Resurfacing

It has been many moons--lots and lots of 'em--since I blogged with any attempt at faithfulness. There are a handful of (big) reasons for this. Marriage. Changing churches. Miscarriages. Having a baby. Theological existential crises (that one's the heavy-hitter).

Really, though, what it comes down to is all of the deep, wordless growing, breaking, and muddling through that these sorts of transitions bring. I haven't found a way to write my way through these things. Writing on the old blog after Dad died was life-giving and therapeutic--retrospectively, it was simple and uncomplicated in some ways. It was coming to grips with an established reality. But now? This is writing without closure, writing in the middle of tangles that twist and writhe and knot up around you whenever you carve out space to try to wrangle words.  One consideration is what is appropriate to share publicly--so much of the wrestling involves people other than myself. How do I write honestly when I have an audience (albeit a very small one)? I still don't know the answer to that question. 

Deeper than that, though, is the question of how do I write at all--even for myself where no eyes but mine will look. How do I force thought? How do I confront myself and all the changes of the past three years? How do I hit the reset button after realizing I've begun habitually avoiding the questions I walk with that carry dark shadows and promise no answers? How do I wrestle with God when it often feels so hopeless that all I want to do is disengage, pretend the doubts aren't there, turn the other way?

Looking around to take stock of who you're becoming when you're in the valley is hard work. And the plain truth is, I have grown lazy. Weary. Tired of wearing waist-deep ruts treading the same ground over and over again without feeling hope of getting where my heart wants to go. Life has contained more than enough fodder for writing thoughtfully, but when you're drowning in things to think about the path of least resistance is not to think at all. 

And so here I am, facing the realization that for some time I haven't processed life the way I wish I had, the way I needed to. Processing difficult things takes time, intentionality, sacrifice, labor. Honest self-examination reveals that avoidance of this sort of processing has left my mind--and perhaps without hyperbole, my soul--frighteningly atrophied. 

With the acknowledgment that resolutions are easy to make and easier to break, I'll outline a few.

1. Fast from social media. I'm considering getting off Facebook altogether to remove the temptation for mindless time-wasting and other Debbie-specific pitfalls. If I do, this blog might suddenly become the holding place for a back-log of Tadhg posts that only went on Facebook. A bunch of really old news, yes, but the primary purpose would be for me to be able to retain an online scrapbook, of sorts, once Facebook is no longer serving that function.
2. Blog with increased regularity. I'm not binding myself to any sort of schedule for posting, but I'd like to intentionally replace fruitless time-suckers with fruitful ones. I have no idea whether much of the necessary soul-deep processing will happen publicly here, but at the very least I'd like to share life anecdotes, Tadhg stories, photos. Those are joy-giving and shareable. Motherhood has been really wonderful, and it's barely made an appearance on this blog. (Admittedly, this sort of blogging would be largely selfish, i.e. online family scrapbook.)
3. Write outside the blog. Face the ugly things head-on. Wrestle.
4. Read more. Rescuscitate the bookworm. 

There are a good many more that could be added, but that's sufficient for a start, I think. 

The point of all this self-disclosure? Yep, I've been mostly gone for quite a while. And yep, I'm hoping to resurface.