I woke with my partner this morning. It was 3:30 a.m. I kissed him goodbye and smiled at his suggestion to go back to bed. I didn't listen, as is usual for this momma who is stubborn to the core. I had two glorious hours to myself. I got down on the floor by my fake fireplace, turned on the heat element (we keep our house at 65 at night so we're all freezing in the mornings), laid in the child pose and meditated.
It's my 45th birthday today.
I have been struggling with pain in my back for over a week. I go to bed with it and wake up with it having dug deeper into my body. I've taken more Advil and Tylenol this week than I care to. I went to my massage therapist. I went to my therapist. Still, it persisted.
Until I listened to a podcast (Jen Hatmaker's For the Love podcast w/ Hilary McBride Your Body is YOU).
My ears listen to a lot. My days are full of Audible and podcasts and phone calls. I have gotten every penny I spent back in information and entertainment from my Bose headphones. But I don't listen to my body.
So, I did the thing where you thank your body for protecting you. You thank your body for alerting you to danger. You thank your body for telling you that something is off...that you are in distress. The pain in my back screamed at me. And I finally heard her.
She told me that I have been in a constant state of anxiety for weeks...months... She told me that I was worried about my boys, their health, my partner, my family, my job, my weight, my friends, my house, my money, my drinking, my smoking, my dog, my overall health...and aging. She spoke her peace. And I listened. And the pain subsided.
Since I started the deconstruction process a few years ago, I have felt disconnected and afraid. I've felt alone. I felt cut off from everything that I knew. The very fiber of my being was now in question. I felt totally alone in the universe. Like a free fall through the darkness with no end in sight. It was terrifying.
But I eventually found a home in others who were also deconstructing their faith. They gave me a vocabulary for my existential loneliness.
And I eventually found God again. He is not male or female. He has become THEY.
They have been teaching me the wholeness of myself. They have taught me to see Them in everything I do. They have taught me to find Them in the darkness. They have taught me the beauty of accepting love and grace and extending it to others. They have taught me the importance of my connection to the universe and to others. They have become the Christ within me.
I found Them in the most ANTI-SBC places. I found Them in the bedroom with my lover whom I am not married to. I found Them in psychedelics. I found Them in the laughter of my friends at a bar. I found Them in my tortured soul. I found Them in Yoga, meditation, cleaning toilets, fighting with my kids, picking up my dog's poop, making the most perfect martini, smoking a cigarette before the sun has come up, balancing my accounts, having tough conversations, learning something new that scared me before.
I found Them in my back pain.
I am so much bigger than the little girl/teenager/young adult who has looked at Them outside of herself. They are in every part of my life.
I am officially in Mid-Life. My wrinkles profess this. My sagging body proclaims this. And I'm loving her. May the second half of my life be a celebration of being a whole being in the wholeness of God.