Alien Emotions

My husband made a pretty profound revelation to me about myself last night.  “You lie.  A LOT!”  Now, I thought that LIE was a little strong description given the story that I had just told…but then I stopped and thought about it…and maybe I do lie…a little.  Or a lot. 

The story I told was about the dog park yesterday.  It had NOTHING to do with Diego.  And I’ll begin by saying, yes, I have been lying to all of you lately.  Not on purpose, of course.  But a lie by omission…well..it’s still a lie, isn’t it?  So before I begin…I’ll start with a little truth.  I have been honest that I’ve been struggling lately…but not with how much.  Not that we should all run around crying and wailing to every person that we meet, but given that I’m writing these to provide some sort of motivation if you are in a difficult situation/mindset…I think I should wail and cry a little.  Or at least tell you about what’s up. 

Saturday morning I was awakened by my dear hubby at 7:30 to him showering.  He got out and started trying to rouse me out of bed to go run.  Run?  After a shower?  Only a man…  But I did NOT want to run.  I did NOT want to get out of bed.  Even a little.  I begged him to stay with me, and sweetly…he did.  By 10, Paxton had had enough of bed and we were getting up.  I felt guilty for convincing him to do the less healthy thing and not running…and guilty for not working out myself.  Guilt.  There’s something I need to be honest about…I feel guilty ALL. THE. TIME.  Does anybody else have the I’ve-not-done-anything-wrong-but-I’m-guilty-anyway syndrome?  Yulp.  Figures.  Well, if you do?  You’re not alone, and we need to STOP IT!  But ARE we going to continue to lie to ourselves or, God forbid, grow up (???), become healthy (???), and ultimately…be honest?  Because I’m still in rehab for my syndrome, to make up for my guilt I decided I would ride my bike to get the milk we needed for cereal.  Paxton assured me I didn’t have to do that, but nope.  Too much guilt.  Which the guilt?  Well…it then depressed me because I wasn’t good enough to even have milk.  Ummm…are we seeing a pattern here?  Well, because I am battling a lot right now I have been experiencing some emotions that I haven’t really “allowed,” per se, in many years.  And they ain’t pleasant ones…  So allowing myself to get so down for, like, NOTHING (!!!) sent me into a downward spiral of negativity.  So much so, that while we were eating breakfast I suddenly burst into tears.  Just like that.  One minute Paxton is slurping the leftover milk from his bowl, the next he’s looking at me with this bewildered, slightly confused expression. 

“Babe?  What’s wrong?”  He asked me while then taking me into a hug.  “I don’t know.  I’ve never felt like this before,” I answered through sniffles as I “sorta” calmed down.  “I just feel so…so…I don’t even know!” I wailed before a fresh bunch of tears and snot and whatever else was comin’ outta my head started flowing.  “I feel sad.”  I finally said.  And then I got up and went to lay in bed again, sobbing into my pillow. 

Paxton came upstairs and laid in bed next to me.  “What do you want to do, sweetie?  Do you want to go geocache ***Sidenote**** This is a VERY cool, fun thing to do and you can do it anywhere in the world.  It’s basically a glorified scavenger hunt that you use a GPS to take you to a location and there’s a small box.  But it’s not about the box…it’s about where it takes you, or something you see.  Just check it out at www.geocaching.com.  ****Sidenote end**** Do you want to take a nap?  Watch a movie?’  He asked me.  “What do YOU want to do?”  I questioned back.  “It’s not about me today.  You’re going through a lot,” Paxton said, “today’s about YOU.”  We laid together a bit, me calming, and he finally got out of bed to go downstairs while I decided. 

Two hours later I came down. 

And you know what?  I still felt sad…but I felt a little better.  The reason I told you this is to try to be more honest.  For so long I have constantly put on a happy face despite feeling really negative and sad about a lot of things that I deserved to feel sad about.  And what’s sadder?  I often could have learned something or come further out of what I was feeling had I just told a friend and asked for minute or two.  This said, I will now tell you the fateful story of Diego and my’s dog park adventure yesterday. 

So, given that I told you about what Paxton and I now refer to as “Sad Sack Saturday” (we try to make fun of things to ease the silliness I felt afterward), Monday was kind of a hard day too.  After Paxton left for work I went back to bed for two hours…and woke up feeling *sigh* guilty.  Gar!  To try to bolster my mood Diego and I headed to the dog park.  

