To start with the same old “where I’m at right now” seems so cliché.  I wouldn’t have an easy answer, because well nothing is ever explained easily and it’s been a long season and right now the mud is up to my neck but I’m still breathing.

I’m still breathing.

I count that as gold today.

It really has been a long season, two years exactly from when things started to unravel and I was propelled face first into “where I’m at right now”

It’s been a constant state of near turmoil, not knowing one minute to the next if I am going to be able to pay rent, buy groceries, and when I had my truck the concern was gas and getting to work.  Now that I don’t have my truck anymore I can’t get to work, so I lost my job.  Without a truck I cannot get to the library, the pharmacy or the biggest one the grocery store without a ride.

We don’t live on an accessible bus line that would get us (my 7 ½ year old daughter and I) to the grocery store and back so I rely on the kindness of my friends.  Right now a neighbor that I have grown close to takes us once a week.  Worst case scenario and if I am desperate I can call my taxi driver friend who has taken kindness to me and drives me for nothing.

It’s frustrating, and shameful to say that I cannot provide even the basic things for my daughter.  I have been in dire straits before but I was on my own, not trying to also take care of a child.  I feel the weight that she feels every time I have to tell her no to something, or that I cannot take her anywhere because we don’t have a ride.  I am dreading summer because although I deeply adore my daughter (I really do) if we are home, all day, together, there will be war.  We are the same person.  It’s never pretty when we get on each other’s nerve and because we love each other so much there is a lot of nerve-getting-on-ing.

I digress.

The shit really hit the fan and I am embarrassed.  I am embarrassed that I haven’t been able to work.   That I cannot just get over the chronic state of my headaches (still, after surgery.)  I am embarrassed that I still hurt, that I am still dealing with pain, on a daily basis, that I am not better and that it’s still affecting my life.  I am ashamed that I cannot provide for my daughter.  I am her mother, her only parent and I have let her down.

This is about more than being able to get to the grocery store, or pick up my prescriptions.  It’s about me, the mom and the one in the traditional “leadership position” not being able to provide.  I feel like I let her down.  I also imagine that there is part of me listening to that little voice of my mother’s that says “I told you, you couldn’t do it” Because that voice is there, it always has been.

I have had to start over so many times before and never has it been easy.  The last time I really did it my daughter was a newborn.  This time she is 7 ½ and the stakes are higher because she’s watching and she is going to remember how mommy got us through this.  She is a witness to everything I do.

These last two years have wrecked me and called into question everything I believed about God, Jesus and my faith.  I take these last two years and I use them to filter my relationships and how people have championed for me, blessed me and LOVED me well.  I want to be able to take that and in turn love people well also.  It’s hard to use that when the only thing I know of loving people well is monetarily.  That’s at least in part thanks to my view of the evangelical church.

God’s honest truth here is I am ashamed.  It is deeper than not having direct access to groceries or my medication.  It is really about more than, well at the very least getting out of the house.  Because gosh dangit I have cabin freakin fever.

In truth it’s about identity, restoring hope and starting over.

I have been given a second chance but that doesn’t mean that second chances are easy.  There are roadblocks that I have to maneuver around, I get that.  I am sure as shit not giving up, both my daughter and I have a future to look toward and I am NOT gambling that.

So again, come with me as I go forward.  I know my community is good and wise and stable.

As Always,

Bethany

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