If I'm honest.

I’ve spent the majority of my life trying to be understood.

That might sound dramatic, but I think most of us do. Somewhere much deeper than our own consciousness, we are begging all witnesses to understand why we are the way we are. I guess this goes hand in hand with the desire to be affirmed. The simple knowledge that yes, you are loved as you are. Period.



Within my insatiable desire to be understood, known, and affirmed, I spent most of my life dissecting myself internally and externally. I stretched my darkest and ugliest spots across the operating tables, located in the brightest rooms. I dared to hope that maybe this time they would go away. It was all black and white to me. Wrong or right. There was no middle ground; no grey areas. I loathed myself and all of my weaknesses. Therefore, I loathed anyone or anything that reminded me of them. They terrified me.



I’m writing this today because that part of me that has always wanted to be understood hasn’t vanished completely.  Despite the past few years of learning how to let go of that need and release peoples opinions, something in me still wants the story to be told in its truest earthly tone. Mine.



For as long as I can remember, I have been attracted to women. While other little girls were dreaming about Leonardo DiCaprio, I secretly hated myself for dreaming about older girls. I was disgusted with myself. I was the little girl who was deeply confused as to why I had a crush on my babysitter, instead of the babysitters' boyfriend. I would never dare tell anyone about this deeply loathed secret. I would rather hide it in the deepest recesses of my soul from those closest to me… including myself.



Let me be clear. I was raised in the Capital of Idealism. My childhood is a whirlwind of adventure, magic, love, and the idolized romanticism that was completely and utterly bound and married to the letter of the law, that is religiosity.



I knew how my life was supposed to look. The prediction was tattooed on the walls of my heart, like a chalkboard with the many written lines attempting to make right what was wrong.  I was supposed to meet a good man, fall in love, and eventually (which means quickly) marry him and start a family.  

This is what I wanted. I wanted to be good. I wanted to make my father proud. I wanted to make my mother glow. 

I wanted to be normal.


I tried hard to attract the boys around me. I tried to believe that I liked them for more than being friends, but instead I found myself being attracted to the girl friends that I had.

Shame.



Deep, pillowing, shame.



Somehow in my attempt to be normal and to do the right thing, I always ended up as the failure. I couldn’t blame this failure on my attraction to women, because this was still the secret that no one could ever know about me. This was  the secret that I dared not even whisper. So instead, I blamed these failures on how I dressed or whether I was making myself feminine and attractive enough. I focused on men not being attracted to me. I couldn’t admit to anyone, let alone myself, that I wasn’t attracted to them.



It didn’t take long for this secret and the symptoms of hiding it to grow into a toxic self-loathing. It consumed my body, soul, and mind. I hated myself.



I was a disease.



No, I wasn’t struggling with some deep secret about how I was molested as a child, because I wasn’t.

No, I wasn’t hiding some traumatic event that altered my internal makeup; the traumas I experienced were shared with all of my siblings. They were no secret.

No, it’s not rejection from my mom. My mother was the most loving and maternal woman that I could ever possibly call “mama.”



The list goes on. I did the exhausting diagnostics.

I pushed. I pulled. I prodded. I weighed. I measured. I hurt. I healed. I fasted. I prayed.



I begged God.



Results: inconclusive.  



The result was a woman lying wounded and beaten by her own beliefs and the echoes of the beliefs around her. The result was a woman who started to believe that she was the stain on her family’s lineage, but she hadn’t done anything to become so tarnished. Worst of all, it wasn’t going away.





It’s been over three years since I finally let the veil fall away and my secret out. It’s been over a year that I no longer hate myself for it, but rather embrace it and celebrate who I am.



The last three years have been incredibly painful, confusing and full of internally violent waged wars. I wrestled long and hard. I don’t feel the need to give a full account of my journey here.

I know what it was. I know how it felt. I know what it looked like.



More than that, I know who I am. I’m still the Hadassah that I always was; I’m just a little more honest about what that looks like.



This isn’t a plea for affirmation. This is simply an offering. This is an offering of truth to those who have invested their hearts in my life in some way. I know I do not owe this, but I also have nothing to hide. I love who I am and I know that I am loved. That is enough for me.



As all of us always are, there is no doubt in my mind that I am still on a journey. I am happy to now be at a much more peaceful and full mile marker on this beautiful and treacherous journey that we each face in such different and glorious ways.



Love, take courage. Remain steadfast. Do not grow weary of the process. 

Hope still clings to the barest of bones and sings a better word over the ashes of your yesteryear. 

And life.

I thought maybe it would help. I thought maybe if I see them and we laugh together, maybe it would feel good. 


