I Want to Hear From You!

I'm continuing on my quest to figure out what I want to do with my life. I would love to hear any advice or input you have as I make this journey.

Are you doing what you love?

Why or why not?

If you are, how did you discover what you were supposed to be doing?

I would really appreciate anything you can offer!

Losing Battles

Black. Very black. The blackest of black. Thick ooze, like tar. Putrid.

It’s starts small, just a speck, but within hours it has consumed me to the point that I’m choking on it.

I feel it taking me over. I desperately try to stop it, but it is no use. Soon, it has consumed me. The black, thick, putrid, ooze devours me piece by piece and I slowly lose myself. I slip away. I know that as it eats me, it’s another part of me that I’m unable to save. Soon, it has completely consumed me. It has taken over every inch of me…emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. I’m gone. I’ve gone into the dark abyss and there is no way to get out - as much as I desperately want to be saved. Someone…please…help me. Don’t let it take me this time. Please…please…please.

Too late…I’m gone. I’m in the abyss of darkness and who knows how long I will be there this time. I’m moving in slow motion - like trying to move through quicksand. My heart is heavy. So heavy. The weight in the middle of my chest is unbearable. Every time I take a breath, I have to keep myself from choking on the sadness that envelopes by body. The sadness is so deep and so thick. I’m drowning in it. I feel like I’m wearing thick, heavy winter clothes and trying to swim. With each stroke I take, I sink deeper and deeper. I’m drowning. Drowning in the sadness and black ooze, and I don’t have the energy to try to fight back and save myself. I just want it to take over and let me sink to the bottomless pit of the deep, black, cold, hole. Just let it take me. Let it engulf me. I have no desire to find my way back to the top. Just let me sink…I only hope that I sink far enough this time that I don’t ever have to float back to the top. I pray that this time I will get to the bottom and stay there. I’m exhausted, even though I have done nothing to fight back. My fighting would be in vain anyways. It has already won. It has already taken over and immobilized me. I’m frozen. All I can do is let it have me. Consume me. Devour me. Demolish me. I think of ways that I can burrow deep into the bottom of the hole so that I never have to make this journey again.

Depression.

If you have never experienced it, you have no way of understanding how destructive it is.

The medication helps me live a normal life the majority of the time. But the black, thick putrid ooze still has its victories. It’s a battle that I can’t seem to win.

A very close friend of mine gets so frustrated with me. “Fight!...just fight it this time. Don’t let it win this time Keri!” If it were only that easy. Oh, how I wish it was that easy.

When it sneaks in and steals my life away, I just want to escape from it…any way that I can. Anything to stop the overwhelming sadness that it brings. The sadness that I would rather die than face.

Will it always have a hold of me? Will I ever get to experience freedom from it?

I don’t know. I know I want to. I know that I would give anything to experience joy again. I know that I would do anything to stop it from greedily eating me alive. But until that day comes, I continue the battles. Hoping that even though I lose the battles, that some day I may win the war.

Mommy, the Birdie Told Me

The summer that my third son, Levi, was two or three years old, he had a very traumatic event happen to him.

I was doing the dishes and Levi came up to me and asked if I had seen his toy (I don’t remember exactly what toy it was.) I told him no and kept doing the dishes. A few seconds later, my husband informed me that he was going out to run some errands. As I finished cleaning up the kitchen, I listened to the boys playing downstairs. It was nice that they were playing together and even nicer that they were actually getting along! As long as the boys were occupied and happy, it allowed me to get some much needed chores done around the house.

Honk

Honk…honk

Honk

Honk

I ignored the car horn going off and continued with my work. The horn kept going off and as I cleaned, I wondered to myself what in the world was going on with the neighbors that somebody kept honking their horn.

The honking continued and got to the point of being annoying.

Honk

Honk…honk

Honk

This went on for a few minutes until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Who in the world would sit outside and continuously honk their horn over and over again? I was aggravated so I went outside to investigate.

I walked out the front door and the intense heat took my breath away. It was a hot one! I looked to my left where our van was parked and there at the window was my baby boy, screaming and crying and looking like he had taken a shower in his clothes!

His hair was stuck to his head and his clothes were soaked and pasted to his skin. With my face full of terror, I ran for the van as fast as I could feeling like I was moving in slow motion. I couldn’t get to him quick enough! I jerked open the van door and grabbed my trembling baby boy into my arms. I brought him into the cool house where both of us sobbed uncontrollably. I looked down at his arms and both were covered with bite marks. First I was bewildered, than my bewilderment turned to horror as I realized they were his own bite marks. He had gotten so upset that he had actually bitten himself over and over again! I cried as I held him in my arms and did what I could to get him and myself to calm down.

Immediately, I began telling myself what a terrible mother I was. How could I have let this happen? Oh my God….what if my baby had died in that van? The thought was too much for me and I began to cry even harder. How could I just assume that he was downstairs playing with his brothers? How did he get outside anyways? Why wasn’t I paying more attention? If he had died, it would have been my fault. I was a terrible mother! What kind of mother lets a thing like this happen to their child?

Then my baby boy told me a story that overwhelmed me.

After we both calmed down, I asked Levi, “Honey what were you doing in the van?”
“I wanted my toy.”
“When did you go outside?”
“When Daddy left.”
“How come you didn’t come back out of the van?”
“I couldn’t open the door.” (Some how he was able to open it to get in, but not back out.)
As I choked back the tears, I asked, “Why are there bite marks all over your arms?”
“I was scared.”
“Why were you honking the horn?”
“The little birdie told me to.”
“The little birdie?”
“Uh huh.”
“In the van?”
“Uh huh.”
“There was a bird in the van?”
“Uh huh. It had wings and told me to honk the horn.”

I am convinced that my little boy’s “birdie” was his guardian angel. He didn’t know the word for “angel” so he used what word he knew to describe something with wings…a “birdie”.

I sat there and held my drenched little boy in my arms and cried even more…but this time my tears were of gratefulness. My son could have died that day. If the angel had not told him to honk the horn, who knows when he would have been found. I do know that it would have been too late. I came close to knowing what it was like to lose a child, and I thank the Lord that he spared me from experiencing such a tragedy.

I know that God protected my son that day and it overwhelms me to know that God cares more about my child than I do (and believe me…there isn’t many things out there stronger or more abundant than a mother’s love for her child.)