It Hurts

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOOOOTBALL??? Wrap-up? Except... not really.

Yesterday was the Superbowl and more importantly, was an excused day to eat 7 layer dip and lemon bars.  Didn't you hear? Calories don't exist on Superbowl Sunday. ;)

While we only watched the coin toss, the half-time show and the last minute of the game because we don't really care much about football, it was still a nice day.

Sorta.

There was a bunch of drama between my alcoholic father and me.... and I ended up getting a pretty gnarly headache.

Luckily, I was able to tough it out because Bryan and I invited Denise and Bryan's cousin Ali to come over to watch movies and eat food. I sat there with a heating pad on my head, drugged up, and I kept repeating, "Bryan, shhhh... you are too loud!" and "No, Bryan! I don't want to drink any alcohol. I'm drugged right now!"

But around 6, my head started feeling WAY better, I was finally able to have a lemon bar and a little more dip, and we watched That Thing You Do. Love that movie! I made minestrone soup in the crock pot for our dinners this week, and I made enough to freeze half for another meal later on. Woohoo!

All in all, it was a fine Superbowl Sunday.

Yesterday was just another instance of how devastating it is to have someone that you love be addicted to drugs, alcohol or involved with other styles of destructive behavior. I feel so sad for my Dad, for my family, because this will never end. It's the same cycle over and over again.

It's especially hard because while I can usually deal with it in (what I can only hope is) a healthy way, it still is a constant in my life. It's always there, looming around the corner. It's a major pain, emotionally and physically to deal with someone that is so all over the place. Especially when they are 'normal', they are amazing. Its like mourning the death of one of your favorite people all the time. Over and over again.

I don't want anything bad to happen to my Dad. But at the same time, I want this cycle to end. I want it to be over. I hate the roller coaster of it all. The mean words, the broken promises, the pretending. It's all so heavy that I just don't to deal with it anymore. Even if I pulled away and cut all communication, I would still think about it and wonder. And miss out on the good times that come around every once in a while.

It just is what it is, I guess. But it still hurts.

Matters of the Heart

**This post is totally coming from a disheartened Megan. Just an FYI for you.**

Most of the time I am okay with coming from a broken family. Most of the time I feel like I have overcome a lot of obstacles to get me to where I am today. And I feel like so far, I've succeeded.

Yes, I've made mistakes. Little ones and big ones. But I've learned. I've grown. I've managed to escape huge disasters. A lot of people that know me have said at one point, "I have no clue how you and your sisters turned out the way you did."

But sometimes things happen. Events in a day. Something that triggers a memory. Sometimes I'll look at the picture I have of my Mom and Dad in the mountains with snow surrounding them and I remember the casualties.

I feel the ache in my heart knowing that my future children (if I have any) will never see their grandparents together. And maybe worse, I know that Emma and Brody, who are here now, will never get to go camping with their grandma and grandpa.. something that they loved to do. Or go to the lake and swim. Or swim in the pool with them together. When they are old enough, they might hear my parents love story, but they won't really get it, won't understand it. It'll be foreign.

I know that everything happens for a reason. I know that God has a plan that I am not going to even try to figure out. And I know that the people that my parents are with now are so awesome and I am happy to have them in my life.

But I also mourn the loss for my original family of 5. I get sad at how much the decisions that our parents made has affected not only their lives, but all of ours too. I'm sad that there are all these rivers and valleys between the five of us and we'll never find a bridge or walk the distance to find each other again.

Luckily, humans adapt. Even though part of me will always wish that I could revert time and control every detail to make things happen a different way, I will always reject the idea. I would never want to disrupt what we all have now.

Alison, a woman I admire so much, has a wonderful husband and a beautiful family. I would never risk altering her life.

Kari, my fierce and loving sister is so happy with her life and her hubby and lil Gunther and their new house that they are making a home more and more each day... and to think of doing anything in the past that might change that gets automatically thrown out.

Maybe because I am single and still figuring life out, I have time to think about these things. Maybe because I was the only one left when my family finally cut the ties and I watched it all happen I have a different view. I don't know.

I just know that nights like tonight I wish I could call my parents and get some type of advice. Which I could probably still do, but why bring it up when everyone has moved on?

Tuesday Musings

Strength.

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?

All throughout our lives we have faced times that called for strength. We have all had broken hearts, shattered dreams, fear for a loved one, failure, rejection. Each time we had to be strong, to breathe. To remember that the pain will fade.

When Bryan and I first ended, I thought I would die. The pain was overwhelming. It was a heavy burden that I could not carry. Parts during that time are fuzzy. I remember collapsing on my bathroom floor in the apartment because I couldn't take the pain. Because I had loved so strongly, so purely and so deeply that I couldn't breathe through the pain. I couldn't force myself to put on an unaffected front. I did, however, have the foresight to grab my phone and call Denise, and she calmly talked me down as only a good friend would.

I also remember going to Kari's house for dinner and my Mom was there. I remember we weren't even talking about Bryan or my relationship. All of a sudden a memory came back so strong that I just started crying. I went upstairs and hid in her curtains where I cried. Eventually, they found me. And do you know what they did? They came behind the curtains with me and let me cry.

I relied so much on my family and friends during that time that I don't think I would've ever recovered had I not had them. Honestly, I know I wouldn't have recovered so completely had I not had their love to help get me through.

Sometimes we forget just how important it is to have people to get us through when we feel we aren't strong enough. And when it is something personal, maybe we are fighting a demon no one knows about, it's important to remember that our battles are not to be fought by us. It's important to let Jesus take the wheel of our lives and let him steer us through anything that comes along and also to get us where we should be. It hard to let someone else in, to let them see ourselves as vulnerable. We won't allow our family and friends to be the rock that we need them to be out of pride.

It's really hard for me to let go of that control. It's really hard to be hurting and not shove it down so that I don't have to feel it or deal with it.

I really hope that if there is anything going on in your life that hurts or something that you are not strong enough to bear, that you aren't burying it or masking it with alcohol, drugs, or sex. I hope that you deal with it.


Carrying pain and heartache inside of you forever changes you. I carried around pain and felt that I wasn't worth to have someone love me like I should have been loved. I stayed in a relationship for three years that I never should have been in because I felt like I wasn't strong enough to make it outside of it. I let myself love without guarding my heart and it blew up in my face. I have learned now to be more honest with myself because of it.

I think everyone needs to be a little bit more honest with themselves.

I really don't know the point of this blog. Maybe its for those who are hurting and need to remember that saying that you aren't strong enough doesn't mean you are saying you are weak. Maybe it's saying that if you have someone in your life that you care about, you should let them know. Maybe it's for the person that needs to open up to one of their core people. I don't know.

What I do know is that I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.