I've been struggling with religion lately. It would seem that the Spiritual high I felt during my entire pregnancy has faded. I would imagine a lot of what I felt, religiously speaking, during my pregnancy was the result of being the host of two spirits. I am in no way saying that I doubt God's existence because I don't. What I am saying is that I don't know who He is or where to find him. I don't feel peace when I walk in to a church anymore. Rather, I have panic attacks. I'm working on the repentance process and it is difficult and part of me is scared to death of what my next trial will be because this life is full of them and my religion views trials as something we experience in order to learn a valuable lesson that we would otherwise not learn without having the experience of hardship. And, I'm tired. I'm exhausted. And a huge part of me just doesn't care anymore.
I sat in a Methodist church parking lot today, hyperventilating and afraid to walk in the doors. I'm not Methodist, but I figured, I haven't gone to church for 2 or 3 weeks now and I feel like I need to attend church, but I can't bring myself to go back to mine, so I'll try another one. It didn't work out too well for me as I never did make it in to the building. I just sat in my car, staring at the building and strggling to catch my breath, which felt like ice in my chest. I then drove around town for the next hour trying to feel God. But, I couldn't feel Him. And that scares me. I apologize to all who are reading this that I love- family and friends- because this isn't going to be the happiest or most comforting blog you'll read from me. In fact, it might scare you because some of the things I'm going to mention kind of scare me, if I'm being honest. I'm trying to find out who I am and I'm starting to learn that there are some aspects of me that don't coincide with who the majority of the people in my life would like me to be, or believe I can become... and that's hard to stomach.
I have a tattoo, this is something my family and friends know, already. But, what you don't know, dear family and friends, is that I've been designing another one. I doubt I'll get it, but, I'm trying to visualize this latest experience for me because, even though I seem alright, I'm not. I'm hurting... but, even that is interesting, as I don't feel anything, nothing moves me. I don't feel broken, I don't feel destroyed, I don't feel helpless... I don't really feel. I don't care about anything.
If I were to try and explain what the last year has been like for me, it would go something like this. I am a butterfly, and for a while I was flying, freely and gracefully through life, going where the wind carried me and then I got lost, somewhere far away from home and it was dark. I became cold. It hurt to move and so I stayed frozen and when I woke up I was surrounded by thorns and they were cutting into my skin and they were tearing at my soul and the more I tried to escape, the more I got caught by the thorns and the more the thorns pierced my heart and so I had to stay still until I had strength enough to tear away from the thorns, but even in tearing away from them, so much was lost. Finally, I'm free of the thorns and I emerge tattered and torn and barely flying, if you want to call it flying, it's more like... being carried by the wind, but not in a freeing sort of way, rather in a way that I'm too weak to fly for myself, so I'm carried...
If I were to ever get a tattoo again it would be that image. A butterfly breaking through the thorns, tattered and torn, but this one isn't just passively being carried on the wind, it's still flying.
In Aztec culture, the butterfly represents the spirits of warriors who died during battle, or of women who died during child-birth. The Aztecs viewed these two deaths as the most noble way one could pass from this life into the next and so those who died this way were afforded another life, and that was in the form of a butterfly. Other cultures view the butterfly as the physical manifestation of someone's spirit after they pass away. And, in Christian symbolism, the butterfly and it's life-span depict the struggles that every person must go through to come to know Christ, their Redeemer, and to reach exaltation. The struggle of hatching from the cocoon represents this life and the difficulties we face that we must endure through and break free from, and then the birth (or spiritual rebirth, if you will) into a butterfly that is free to fly, free from wordly bonds. The butterfly symbolizes transition from the human body and it's confines into the exalted spirit, free from pain's confines, but that freedom comes at a very painful cost.
I don't know exactly what it is that I am trying to say or where I am going with this, but one thing I know is that as I've been trying to visualize this latest experience that I am living, this image came to my mind of this tattered butterfly breaking free from the thorns, and flying and I felt peace again and the thought of translating that on to my body made me excited and I felt something again. Again, as to whether or not I'm going to go through with it, is another matter, but then again... I don't know if my doubting whether or not I do get another tattoo is how I really feel or if I am just trying to comfort my loved ones, who will read this and worry, into a sense of security about my emotional state that actually might not exist... I don't know.
That's another interesting thing about grief that I've noticed. The person experiencing the grief isn't honest about it because they want to protect those that are concerned with how they, the person experiencing grief, is doing. Sometimes it's easier or more comforting to the person grieving to answer, "I'm fine," when asked how they are doing. It's easier to answer this way because the person grieving knows that an answer like that is more comforting to the one hearing it than the honest answer of, "I feel dead." Because, what are the loved ones supposed to do with an answer like that? Nothing, because it's honesty at it's worst and so they worry which causes more worry and pain to the grieving person. I guess, what I'm trying to say is that, obviously grief is messy for everyone, those actively experiencing the grief and those who are experiencing it through their loved one who is actively experiencing it. Confused yet? I am.
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