It was once electric; our connection. Laughter was always easy, even when it was hard; it was easy. Because we've seen grief before. We've wrestled against our bloodline crying for relief; desperate for even the resemblance of peace. 


But. 
Something changed. Love grew into a broader place. It took on a different face; one more weathered, one more full of grace. 


And then there was life. It happened, just like it does. 


Weddings happened. Children followed. And life kept moving. 

Cousins became best friends. We were magical. We had adventures. We made movies about important things; or at least funny things. Some of us became moody teenagers. Some of us held onto childhood for dear life. We grew up. We fought. Our mothers staged a level 2 conflict resolution. We realized we were hurt. We cried. We hugged. We loved. 


You started dating again. But this time, you weren't playing any games. You knew exactly what you wanted. You wanted Mr. Rogers. But... a Presbyterian pastor would do. 


You remarried. We were relieved. You were happy. 


You watched your family grow. We became diverse. We became colorful. We wore our humanity on our sleeves. You loved. 


You were taken. 


Now when I see them I always expect to feel relief, but there is none. I know it's me. I know it's the illness of grief, but I can't help but feel the ache of that unfulfilled need. It's as if I see them not in the fullness of who I've always known them to be, but in the light that shines so cruelly on the missing. 


We are suddenly all found wanting. 


Your absence is louder than our laughter. And it is not without hope that I say this, but rather it is what seems to be my attempt to take one more step in the midst of this grief. 


You're not coming back. Not in this time. Not in this space. The pain of that separation continues to speak. I wonder if it fades, or if it merely takes a backseat to only raise it's head from time to time when memories find our mind's eye. 


I wonder when it gets better. I wonder if I'll ever miss you less. I didn't plan for this. 


I saw them yesterday. We laughed. We remembered you and your cute grumpy face. We loved. We missed. We silently knew we all needed comfort. When we said our goodbyes there were long, quiet, hugs. 

And life; it kept moving. 

Still.

farewell.

Gram.

She was special.

Not the kind of special that lasts a week and is plastered on every wall, but the kind that only a select few really get to hold close and call their own.

She was no shy bird. She made sure you knew who she was, especially if you were listening to her talented husband preach what she would say was his best message yet. She knew when to boast. But, she was my best kept secret…

 

Gram was special because the minute she met one of my friends or a complete stranger who had wandered into our crazy gathering, she would introduce herself by saying “Hi! I’m Gram! Who are you?” and then proceed to look up at them with an ever so slightly furrowed brow as if she was ready for them to declare themselves unsafe. Once the person in question recovered from this abrupt interrogation and introduced themselves she immediately put her biggest squinty eyed smile on and demanded that they call her Gram from that moment on. No point in arguing.

 

Gram had the best sense of style. And when I say best, I mean I’m pretty sure she was known for wearing one solid color… Blue shirt, blue pants, blue socks, blue shoes. I’m also fairly certain that she had cornered the market on religious and spiritual graphic t-shirts and sweatshirts. We all know what I’m referring to. No one wore the lion and the lamb like she did. Jesus was her homie long before it was popular.

 

One of the things I loved about Gram was her child like approach to love and faith. She loved simply and she loved ardently. The way she saw her father god was one of the purest I have ever known. She knew him. And she knew that He knew her too. She was sincere in her desire to grow in love and become more like jesus. It was simple. It was beautiful.

 

Gram was the one found guilty of introducing me to thedelicately dangerous thing called coffee at least 20 years ago. A beautiful life long love affair that eventually became a career. I will be traveling to Kenya in less than 4 days to visit some coffee farms that my company purchases beans from, and I can’t help but think back to the days that we would spend with gram as children sitting around our little table with out tiny teacups that were being misused for what I think to be a much greater purpose. Breakfast coffee, snack coffee, lunch coffee, snack coffee, dinner decaf coffee, snack… She was the beginning of something that I get to love doing every day. I treasure this.

 

If you knew my grandmother, then you knew how completely smitten with her family she was. She would continually tell me that our family is special and that we’re not like everyone else. It was like a secret that she felt simultaneously guilty yet giddy for saying out loud. I mostly laughed it off and told her its ok if she believes that, all the while thinking that she was ever so slightly crazy and that I had reality in the bag.

The most memorable of these proud moments were usually during family gatherings while we were all joining hands and about to thank god for the food. We’d all be forming a circle, laughing at inside jokes and teasing aunt Kristin about the decorations, and we’d see Grams rocking start and she’d begin to tear up (she was a major weeper). We would get a little quiet,as she would start to cry and go on and on about how great this family is and how amazing each and every one of us was, but eventually we would all begin to laugh and tell her how cute she was… which only made her mad. Mad gram was also a very cute Gram.

