the forgotten ones

The mountains glow pink from the setting sun,
and the snow reflects perfection,
and I am sitting here holding my heart in my hands to try and keep it from bleeding out.

No one told me that grief and regret were part of the package, even after you'd done the hard thing and blown up your life.
No one told me that you could get a happy ending, and find your one true love, and still walk around with a gaping wound in your chest.
I didn't know that every sweet thing would always have a bitter aftertaste because of the life I'd lived before.

I am being asked to hold too much.
Grief comes in waves, and I find myself drowning in it and relishing the way it burns my lungs and takes my tears all the way down into its depths.

The sky is dark,
and the mountains are harsh with blues and grays and blacks,
and I am sitting here holding my heart in my hands as it just keeps on beating.

Read more...

blood and bone

It's dark, and I'm falling.

My knuckles are white from gripping the arms of the patio chair and I can't keep my eyes open, no matter how badly I want to. I pry my eyelids apart one last time and glance over to make sure that he's still there.

My beautiful man, my person, my home.

And then I fall even deeper.

The vertigo never stops, but it gets brighter and suddenly I'm there. I'm in that room, on that bed and he's prying my legs apart and I'm saying, "No. No, I don't want to. Please, I said no, please stop, please don't."
I get more frantic when I realize the pressure on my legs is the same and I can't move. I can't get away. "No no no nononononononno don't, please, please, please, please stop, please, I don't want it, please..."

There's a part of me that can hear my screaming, hear the wounded animal noises I'm making, the keening and wailing of a body violated. Suddenly I realize those noises are coming from me now, right now, my body is ripping itself apart and my voice refuses to be silent any longer. 

Arms around my chest, holding me together while I'm flying apart, and a voice in my ear reminding me who I am and where I am and how loved and safe and cherished I am, even in this...

I'm still falling. I'm still breaking. He's inside me now, moving, telling me that he knows I like this, I've told him I like this, and doesn't it feel good? He knows it feels good. Come on Cami, tell me how good it feels. My body has stopped resisting and my brain has left the building. I'm a shell on the bed, going through the motions, making the noises he wants, moving the way he dictates.

And yet... there's a spark that's buried, that's hiding to survive, that's whispering in my ear, "I don't think we wanted this. I don't think that we're okay with this..." and it's the spark that remains the key, that unlocks the truth of this night, the truth of the snake that crawled inside of me and tried to break me to keep me caged.

Eventually my body gives him what he wants. A burst of physical pleasure for both him and I that leaves him panting, and me curled on my side, coated in sweat and shame. The next day he is benevolent and kind, rewarding me with all of the things I used to beg for, but stopped requesting when I realized the price was something I refused to pay. He is constantly reminding me of how good last night was, wasn't it Cami? Wasn't it so good and hot and sexy? And I can't understand why I feel so sick, so ill, so nauseated and unnerved.

I was drunk. He's my husband. We had sex. I know I hadn't wanted to, but I must have changed my mind at some point. He's my husband. It was just sex. Why does it feel so bad?

And I quiet that spark even further and put it out of my mind and chalk it up to the beginning of the ending of our marriage.

Until the night that I am safe and drunk again and I fall into the well of darkness that my brain has been hiding and the spark roars into a flame and I realize

he raped me.

That husband, now my ex-husband, held me down and forced his way inside of me,
and
raped
me.

And now it is today. I am learning how to live in a body that has been taken by someone who had no right to take it. By someone who thought they owned me, all of me, and needed to remind both of us that he could take what he wanted when he wanted it.

The poison is out. It's on this page, spewed out in black and white, melting holes through my computer screen. The acid of the unknown isn't churning away inside of me anymore. Now there is just this truth that I have to learn how to heal from and put into my story without becoming subject to it. This will take time, I know. It will take tears and rage and love and truth and safety. I have all of those things now.

I am alive.

I am safe.

I am still here.

This is not the end. It is the beginning.

Read more...

What do I even call this?

Lately I've been doing a lot of unraveling.

I'm discovering threads of false narratives that I've had woven through my life, and as I start to pull on them to see what they're really made of, I'm finding out that they're actually dry and brittle and covered with dust. This is a strange and slightly scary phenomenon, because I used to have such strong convictions about certain things--hills I was willing to stick my flag in and die on. But with a little tugging and a little digging, I'm realizing that these hills are actually precariously stacked empty boxes that topple over fairly easily.

It's disconcerting to be at the bottom of a battle you thought you had won.

Unfortunately, I think the scarier part is wondering how people I love and value and treasure and respect are going to react when I finally "out" myself. Will they still love me, and (even more than that) respect me and my views? Will they take the time to listen and wrestle with the things that I have wrestled with? Will they believe me when I say I did not set out to become the opposite of the person I used to be?

All of a sudden I have new battles to fight, new hills to dig into, and new faces in new camps to familiarize myself with. And I'd hope in the middle of all of it--all the battles, all the camps, all the faces--we'd still find Jesus, together. In fact, I'd hope that there would be no more battles and no more camps. Just people who love the same miraculous, holy, GodPerson that came to save us all. Why can't we just have that?