Now, I have to say, there is one woman that I have encountered at the dog park that, it’s not that I don’t like her…but she, shall we just say, overshares?  Case in point:  first time I met her she told me she was sexually abused her entire childhood (how this came to light at a dog park?  Your guess is as good mine.) As well as that she loved to smoke weed.  Yes.  I felt the same way.  So heading to the dog park in a somewhat foul mood I kept repeating in my head “please don’t be there, please don’t be there.” 

She wasn’t.

And then she showed up. 

Like clockwork, she made a beeline for the empty seat beside me.  I was already engrossed in a very pleasant conversation with another woman so I didn’t really want to move.  Bad decision…SUCH a bad decision.

The conversation started well enough with an update about the elderly gentleman she cares for, and then we started talking politics.  Now yes, I know.  Everyone is now shouting to the rooftops, “NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DON’T TALK POLITICS WITH A CRAZY HIPPIE!”  But I LOVE talking politics.  My stepdad and I could talk politics, disagreeably, for hours.  So now, I will interject the verses for today and hopefully, bring it back around to the point, and make some sense.  I was reading in Isaiah because it’s a book that I find to be particularly comforting, and right now?  I’m trying to be as comforting to my soul as I can be.  “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings lie eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”  Isaiah 40: 31: As well as:  “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  Isaiah 41: 10. 

I typically try to relate what verses I read back to my life, and today I started thinking about yesterday and what this woman said.  At this point we were talking about Jesus and God, and honestly?  I don’t even really know.  She was doing most of the talking with the other woman and me helplessly sitting by not knowing how to respond.  But then…then she said something that I simply could NOT just listen to her say without interrupting, no matter WHAT the cost, and saying something.  She was talking about the shroud that Jesus had on His face when He was in the tomb and He rose from the dead.  “Well, the shroud is how the face of Jesus was formed.  Because His face was formed into the shroud,” Crazy-Hippie Lady said.  “So the only way they could have gotten that is if He was like, light lifted through (I won’t lie, I have no idea what she really said because my mind was doing backflips at this point at the weirdness of this conversation).”  And then…she took it really downtown to crazy town.  “The aliens took Him back to the mothership, then transported Him back,”  Freak-City said, “Jesus is half man, half alien.”

My head JUST exploded! 

If you are thinking “this woman is insane” like I am, then we’re on the same team.  At this point, and reading the verses I did today, I realize that God was putting some wind under my wing and strengthening me to have a voice.  To stop lying to myself and to God by NOT saying what she was saying was pure lunacy.  So I DID!

“I’m sorry, but we have to agree to disagree,” I interrupted her rant.  “Jesus is NOT ANY part alien.  He is Jesus.  He is the Father. Son.  And Holy Ghost.”  She looked at me like I was the crazy one and asked, “Why can you believe the unbelievable, but not the believable?”  I looked at her with all the strength of our good Lord and not an ounce of my usual “I’ll be nice to this person no matter whatness” and said, “Because I think you are stupid.” 

Yes, it was a little mean, but this woman was completely…well…crazy!  At this, I said I needed to go and proceeded to drag my dog as quickly as possible from the park to call someone…ANYONE…to tell them about Crazy-Hippie-Lady.  But then I didn’t. 

I realized I felt guilty.  Again.  For being so rude to the lady.  And last night, I told Paxton that story and my reaction. 

“Beth Ann,” he said narrowing his eyes to me showing the seriousness of what he was about to say, “you are a liar.  You weren’t even mean to that lady.  Do you want to know what I would have done?  I would have moved away from her the moment she sat down.  Stop feeling guilty about this crazy person!”  He shook his head, “Stop feeling guilty about everything.  Just realize you did the right thing by telling her it was stupid!” 

Maybe he’s right.  Maybe he’s not.  But I guess the moral of this little story today is that sometimes we have to just NOT feel guilty about standing up for the truth that is Jesus.  Stop even LISTENING to lies about Jesus and have the strength and conviction of God to say, “NO!  I will NOT feel guilty for telling you that believing Christ is an ALIEN and I will lying and pretending I am enjoying this INSANE conversation!”  O…and I will also work on not feeling guilty for feeling weary and sad, nor will I lie to friends when they ask, “Can I help?”.  Because eventually…maybe not right when I want…but eventually God WILL renew my strength.  Like today.  So smile and go watch the movie “Alien.”  You might just get a chuckle out of the deal.