sort of depression to follow our very funny movie (we saw Open Season - have to recommend it) that haunts me as I plan to head out tomorrow to a friend's wedding in NH.

My bubble is a cocoon of my own design. I like things easy. I hate drama and those who stir it up. I have effectively created a little world where I can escape the petty family fights, the stress of work and most of all, the pain of relationships gone bad. While I am often able to throw off depression with sheer will (in High School I found that doing happy things makes a person happy eventually - whistling, singing, etc.), one cannot throw off a person's burden for them. My new friend is in the early stages of recovering from this life altering episode. A true friend experiences that pain and agony alongside the afflicted one. Goodbye, bubble!

Funny my last post was about sharing one another's burdens. Funny also how if my new friend had shared that burden with a person who had no experience with divorce would have not been nearly as affected. Her burden has now become mine to wrestle with as well.

This funk is very similar to those I first experienced in Houghton. I could be having a perfectly good evening and then - like a light switch - I needed to remove myself from others because I couldn't handle the crowds, the chaos - the others. Although not a frequent occurrence, it was startling. The funk I am in now is similar, but more severe. I feel overwhelming pain, but not my own. I haven't felt badly about my family situation for almost fifteen years.

My only comfort is that these funks didn't usually last until morning. Hopefully this is the case again today, because I have to drive to NH and help friends celebrate their holy union.

Lord - help me be ever mindful of the ways I alter the lives of others. May I bring healing and never destruction or pain. May I bear burdens without creating them. May I depend on Jesus for strength, and see clearly who God uses to bring comfort when I need it.