My scars remind me that the past is real

Oh, poor neglected blog.  How you have been abandoned in a frenzy of misplaced spring fever intermingled with the never ending snow showers, basketball madness and an cacophony of untamed thoughts.  I have found it a much safer option to journal my non-nonsensical nonsense in one of the many journals I keep stashed around the house than to try to compile them into, well, sense.  Which means the work on my writing project - I struggle to call it a novel, not quite there yet - has been incredible.  The more I can't communicate with others, the more I communicate with myself?  Fantastic.  I already communicate with fictional creatures and animals, what's the difference?  (My dog talks to me.  Sorry, if yours does not.)

Yesterday was a day of almost uninterrupted sunshine.  And as I peeked out of my office window, I could see little shoots of green just beginning to show themselves on the hedges outside.  Green, people!  The color of hope!  In this time of rebirth and renewal, just that tiny sliver of what will be is comforting.

You see, I need that renewal.  I crave it.  There are days that I feel it so clearly in everything that  I do, every step that I take forward and don't listen to that voice in my head, telling me, "turn back, you can't do this!".  But there has been something in this long, cold winter that wears on my soul.

I have been reminiscing as well (gee, you?  Yeah, I know).  Last year, the week before Easter was one very different than this one.  And I can say with great clarity that *I* was a very different person.  The struggle with hard, dark thoughts was my security blanket last year, not something I am now desperate to shake off.  Believing another spring would never come was my future, not my past.  Now, I sit comfortably on my couch, listening the cabin fever crazed kids outside play dodge ball, despite the not so warm temperature.  I take comfort in the sights and sounds around me, I feel thankful for the day I have had.  Despite a level of anxiety writing this post, my most pressing emotions involve how long I can stay up to watch the late basketball game and what to have for dinner.

Oh, but last year.  Last year as spring was flourishing in earnest and the faithful were preparing for Sunday, I was in a cold, impersonal hospital room having a life or death struggle within myself.  Wondering exactly how it was that I had come to be here.  Wondering if I was well enough to leave, or would be.  Months, years of spiraling behavior combined with rampantly untreated mental illness had come together in the worst of ways. And there I sat.  Alone with my thoughts, again.

This, my friends, is not my story today.  My scars exist, both physically and mentally, and I will bear them for the rest of my days on this earth.  But in this time of rebirth, I am leaving it behind.  I am not that Shan, not any longer.  There is no changing my past, but those sins, that multitude of twisted, unimaginable sins, are forgiven.  I know that they are forgiven.  Only recently have I come to also know that I can let them go, hard as I cling to them.

My story today is that in that worst of times, I found the brightest of lights and the most comforting of hands grab me and pull me out of the muck.  As I cowered in the corner of that hospital room there it was.  A voice that told me, Enough.  Enough of this.  It is time to get up, and learn to walk again in a different way.  On a different path.  This was not a voice I was unfamiliar with, I hope everyone understands that.  But it may as well have been, because it reached me in a way it never had before.  I'm sure everyone has heard that the Lord sometimes needs to bring you to your lowest to build you back up again and for me, that was absolutely true.  All the times before that I thought were the lowest, ha!  Those were pansy practice sessions.  They built upon each other until the weight was too much, until I broke into a million pieces..

But because there is forgiveness for sin, because there is redemption, I was pulled out by my hair, dragged, kicking and screaming.  I will never forget that time, because it makes me who I am, but most importantly I will never forget that it is a gift freely given, this love and grace.  I don't have to dwell.

This Easter was one of great joy from me.  Unlike last year where I sat in a back pew softly crying, having made my husband take me less than 24 hours after getting out of the hospital, I sat in the front.  Yes, there were still tears, but they were a different sort of tears.  They were a triumphant, joyful, loving and hopeful sort of tears.  Among the gifts I have received in the last year include healing, understanding, forgiveness, a renewal (and saving, really) of my marriage and a another shot at living the life that I was made in HIS image to lead.  This is nothing in comparison to the gift that has been given to all of us.

Love your family today my peeps.  (No, not those peeps.  Those are nasty)

And miles to go before I sleep..

It's March!  You wouldn't know it from the temperature and what seems like endless flurries around these parts, but the calendar and my basketball Spidey senses tell me it is true.  What is it about February that is such a giant drag?  The shortest month of the year feels like the longest to me.  Maybe it has to do with the post-holiday hangover, maybe it is just the waiting and anticipation for spring.  Of course, it's arbitrary - but I always feel a little better when I can flip that page to March.