 

All of that to say, she was insanely proud of her kids. All of them. There was no stain on her lineage. She saw each one of her children fight through the storms that came their way, and she was their biggest cheerleader. There was nothing, absolutely nothing they could do to lose her love. She was crazy about them. She was crazy about their kids. She was crazy about their grandkids.

 

Last Friday I lost a grandmother, a cheerleader, an ally, and a friend. She was my favorite… She was home. And as I stand here today I am still in denial that she’s actually gone. I am longing to hear her laugh just one more time. I am yearning for her tiny little self to be in my arms just one last time so I can kiss the top of her head just one last time. But I know even that would never be enough. Nothing would ever prepare me for this loss. She is irreplaceable.

 

Gram, you were right. There is something really special about this family. You.

 

We love you. Always.

 

 

This.

Imagine you're standing about three feet in front of me attempting to understand what exactly I'm trying to communicate in that unfortunate moment when words run dry and very little can be interpreted and the best I can do is to use my fumbling hands to act as if compressing the invisible matter inches from my chest while a simple word jumps from my lips much like an irrationally awkward teenager, "THIS!!"

This. It's the delicate string laced through what was, what is, and what one day might be. The feeling that draws and repels me simultaneously. It pulls at my longings and always recalls my fears.

I have no reasonable responses to sell at this nameless mile marker. I violently fight off the comfort I so desperately seek. Residual anger finds my fearful courage and forms the inward rebellion that was born to react spitefully against that which seeks to soothe me.

Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I've gone too far from home. Tell me I'm so much rougher than you've ever known. Pinpoint my failures and please spell them out to me. I've been itching to collect them for the case I've been building against myself.
Do anything, but please, resist the urge to soothe me.

I've stopped biting my tongue but I swear I'm going to fix that leaky faucet and its slow acrid drip; it just wasn't always like this.

Home; I fear that to have any other soul help in defining it for me would also run the risk of then having it carelessly unsettled. So I'll push familiar from my mind and despise the warmth that tears so tenderly at my ever lone resolve.

Comfort, you must know you terrify me.

Late.

Today I slept late.
Today I woke up to a running start that set a pace that my feet managed to be ever one click behind.
Today I slept late.

Today I felt small.
Today I felt my biggest attempts marked only faintly and on the low place on the wall.
Today I felt small.

Today I thought anxiously.
Today I saw my worry coursing through the grooves in my brain in sixty shades of green.
Today I thought anxiously.

Today I held my tongue.
Today I felt stuck beneath internally muted wonderings.
Today I held my tongue.

Today I was never, but always, alone.
Today I bumped the edge of feeling and realized it'd be a day of very little feeling at all.
Today I was never, but always, alone.

Today I will go to bed late.
Today I will make my queries upon this sleepy eyed concrete and find in fact that it's really not that hard to break.
Today I will go to bed late.

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I can't sleep late.

Intermission.

It's been over three months since I've written last. I've flirted with the idea of sitting down and loosing the words which sit in the waiting room of my heart, but instead I've prolonged the silence till "pregnant pause" could no longer define it.
Despite all of this I remain hopeful in my pursuit of a more dedicated intentionality with writing... I am blessed to have people in my life who will unknowingly admonish my passivity with their encouragements and continual support.


Fear not;
I have not closed the book on my love affair with words.

True.

You felt like vacation
Like a window opened in another room
Like my favorite pair of well worn jeans
Like the color of a smile in a half remembered dream

You felt like anticipation

You did everything right
Laid your best cards before cynicism could have its way
Winning the edges of my heart till warmth overcame my will to fight

to fight what I could not see
The pain of becoming the girl who's disgrace is feeling a small ache for a man who is suddenly now tied to an internal vow to keep.

You cut me with duty
You burned me with your re-emerging hope for yesteryears tomorrow.
I cannot rival chivalry nor argue with nobility; you've chosen to be true and I cannot help but believe that beauty will follow you for the honor that you've sown.

But I never thought I'd be here.
I was led into a secret grove before the bold lettered "Do Not Enter" was plastered on every tree trunk.
There were no lines that I crossed, yet I am left feeling like I must flee and escape in the dark of the night before the dawn uncovers the shamed whispers of my heart...

Just remember I did not stand in the way when your history reached for your hand and you told me you couldn't stay. I only hope I acted as a bridge that helped you along the way.

That which is joined together let no one separate.
Let no one separate.
Let no one separate.
Let no one separate.
I will not separate.
I did not separate.