I’ve been swallowed up. This must be what it’s like to be my Grandma, or any really really old person who has to leave their home and take a puny boxful of their life’s belongings to a retirement home, where they are taken care of and treated like an child, patted on the head and told to do crossword puzzles or knit washcloths no one will use. They must wonder what to do. No wonder they watch TV all the time. They must cry a lot and think about the years when they were young, valued, busy. When they had the freedom to drive, to go out with friends, to clean their own homes or plant a garden. It must feel frustrating to have nothing but a potted plant to water or at best a tomato plant on their allotted 2-foot square plot of garden in the retirement home courtyard. No wonder they’re grumpy all the time. Although the advantage they have is that at least maybe they’re so tired by that point in their life that they don’t care as much. Their bones ache so much perhaps they’re happy, sometimes at least, to have their life taken care of for them. It must still be hard. So hard.
That’s how I feel right now. I’ve been swallowed up. Somewhere in the last year Kari was swallowed up and now she sits inside someone else’s life. I still get glimpses of what it’s like to be me. On Friday when we hung out with Aaron and Candi in Corvallis and I saw my friend Grace—I got to be me. On Saturday when we went to McMinnville and saw precious friends and laughed and drove and played with Dutch—I got to be me. Last week when I drove up to my friend Melissa’s and went for a hike around the lake by her house—I got to be me.
But last July I drove away from me—at least that’s how it felt. I really just drove away from our home, but we entered a new life. We now live with my parents. We eat off my parents’ plates. We eat food from their refrigerator. We park in their garage. We sit on their couch. We also live in a new town. It is their town. The town is full of their friends. We also attend a new church. It is their church. The church is full of their friends. Jeff teaches a class on Tuesday nights. The class is largely a group of my parents and their friends. In July I went from being Kari Patterson, to being Bill & Karen’s daughter. I went from being wife and mother to daughter … again. Not that I have ever quit being a daughter, but I have, until this point, been a grown daughter. Now I am not quite grown anymore. I am living with my parents again, surrounded by photos of my childhood, feeling as if I’m awkwardly suspended between two lives—one where I am wife and mom, one where I am still a child. Dangling—that’s how I feel—dangling, never quite sure how to act and how to be because I am no longer me. I’ve been swallowed up.
And in this new church I have no fit. There appears to be no Kari-shaped hole that I can discern. There is a huge Jeff-shaped hole, which has been filled, and Bill and Karen shaped holes that have already been filled, and I am standing outside the front door, watching, pretending to be busy … but I’m really just watching and wondering where I went.
Dutch provides great joy—but really my role of irreplaceable mommy isn’t that big anymore. Oma and Papa provide a lot more fun, and since I leave him with them one day a week, somehow it feels that lifetimes go by while I’m away and I’ve missed a significant chunk. “He’s dong such-and-such now,” they say. “Oh, I see,” I reply, “I see I must have missed it.” But this time, this one day away, is the one golden, glorious, beautifully crafted portion of my life where I get to be me—school! At school I am wholly and completely Kari Patterson. I have value, purpose, vision. I have meaningful work to accomplish, goals to achieve, deadlines to meet. At school I am not swallowed up!
So if only, I tell myself, if only we could move out. Somehow I could create a haven, a home for our family where we could be a family again. Somehow I could be me! Somehow I could be all grown up again. I could cook meals for my family and we could eat off our own dishes! I could decorate and clean and beautify our home, or I could make a mess and not clean it up for three days—because it’s home! Home home home! We could come home! I could be ok not having a place to serve at church just yet, if only I had a place to rest my head where I could somehow just be myself. It’s as if I’ve spent ten years developing into a woman and then all of a sudden I’ve been told that those ten years didn’t happen, and I need to forget everything that’s taken place during that time.
But we can’t move out until we know if Jeff will have a job at the church. We have no income; we can’t move out until we know if we will have an income. So we wait. “Soon,” they say. “Soon.” So every stupid Tuesday, as Jeff goes into the church office for his meetings, every stupid Tuesday, I tell myself to not get my hopes up. Every stupid Tuesday I wait for him to call—at 2:45—and tell me how his meetings went. Every stupid Tuesday I hope they will give him an answer—that they will give him an answer that will give me my life back. And I convince myself—every stupid Tuesday—that it doesn’t matter and that I’ll be ok no matter what. And every stupid Tuesday he calls and I listen as he says, “Yeah, my meetings went great …” and he begins telling me the details of the staff meeting and then my stomach does that thing—that thing where I feel sick and where that stupid lump comes up in my throat and I realize I’ve done it again: I’ve gotten my hopes up. And then I do what I know I will do. I ask, “Did he say anything about …?” and Jeff knows what I mean and he gets quiet then says, “No, Sauce, no. I’m sorry.” And then I get silent and cry, and I feel stupid all over again because I realize I’ve done it again—I’ve gotten my stupid hopes up that sometime, one of these times, we’re going to get some good news that someone will give him a job and we’ll get to move out and I can have my life back again. And I do it every stupid Tuesday. And every stupid Tuesday I chide myself and say “You’re supposed to wait on God, not on them. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” And then I sit and wonder when the strength will come and why I’m weary and fainting. Every stupid Tuesday.
So, this is just me—raw and unedited, trying to sort through these thoughts and feelings. I guess the question I have to wrestle with is this: If it brought glory to God for me to never “have my life back” again would I embrace that? If it glorified God for me to never again have my own home or niche or place to fly, would I obey? Theoretically the answer’s always “Yes, God.” But is it really? I guess that’s the question for me today.