I'm going to a trauma processing group at church. We had to do an art project exercise. We were supposed to sit in silence With the spirit and ask God to show us the hurt in our heart. I didn't actually manage the silence part because I got an earworm from the instructions and I had to listen to the song "Top dollar blues" by whiskey town before I could focus.
A lot of people drew really concrete representations of themselves...either pictures of themselves or things that explained themselves. I didn't exact work like that. I just drew abstract shapes and listened to the earworm song. Which was a song of lament/drinking song that really struck me as something I wanted to say to God. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right because I wasn't producing any deeper meanings except for words to the song but when I was finished I realized just...how much our move to St Louis was costing. And it felt weird because I wanted to go and I said I didn't love my Alabama life. But I had a couple good friends there and before we started traveling to St. Louis, I had a household routine going that had laundry and the dishes taken care of every day and I was writing and exercising and I had a big(ish) garden. Our school in Alabama was less chaotic than here...it is true there were lots of things I didn't love but I think in all the fuss of transition and knowing that I was one of the instigators to the move, I haven't taken the time to grieve all the parts I loved and that worked for me. (Not to mention all the pastors wives present happy faces stuff)
I have enough self knowledge to know that I hate feeling my feelings but not always enough to know which feelings I'm not feeling. So, tonight, here's to you, Huntsville, Alabama, birthplace of three of my babies, and home to all our traditions. I miss the life we had there more than I thought I could.
And unrelated-maybe, I read Hannah Anderson's Humble Roots and really loved it and want to read it again slowly. Maybe next post will be on it.
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