The Storm

Desperation, grasping at anything and everything that might work, even when it is totally irrational. That is my greatest flaw. Last night, in an attempt to move someone to action I said and did all the wrong things. My misguided thinking is that if I back them into a corner then they will have no choice but to take the steps I so desperately feel are crucial to their existence. When will I learn that this bullying always has the direct opposite affect?

The aftermath from these confrontations leave all of us angry, scared, and feeling completely alone. The desired change in behavior are farther from occurring than before our mutual tantrums and we are all left feeling that we are incapable of communication and yes even love. Then I question if I am fit to be around anyone or anything in this life if this is how I handle the people most important to me.

If I respond with such ugliness to those I cherish the most how can I be there for anyone in life? Cherish, what a word, boy I did not act like a mother that cherishes her kids last night. I know we all lose it sometimes, but I have lost it twice in the last month. Our old life used to be chalked full of these hateful outbursts and I thought we were past this insanity. My new found peace is shaken, not by others actions but my own. It leaves me feeling ashamed and vulnerable. Is this a path I am heading back too? I can't handle having that old life back again.

Nowhere in that chaos can anyone feel love, acceptance, or a solution to what is broken. Certainly, my family doesn't feel like getting right on fixing what is broken with a swirl of condemnation around them from my words and actions. Then we all storm off to another night of sleepless anquish, alone and feeling unloved. When will the storm we produce be the last storm we can handle before we just walk away?

I thank God for the peace that is at the center of most of my life these days and I pray for the worrisome behaviors that were so familiar in my past to move back into the past where they belong. That is not the person I want to be or deal with in my present life.

Forgiveness will come this time for all of us but the scars of last night will remain forever in our minds. The sad thing is none of us hate each other the way it sounded, in fact we do love each other and do cherish each other most of the time. But cherishing each other needs to be an all the time act not a most of the time act.

Today I will pray for forgiveness from my family, from God, and even from myself. It is the only way to move forward and attempt to avoid a repeat of last night. My prayer is that never again does my beloved family act so harshly with each other.

In Him,
Joyful and saddened
7-29-2010