Feeling (10.14.22)

It’s Michael. I’ve been slowly drafting thoughts the past few months in preparation to share something with you all. There are several reasons why you have yet to hear from me, reasons I don’t honestly care to share today. Not because they are too shocking, but because they are too mundane. Regardless, I wrote this today and I want to share it with you.

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It finally happened.

I may just be exhausted, or maybe I’m starting to feel the reality of it all again.

It was easy those first days. The wound was fresh, the news was new. I felt each moment of shock, defiance, excitement, and fear. I could identify, communicate and experience each new emotion. Marcy and I wrestled through faith and the theological “why” of all of this brokenness.

Then I finally accepted my new reality.

And with that acceptance came a return to the day to day necessities of everything else in our lives that had not stopped. I kept going to work. I kept coming home. I kept grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. I kept playing with Theo. We potty trained. And somewhere along the way I stopped feeling.

Except that’s not how things really happen. Things don’t happen that cleanly.

What really happened was messier. I can’t point to a moment where I closed off my heart. Instead it was a slow process of redirected priorities, of compartmentalization, and of self deceit.

In the end it doesn’t really matter, the result is the same- I became too afraid to “go there.” I wasn’t able to think of prayer requests, I wasn’t able to come up with goals, I wasn’t even able to dwell on Abby’s birth for more than a minute before it hurt too much.

I’d like to say I got through it, that I read something that changed my outlook, that God spoke comfort to my fear, anything. But I can’t.

I’m not through it. But today I was able to feel a deep sadness again. And last week I started seeing a counselor. And ready or not I’ll be seeing Abby really soon.