I'm tired of fighting with people. It just makes me tired and weary, and so, so sad. I think it's hard for us to remember (or understand, if we've not yet done it for ourselves) how scary it is to find yourself on the opposite side of a very strong conviction you once held. It's so difficult to see your thinking change with every jarring thought that drives it in even deeper. All of a sudden, this new conviction, this new truth, is everywhere. Headbutting you in the face. Making sure you don't forget and that you don't ever get comfortable. And all your memories start bubbling to the surface, and you begin to realize how colored they were by what you used to believe.

I know this is mumbo-jumbo and so vague, but I don't know how else to explain it.

How else do I explain the searing pain that cuts across my heart every time communion is served and I am reminded that the place I worship in tells me that I may never offer this beautiful sacrament to another believer simply because I am a woman?
Or the tears that fill my eyes when I see people running away from Christ and His perfect love because people that call themselves Christians have felt the need to tell them that they are condemned to hell for loving someone of the same gender?
Or the anger that rips through my brain when I hear people shame teenage girls for being teenage girls and having teenage girl bodies that they need to "cover up" so we can protect our teenage boys from sinning?

I just don't have anything left. And I'm at the point in my life where I'd rather be accused of loving too much and too extravagantly than loving too little. I'd rather be known for being "permissive" than for persecuting. I just would.

Read more...

the well runs deep and dry

I've got so much to say, but my brain is like a colander and it just slides right out before I can catch it.

1. I read an article a few days ago where the author talked about how we have this internalized fat-shaming thing going on. We can look at other people and accept them where we are and think that they are beautiful, but when we look at ourselves, we just can't do that. She said, "If you hate the way your before picture looks, do you think I need to lose weight?" insinuating that if we don't like the way we look, do we think that people who look similar to us need to change as well?
I was so struck by that.

Because I look at all the beautiful people I'm surrounded by, and I am so proud of them and their accomplishments. Sure, I see physical "flaws" (society says), but I applaud them for using their bodies and don't judge them or think they should change their appearance. However, I can pick myself apart in front of a mirror in 2.5 seconds and give you a blanket list of everything on my body that needs to change.

Why? Why can I find other people beautiful and worthy, but not do it for myself? My body is healthy and strong, it makes babies and keeps them alive, it loves people well, it goes on adventures and explores, and generally lets me live a wonderful and beautiful life. So why can't I see all of that when I look in the mirror, instead of the layer of fat riding on top of my stomach, or the cellulite all over my thighs?

I become consumed with a sort of panic--I need to change this now! and it deteriorates into, "How can I change (read: become acceptable) myself as soon as possible?" Counting calories, elimination diets, health supplements, any and everything gets thrown onto the drawing board, because pretty soon it deteriorates into being all about appearance rather than taking care of myself.
Basically, I'm having a hard time right now. I feel like a gigantic, enormous failure, because I reached so many goals and finally felt at peace with myself and my body while also improving my health, but now I'm here, 3 years later, and I just feel stuck. I'm tired of the process, I'm tired of picking myself back up after I fall face-first into a pile of sugar, and I want a quicker fix (but am coming back to the fact that I don't think there is one).

2. This video makes me cry every single time I watch it, because it speaks to so many areas of my heart that just feel bruised and battered right now.

Women's roles in ministry (and all of the discrimination/inequality my eyes are finally seeing)

Pursuing your dreams and calling, in spite of logistics

Making room for my husband's calling, and helping him pursue it

I am wrestling, wrestling, wrestling.
I feel like Jacob, when he spent the night wrestling with God, and got so tired, but he wouldn't stop until God blessed him. I can't leave this alone, even if I am injured in the process, because I just need to know. So I keep sweating, and straining, and yelling at God to let me in, let me see, let me hear, because I want it all.

Read more...

I was never me

Why is it that women are often so encouraged to give up every piece of themselves for their families or their loved ones, and put being themselves on hold until everyone else is done and taken care of? Why are we the ones expected to raise our children, keep our homes in order, and keep telling our dreams, "Not today, dear ones. Check with me tomorrow."?

There is honor in laying down your life for someone else.
No greater honor, in fact.

But where is the honor if you're not living the life you are laying down?
Where is the sacrifice if you don't even realize what it is you're giving up?

I just finished watching 'Wild'. It was beautiful and it made my heart pound and soar in so many magnificent and uncomfortable ways. I understood Cheryl, identified with her in so many ways. I understand the desire to push grief away, to numb it up so high that you can't feel anything anymore, let alone the pain that's cutting your soul open. But at the end of it all, there comes a point where you realize the only way to stay you, or even find out who you are, is to simply walk straight through it. Straight to the heart of it all, the corners of your mind that you'd rather never see or visit or even acknowledge.