Things have been unsettled for us lately.  It puts me in a funk and frankly, I don't like it.  I crave my routine and until I have that firmly under control again, I suspect I will remain cranky and just..off.  A couple more weeks at most, I am assured.  I apologize to anyone who comes into contact with me in the meantime.  I don't mean to be a grumpy old lady, I promise.

We recently passed our THIRD anniversary of leaving New Mexico and embarking on our big adventure to the unknown.  Three years.  Absolutely does not seem like that much time has past and yet, life now is nearly unrecognizable to that period of our existence.  Every single day brings new and positive change and I marvel at how God is working in our family.  But the day that we decided to pack all of our belongings into our old car and travel 2000 miles to a place I had never been, that day we were a disaster.  I will say a functional disaster, if you count breathing and existing as functioning.  How things never completely fell apart before then, I really have no idea.  Somehow, we left.  I remember anxiously wanting to pass state lines, to increase the mileage.  We stopped infrequently, despite the fact that the then 4 year old little man was packed like a sardine in the backseat, wedged in between hastily thrown in clothes and other odds and ends we decided not to leave behind.

Three days later, we ventured across the last state line into Kentucky and I can remember looking out into the snow covered landscape and wondering "what have we done?"  No turning back, no possibilities or bridges still standing behind us, we were here and we were committed.  Looking back now, I'm not positive I ever thought we would be here long, though I don't know what I thought we do as an alternative.  We were broke.  Even more than that, we were broken.  The lesson was learned through that period that running away is rarely an effective fix.  Issues tend to follow close behind and come back with a vengeance.  And they did, but that is only a small part of the story now.  Oh, it was everything back then, absolutely all encompassing.  Isn't it amazing how perspective can change?

In those three years, I almost always get the same response when I tell people where we moved from.  "Why?"  No one understands why we would make such a dramatic move, and to a place like this.  Here's the thing they don't understand - we love it here.  I came with an open mind and that attitude paid off.  I'm not sure this part of the country - Midwest, Upper South, Ohio Valley, whatever you choose to call it - is what you would expect, if you have never had the pleasure of visiting.  Frankly, I'm not sure what I expected.  It's cold in the winter.  It snows.  Sometimes into March, which can grow old quickly.  But when spring comes, oh my.  The flowers sprout, flowers I'd never seen in nature before.  The trees bud and oh, those trees.  I have a near unhealthy love for all of those green trees.  They grow thick and dense and when they are at their fullest, it's like a jungle, unpenetrable.  No, there are no mountains, at least where we live.  What there are in abundance are green rolling hills, beautiful and everywhere.  Spring is mild, the temperatures start cold (we are hoping for the 50's for Opening Day this year, which is April 1st) and don't really warm up until late May.  Summer is hot.  And humid, which is obviously a change for us.  Fall seems like it will never come but when it does, it's almost as magical as spring for me.  Colors changing, temperatures cooling off, football, playoff baseball, it's as prototypical as fall can possibly get.

My love affair with all things Cincinnati Reds is well documented, but as it happens in this story, the baseball experience is one of my favorite things about living here.  We are a small market team with fiercely passionate fans. Think Mikey and I fit right in?  People are all about sports here.  Another part of that is that we are firmly planted in the middle of college basketball heaven.  I can't possibly explain University of Kentucky basketball fans.  Despite the fact that we live 5 miles or less from Cincinnati, our area is definitely Kentucky.  You will know this by the omnipresent blue, wherever and whenever.  This is a fanbase unlike any other and I will admit to having more than one chuckle on their behalf.  I can't help it, it's far too easy.

I realize as I sit down to write out what I have been  ruminating over in my head for the last week that I could really go on and on.  Truly, I could work on the tourism board.  I remember the first time the kids came out, I was so proud and excited to show them as much possible.

One of my favorite spots, Newport (on the KY side) looking over the Ohio River to Cincinnati

I'm not sure they shared my enthusiasm on every little thing, but there was definitely more to do than they were used to.  So who wants to come visit next?  I promise to only show you the fun stuff.

Regardless of where we came from and why we came, I can say with certainty that this move was the best for us.  When I am asked if we will ever move back, the answer isn't no, obviously I have no way of knowing what God has in store for us in the future.  But I can say that we are not actively looking to leave here.  We struggled and fought hard to get to where we are now.  So I may moan and complain about another snowstorm, but then I remind myself of everything that I love, that God has given us in our life here, and I just grab another blanket and relax.  While watching a University of Cincinnati vs University of Louisville game, of course.