WASH ME CLEAN . . .

What a 180-degree turnaround: it's still sort of warmish, but it's also grey and wet today. I derive no small amount of comfort from hearing the pitter of raindrops arriving on my deck or spraying occasionally against my windows when the breeze decides to direct them thither. Half of me is charmed by the sensation that spring is right around the corner, and there is really nothing as satisfying and fresh as a spring's rain. But the other half of me ... is the exact same colour as the sky: grey.

Sometimes, I think I'm just too sensitive, and I wonder how I got this way. Occasionally, I'm sensitive in a good way, able to intuit how people are feeling, able to care for them, able to pick up on things that others don't, and able to fulfill my friends' needs without being asked. I can turn a bad situation around with a smile or a gentle word. I can be moved into compassionate action and service, picking up the slack or being proactive and thus helpful. Most times, though, I think I don't reign myself in enough, and I end up reacting to things, letting things hurt me more than merely move me, allowing people to pin-prick me in spots that are overladen with nerves, too soft. When I share about the things that hurt me, 99% of my friends don't understand; they don't know why I can't get over it, why I was hurt in the first place. It's usually no big deal. Are they right, or are they just thick-skinned?

In recent months, I have been taught a great deal about trusting people, about being open and real, about taking down fences that I knowingly or unknowingly have erected against those who are not in my inner sanctum. I haven't always wanted to trust, to be open, to be fenceless, but I've tried, because I've been instructed that it is "right." But now I'm questioning the rightness of being those things, and the wrongness of self-protection. What, exactly, is the inherent value of laying yourself bare for the world to see? What, exactly, is the virtue in being open to everyone, no matter who hurts you, no matter who takes advantage of your trust, no matter who doesn't care about you enough to put their own selfish motives aside?

I always bounce between these two extremes, I think: wanting so much to form deep connections with people, or being hurt by someone's betrayal -- great or small -- and thus withdrawing into wariness to lick my wounds. I have moments where I'm really open with a new friend, and then almost inevitably, I am kicking myself a few days later for having given too much of myself. It is a hard realization to understand that people are fallen, they are selfish, they care only about themselves, what they say is different from what they do, they seek to undermine you and make you feel bad so they can feel good, they are immature and young even when they pretend not to be, they are self-serving and self-aggrandizing, they are lacking in common sense and social mores, they are searching for ways to insinuate themselves into your life so that they can take what they know and use it against you. It is a harder realization to see these very true, very real characteristics in a woman, a woman I might once have called "friend," a woman I might once have thought I could eventually call "a close friend."

But it is the hardest realization to look at myself and know that I have been suckered once again. I don't know who to be angry at more: she, the immature backstabber, or me, the unwitting backstabbee.

... I love looking at rain. I love hearing it. I even love waking up to the sound of it. Today ... I wonder what its effect on me will be. I don't necessarily want to be grey all day, but maybe some wallowing and pensiveness will be good for me? Or maybe it will wash me clean, scour out the darkest and dirtiest and most bitter corners of my heart. Maybe it will flow me towards the friends in whom I have great security, and towards the Christ in whom I have the utmost of redemption and understanding?

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ON A BRIGHTER NOTE . . .

Dr. Cheech comes home in four months!
It has been ages since our family was "whole," excepting the occasional major holiday.