sleet.

I'm really confused by the sleet.  It bounces around, ricocheting off rooftops and roads and windshields, before finding its final resting spot with is predecessors in a puddle on the asphalt.

I can't tell where it comes from sometimes.  Sometimes it appears to be falling up, or being thrown sideways.  It's like having eyes on the inside of a popcorn bag; no rhyme or reason to the direction they explode and collide.

***

I admit it.  I don't know how else to write right now.   I'm constipated with words.  I've put off writing like a dam.  The source waters are backed up and up and up, and there's a raging flood being held back by this simple dam, constructed to keep the words at bay.  I don't know what trickle to let over first.  I'm afraid I'll compromise the integrity of the whole convention to just bleed the waters a bit; that the whole structure I've built up to house too many things in the first place.

Some call it denial, I call it a dam.

There is a man made lake-full of emotion and words and thoughts I want to get out, but I don't know where to start. And I know that once I do begin, there's no way to shut it off.

Recognizing the problem is the first step, right?

***

My heart is crying.  My tears would fall outwardly if I wasn't in public.  I drove home at first, knowing I needed to write in a place I felt comfortable enough to write, honestly.  I drove straight instead of turning on my road, opting for a place I wanted to be, giving The Well an edge up on priority.  I'm sitting on a bench covered in burlap, next to a cold, dreary windowscape, but it feels warm and inviting in spite of the icicles forming from the gutters and freezing rain collecting on the curbside.  Nightfall just turns down the contrast of the gray day as it fades to dusk.

I guess to begin, well.  I guess I'm sort of back in a lull.  It's a hard place to be, and its a hard place to realize you're at.  I had the flu this week, and that meant I spent 97% of my time alone, and in my house.  I've slept for days, but my body is still extremely fatigued.  Going up stairs, carrying my purse, simple things are difficult, and it makes me feel like a failure.

I know, I'm hard on myself.  This weather doesn't help either.  But, I see my incomplete laundry, and I see how I've failed.  I go upstairs to bed and remember my sheets are still in the wash, and again, I've failed on the only thing I set out to do.  I go to get in my car, and before my feet even touch the floor mats, I'm reminded of how I've failed to vacuum it, again.  That I've failed to carry in my mixer,  that the kinders' nametags are still wrapped in laminate and waiting to be cut out.  I can't find a thing in my purse,  there are things in my trunk I've intended on putting away when I got back from Christmas, my lesson plans for this week remain unfinished (and its already Monday evening).  Every time hives involuntarily take over my body, I feel like I've failed to find a solution to keep me healthy.  When my kiddos disregard my eleventy-billionth request to keep it at a level 1 whisper.  When i look at my bank account and have to worry about the two weeks before I get my monthly paycheck; or see the balance of my student loans; or how much money I still have left until my credit card is paid off (even after paying $700 this month, leaving me approximately $350 for food, gas, and  any other "luxuries" for the month); and I feel, again, like I've failed.   When I lay down at night and realize I've gone all day without taking to the Lord, I feel the weight of the forty-seven-thousand tally marks beneath the "failures" label.

i know my feelings do not dictate my identity.  where I see myself as a failure,  God sees a daughter.  where I see myself as a sum of all I lack, God sees every victory He has walked me in.  Where I see the failures of my past surmounting, God sees the promises of a hope and a future.  When I sulk in darkness, God illuminates with the Light of Christ.

to live a life recounting our brokenness alone, we rob ourselves of God's satisfaction in the work of the Cross.  When we carry our shame, we forget that God's promise of redemption and our creation in His image is the cloak of grace we ought to wear in the winter storms.  He is not grieved by the vastness of our depravity.  He has already overcome that on Calvary.