Peace

Peace be with you my friend, and if you have any and I mean any peace left to spare, please come see me as I seem to have misplaced mine.

I found myself in a sadly familiar situation today as my good friend called me needing help. He was about 45 minutes south of our town at a gas station, and his car wouldn’t start. It was just a dead battery needing to be jumped, but he had asked a couple people who didn’t have cables… The only problem, I was about 45 minutes North of our town in Wallyworld. I understood why my friend didn’t want to ask a lot of people for the help he needed. It seems to be one of those shared trauma responses I see in a lot of my friends, yet still I could feel the agitation growing. I know that I could make an argument for why I was agitated, that is one of my superpowers, I can justify just about anything that I want to justify. The reality is that I not only have the time, but the desire to help people. Beyond that I consider him a good friend, and I am either willing to help, or not. If I am willing and able to help, then what difference does it any of the other stuff make?

The feeling was first realized about a year ago. There is a large family here in town that does family well, really well and it is a joy to see and to be around. The 2 parents, 9 children, ~20 grandchildren, and assorted relatives all attend the same church, that is where I met them. I was appreciative of any time I could spend around them, mostly because of the Love the mother so freely shared, even towards me. Beyond loving, the women of this family were industrious, creative and hardworking so when presented with the opportunity to help them, I would freely volunteer my time. This one particular day about a year ago started no different than the other times I helped. The ladies asked me to work on an area, then went and worked somewhere else like usual. Now, all of them are married and I am a single, so I never try to position myself next to them, and I have no desire to transfer my loneliness to their husbands, but I did hope that I would be able to feel connected, involved, accepted, I would settle for talked to. I think that the way that this family Loves is absolutely beautiful and I really appreciated being around it, mostly.

Surrounded by beauty and examples of Love

For their husbands, children and the Father above

I cannot touch this Love I see, for reasons far greater than it not belonging to me

You see the things I like, those traits I love, the ones that I adore would cease to be with a single touch as if they never were.

So there I was, upstairs working upstairs this one particular day, my task was to move a wall in one bedroom while the ladies gutted the downstairs. I could hear them laughing which normally fills my soul but didn’t that day. I just felt distant and uninvolved. As I worked the irritation burrowed, which made me increasingly angry with myself. I offered the help, they accepted, I am helping. How selfish would I have to be to stop helping because I didn’t get something in return that I did not even ask for. Was I only willing to help if I got something in return? Why was I so irritated?

Why did it still agitate me with Adrian even after realizing that he needed more than a jump? That he needed something that passersby couldn’t provide, that only a friend would provide. He needed a new battery picked up and brought to where he was. My distance suddenly became much less of an issue, as I neither of us are flush with friends. I was even in the automotive section already gathering the items needed to change my oil right next to the batteries.

I was still quite irritated though, but truth be told it started before he called. I was irritated all day for seemingly no reason at all. I was irritated when my good friend from AZ sent me a video message asking me questions. I was really irritated before that when my Uncle Phill, who I care about deeply just asked me a simple question. The question he asked is similar to the questions he asks a lot of the times that I visit, I get irritated each time. I even know that he only asks the questions because he has a busy mind. He narrates everything and has to be talking if there is someone to listen. Honestly it is trait he shares with my ex-wife and one that I am not particularly fond of, but I do care about him and I can usually keep my peace and just enjoy the limited company. It helps that I can poke a little fun at him with my Aunt.

What are the type of questions that irritate me?

Simple ones like What are you going to do today? or if I told him the day before that I was thinking of doing X, the simple questions like, Did you get it done?

This is not my Uncle’s issue to deal with and he really just wants to then tell you all about what he did that day. I really do try hard not to let it get to me, this time I failed.

I had just come back from rearranging my storage unit, making several trips, moving several things in and out when I stopped by to say hi.

Did you leave at all today?

Yes, Why?

Huh?

Why are you asking?

Oh, just curious.

That simple exchange irritated me and more visibly than I should have let on. Again, I know that this is a me thing. Beyond that, the only other thing I know is that it does irritate me, it is one of the reasons I live the way I do in this tiny rolling home.

I have been trying to figure out the patterns and I think that I can see it now. Each of these people and instances were tied to some sort of hope. I remember that the depression was kicking my ass when I volunteered to help the ladies, and I had low key hoped to be seen, have a conversation, to not feel so lonely. It was not to be. That hope can be crucial, the idea that Love can happen at any moment. On any random gas station visit, shopping trip or church Sunday. At some point though each trip ends, each day ends, each week ends, and as I am 4 weeks away from 50 there is the realization that another year is about to end and I am seemingly further away from Love.

In the case of the conversations that I’ve been having with Adrian lately, where he has been cutting me off a lot and monopolizing the conversations. I realize that he has a tremendous amount of stress in his life right now so it usually doesn’t bother me, but I had been struggling and had that same low key hope that I would be heard and stop feeling as alone as I did.

I remember the last several weeks I had been making it a point to be around more people. To camp at parks instead of isolated campgrounds, and I became more active online. All with the low key hope that the new campsite, the new clothes, fresh haircut or whatever would help me connect with someone. I enjoy being alone, I hate feeling alone. Lately all I have felt was alone, and far the peaceful way that I have come to love.

I remember the day that I felt at peace for what seemed like the first time. I was sitting on my living room couch in a silent home. My children were spending two weeks with their mom and they were well taken care of, so that stress relieved. I don’t know what caused it, but sitting there on the couch, silent and then my shoulders relaxed, and I felt at peace. The silence seemed to recharge me, The muscles in my neck were as relieved as if I just took off my rucksack after 20 miles. I just sat there in silence for a while taking it all in. It may have only lasted a few hours, but I was hooked. If there was stress to shed, I was going to try and shed it. I was however still a few years away from my Army retirement and my children were still living at home so I would have to take what I could get.

What it highlighted for me was what healthy felt like, and it lit a desire to become so. So I just started, I really needed to find out who I was absent of early abuse, absent of other people’s unhealed trauma being disguised as love, absent of the noise that 23 years of the military and two wars bring. Absent of the religious dogmas that tried to instill fear in me. Who I was free from the sense of abandonment after my father’s suicide, and my mother’s abandonment. In short, I wanted to know who I really was, I was starting to understand that I wasn’t unloveable, my Heavenly Father and my Grandma showed me that. So started my quest, it continues to evolve but always consists of prayer and meditation, as well as journaling and reflective reading. When I feel as lonely as I have been, I am reminded of just how far I have to go, and just how helpless I seem to be at times at controlling my tongue and attitude.

The only thought that calmed me a bit was that I am only a few weeks away from my first therapy appointment, finally. I really want to be healthy and help others to become so as well, I’m just not, yet.