Because how can you know who you are if you don't even know what's hiding inside of you?
I've been in a season of walking through grief, and it lasted for a long time. Years, even. The most secure things in the world were ripped open and shaken up, and I had to decide who I was and where I stood, even when I had no ground left.
Lately, I've been in a season of rebuilding and implementing the things I've discovered. I'm trying my very best to hold onto the things I learned in the fire, and to carry them with me into this new season. But I still think there's more to go. There are things left unseen inside of me, and I think I know this. There are places that I just don't want to go, because they're too dark and too hard and I am so afraid of what is lurking behind those corners.

Who am I, really, in the shadows?
What if I would choose to make the same mistakes?
What if I would choose to change them all?

Read more...

On why I am tired of The Church

Oh, I am so weary.
Today I have just had it. The straw that broke the camel's back landed in my bag and I am firmly on the other side of "I'm done".

I am so tired of this Church.

This judgmental, angry, hypocritical, whitewashed church.
The ones who spout love with one breath, and judgment and condemnation with another.

The ones who claim to follow Christ, and yet seem to ignore those great commandments of loving God first and then loving others. (Can we all take a minute and note how we, ourselves, do not even make the top list of people we are supposed to care about?!)

I am so worn out from fighting it, and trying to convince myself that it's not like this, and that The Church is still there and still beautiful, and still in love with Christ. Because right now, when I look around, I see a Church in love with the Law and in love with themselves and this masquerade of Righteousness that they are convinced they are living out. Like the Crusaders, firmly convinced that spreading Christianity means beating other people to death.

I just can. not. take. any. more.

So I'm out.
Do you hear me?

I am OUT, Church.

You can find me in the dens of iniquity, hiding with my LGBTQ family, my fellow addicts, losers, left-wing, liberal, worldly, SINNERS.
Because that is who I am, and this is where I belong. Right back in the place that Jesus plucked me from, so that I can hope and pray that He will use me to help pluck someone else from that place. I cannot hold my head up high anymore and say that I am okay with the attitudes running through the Evangelical Church right now. The judgment disguised as "encouragement", the hypocrisy disguised as care, the moral high ground disguised as leadership. I don't want any part of it.

I love my local church body. I love my fellow Christians who are truly in love with Christ and are genuinely living that out. I love the women that, every day, push me to challenge my old ways and thinking and to make sure they truly line up with Scripture and the life God calls me to live. Those are the people I will cling to and fight the battles of this world with. But I am tired of trying to align myself with others who believe that people are the enemy, and not the evil authorities of the spiritual realm.

I just don't have the energy to hate anymore.

Read more...

write what you know

I've been blogging for a long time. A little over ten years actually. In that time, I've gone from being an angsty teen, pouring out her emotions all over the interwebz, to entering a mommy-blogger-wannabe phase in which I really struggled with marketing myself and attempting to monetize my blog and profit off of it, and now finally landing in this strange area where I am so much a mother and so deep in my own mire that I have often wondered if there is any point in trying to keep this thing going.

You may have gathered this by now, but I am struggling with the value and purpose of my own story.

It feels like everyone else, it seems like I have nothing new to contribute to the conversation, and I remain unconvinced that I need to add to the virtual noise that is currently streaming around us.

Unfortunately for me (and maybe you, if you're stuck reading this), I have never, ever, ever, throughout my entire life, been able to turn off the word faucet. I've tried many times, and I've gotten it to dry up to a trickle, but it remains steadfastly flowing and moving, whether I want it to or not. Which always leaves me here, in a quiet room with fingers tapping and a brain trying to translate all the electrical pulses flowing through it into coherent words and sentences, like:

Inadequacy
-This is a supreme emotion, one that tears through my body with free reign, wreaking havoc and chaos wherever it goes. It tells me that I am not enough, have never been enough, and will not ever be enough. It declares, loudly and triumphantly, "You lose, you fail, you fall short, you are worthless for even trying, so just give up already." It attacks at all angles, leaving no area of my life untouched, and no accomplishment unblemished. It has tormented me for as long as I can remember, and even though I feel like I have gotten much stronger at battling it, there are still seasons where it just seems to be lurking around every corner.

Selfishness
-This sneaky bugger whispers that only truly selfish women believe that they should have a purpose outside of motherhood (which, interestingly enough, means that it co-mingles with pride) and for me to take time away from my family, or even feel like I deserve time away, means that I am filled with the utmost of selfish longings and am once again, inadequate in so many areas.

Disappointment
Ah, the sting of an unfulfilled dream and a life left un-lived. Blessed as I am, there are too many moments (selfishness) where I find myself wondering what it is that I'm doing and why. This is often followed by long diatribes in which I moan about how I'm too young to be married and have two children, and mourn the loss of the life I could have had, had I made a different choice: (insert life choice here)

And so there you have it.
The ugly, rambling impulses of my brain that is chronically sleep-deprived, ridiculously overworked, and probably under-nourished. Heaven knows why I'm even putting this out there, but I think it's because I just can't let the toxicity of it all keep building up in my brain and the internet seems as good a place as any to dump your baggage.

Voila, interwebz. The drama continues.

Read more...