Creating new images

I've recently been reading back over my years of old blogs.  One painstaking realization I've had to make is how much I've complained in the past. Perhaps because my blogs were a safe haven it's the one place I felt like I could open up.  But it's also been this sickness, this injury, this person making me feel horrible for this reason, this life circumstance getting me down.  Now it goes without saying that my life is constantly in its own special ebb and flow of natural chaos.  I'm not sure why I've always felt such a need to vent through my blog to any readers why I've been unfortunate, the details of my chaos, the reasons for my misery, etc.  Maybe there is healing in typing my own words.  More likely I've always had an over need of obtaining sympathy as a means of acceptance.  It's been a chronic attention-getting behavior when I'm feeling lonely, misplaced, or unloved (and with my husband and best friend chronically thousands of miles away those feelings surface themslves more often than not).  Trust me, that's a hard realization to open up my mind to and post for any readers to peruse over.  I've really realized this fault of mine over the past 6 months or so.  It's a habit hard to break honestly.  I catch myself all the time going to post a status about my misfortunes, or ready to post sarcastic remarks to every person or situation which upsets or angers me.  Looking back at my Xanga and Deadjournal blogs my biggest mistake was not holding back, not caring how I made people feel.  In my own mind my feelings were completely validated or people needed to hear how sick or unlucky I'd been.

I have been blessed with an amazing husband who has more patience than any other man I've ever met.  He has tolerated me through my worst and loved me through each complaint, each freak-out, each illness and accident.  He supported me all 42 times I swore I was going into labor, has worried with me each time we've dealt with an illness or injury, and has been full of encouragement every single time I get down on myself or feel overcome with worry, doubt and loneliness.  He has been such a Godly example of compassion and patience to me and is definitely the reason I have kept myself held together at times. 

I think it's hard for many people to understand me and the chaos that trails closely behind.  And I think too many people look at me and see me as a victim of my own circumstances or a bringer of my own misfortune.  They see me and want to know what bad news I have to bring "this time".  Even as I walked into my doctor's office this week he laughed and said "Trisha, Trisha what have you done to yourself this time?" And I think that's become too common of a reaction... people see me and just think of the mess I bring.  I don't want to be that person.  So, the past 6 months has been an evaluation of sorts in working on myself and how I react to situations.  It's true I seem to have a certain streak of bad luck and my own clumsiness is oftentimes the bringer of unforseen accidents.  But I don't want to live as if that's my identity.  I feel that's the persona I've created for myself over the past 10 years.  It's a hard profile to break out of when it's been so meticulously built up.  It's also a comfort blanket to fall back on when things start to get tough.

When Byron and I separated I lost that support in him that enabled my feelings.  He constantly builds me up and while that is an amazing quality in him it also allowed me to continue in those same patterns.  It has taken a lot of prayer, meditation and will to begin breaking through my own shell to figure out why there's so much chaos and how I can react differently to it in the future.

What I've been learning more and more lately is that one of the biggest and most important things I can do to change my own image of myself and the image others have of me is to practice more discernment.  It means me biting my lip when people offend me, it means sucking up my pride when I'm feeling down and lonely and as if people don't care.  It's about me making better choices all around in life.  I suppose I've been a "binge drinker" for a long time in life oftentimes broadcasting things, blogging about things, posting about things, getting angry about things, talking about people when they make me mad (etc. etc. we could all go on couldn't we?) - doing all of these things at the drop of a hat with little regard to how it will affect myself and others in the future because it makes me feel better temporarily. 

It's time that I start building myself up to the person that I know and those who are close to me know that I am.  I want people to look at me and see compassion, strength, humor and integrity; not a weak person always sick, prone to accidents and falling apart at the seams.  And the key person who needs to see those positive traits is myself; for people are only going to see on the surface the same person and image that I've created of myself and believe myself to be. 

It's time I move beyond these three pictures:

And return to and let people see the real person in these pictures....

One hot bird

It was scorching hot yesterday so I set up Madison's pool in concoction with the sprinkler.  Her and Kirby had a blast splashing around and cooling down.  Perhaps a little too much because the pool quickly became much more fun as a mud pit.  Madison was soon caked in mud from head to toe.  After she enjoyed herself a little bit more than I would have liked I disconnected the sprinkler and went to work rinsing her off.  As I did I noticed off in the distance a bird sitting on the edge of the fence watching us.  This really comes as no surprise as the neighborhood is an animal haven.  Squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and dozens of types of birds routinely hang out in my backyard.  But this bird was different.  Instead of flying off once it realized it was noticed it hopped down to the ground.  Then it took a few brave steps closer.  I was holding the hose... looking at the bird... and back to the hose again.  It was in the 90's and we're in a neighborhood without ponds or streams.  This bird wanted some water.  It wanted water bad enough that it was willing to overlook it's fear of being safe to get it.  So I switched the hose settings to squirt water further where I wouldn't scare the little guy.  It came about a foot from hitting him.  I expected him to startle and fly off but no, that bird was persistent.  He hopped a few steps closer and proceeded for the next minute or two to practically dance around in the rainy mist surrounding him.  He fluffed his feathers, stretched his head up to the sky, pranced around a bit and thoroughly enjoyed his birdie bath in the cool water.  It drew the attention of several other birds who flitted over to the gate.  My little bird friend flew off to a nearby branch shaking himself off with an air of "you guys saw nothing, I wasn't trusting those humans."

You all know me by now... grabbing life analogies from nature.  This one struck me hard.  How many of us feel the heat of our lives weighing us down, feel the hot sun pressing around us, draining our energy and dehydrating our souls?  We'd do anything for a refreshing rain on our lives to wipe it all away.  Without trying to sound too cliche here we have our own gardener with the water of life ready to pour out on us.  And like many birds we stand back timidly, shy away and take flight.  Why?  Because of fear.  We've been hurt before perhaps.  Or maybe we're too proud.  Perhaps it's because our self-consciousness wins over and we don't want to be seen as "that" bird foolishly dancing in the water God is offering us.  There are a million reasons why and we each have our stories, our fears, our inhibitions.  We don't always trust the gardener.  Sometimes it is really hard to trust and reach out in faith when we feel we've been burned and scorched to our very core.  But here is the truth:

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14

Be that little bird in my backyard.  Let your thirst and exhaustion bring you to the reviving waters that will quench your soul again.  Feel free to dance a little too - we all have much to rejoice in! :)