CCU Silent Retreat 2011 – Day Three

Retreatant #1

Sunday April 10th 2011

This weekend was full of reflection for me but not about some of the things I was seeking clarity on. I came into this weekend after a bit of a crisis in my life after realizing and being encouraged by those around me to move out of my home where I currently live with my mother and younger sister. So I knew coming into this weekend that when I got back to CCU I would be going home to pack up my things and stay somewhere else for a while. I expected the idea of leaving my home and my family would preoccupy me all weekend but surprisingly some other things came up instead. I realize now that God was intervening in a miraculous way and allowing me to focus on some other things in my life rather than stress about moving out when I got back. I think He realized that I needed to spend some time reflecting, praying, and thinking and not agonizing over my living situation while I was here. Well I couldn’t be more thankful. I thought I was going to spend this weekend focusing on the latest developments in my life and working on my thoughts about my relationship with my mom, which is at this point quite volatile at times. I brought a book recommended by my therapist about daughters of narcisstic mothers, as my therapist has determined that my mother has some pretty key narcissistic traits after meeting with her a few times. I ordered the book two weeks ago and had not even taken it out of the package for fear that my mom would see it sitting on my desk at home. So in preparing for this weekend I took it out of the package and put it in my bag with some other books. To be honest, I didn’t even pick the book up this weekend. I realized that I didn’t want to be angry, nor did I want my mom to be in control of my weekend and how I was feeling. Instead I spent time reading, something I love doing and never get the time to do outside of reading for classes. I read a novel that really stirred up some emotions in me about what I want to do with my life and how I feel about certain issues. Last year I came in to the retreat hoping to find clarity and peace about my relationship with my dad, seeing as my parents were recently divorced at the time of the last retreat. That never really happened and I focused my time last year on me and my own healing process. This year, I actually got some of what I was looking for last year about my relationship with my dad. We are doing a lot better and recently spent a few days together over spring break, the most time we had spent together in probably 2+ years. It was a healing experience and I didn’t want to come back to the real world where I no longer live with my dad, much less see him on a daily basis. But it made me realize how much more I want to spend time with him and continue working on our relationship. I spent a lot of time this weekend talking to God about that and asking questions about where to go from here or what the next step is in working on my relationship with my dad. He is in a relationship with a woman I was close with and they had an affair which in my personal opinion ended my parents’ marriage. Needless to say, she and I do not get along and we have yet to have a conversation since I found out about the affair almost 2 years ago. So my questions have been about her and about the anger I have towards her. Do I have to allow her to be a part of my life if I want my dad in my life? Do I have to forgive my dad to love him and have an authentic relationship with him? Can I continue to have a relationship with him that is separate from his relationship with his girlfriend if they continue living together, get married, and continue to come as a couple to family events? What happens if and when they get married? Will that affect my relationship with my dad in a way that I will take steps backwards? Is it worth it to confront this woman and have a conversation with her about how I feel? I asked God a lot of these questions and while I didn’t get a lot of the answers I was looking for, I realized that I need to be placing more and more trust in God and stop fretting over what’s to come. I had a long period of time where I couldn’t hear God anymore, and couldn’t feel His spirit when I tried to talk to Him, worship Him, and even pray to Him. For the first time in a long time that has faded and I now feel and see more and more His spirit within me and around me, and that is a welcome feeling to have at last. It’s not that I ever lost faith in God but rather that I began to question how He could let my family fall apart the way it did and how He could allow my father to make such a horrible decision that would ruin a marriage and tear apart relationships within our family. I was angry at God for the pain I felt and the misery I was in when I came to the realization (after finding out about the affair) that my parents’ marriage was over and that my family would never be the same; my life would never be the same again. It’s been over a year since the divorce was finalized and I still have days where it hits me like a ton of bricks that my parents’ aren’t together and that my dad is never coming home. I think with me moving out for a while it will be helpful to not have those reminders when I realize his car still isn’t in the garage, his clothes still aren’t in the closet in the master bedroom, and his sports memorabilia will never again be so wonderfully displayed in his office, or the museum as I used to call it. We will never again sit down as a family of four after a long day and share a meal together. We will never again be eager to wake up my parents on Christmas morning and go jump on their bed to wake them up. I can no longer wander in to my dad’s office at home to have a long talk with him as I did before, because now when I walk in there all that is left is an empty desk and a room filled with random things trying to make it appear that it is not empty, or maybe trying to appear that it has always looked this way. We will never again go on family walks or hikes with our dogs, and my older dog Ripken will never again sit next to my dad’s chair the way he used to after dinner and they would fall asleep together watching ESPN. My dad will no longer bring home flowers for my mother, I will never again see them kissing in the kitchen or holding hands on our family walks. I think about all of the things I will never see again and as much as it hurts, I have come to realize that eventually it may not hurt as much anymore and eventually those things will go unnoticed, a memory lost in time that will no longer be a sad, daily reminder of what we have lost.

I think about what I still need to work on and where I need to go from here. I realize now more than ever I need to put more and more faith and reliance in God, and less in my self to get everything done, hold it all together, and figure out all the answers. I have to let myself off the hook more often, and stop beating myself up over what could have been, or how I could have made things different. The divorce was not about me, I couldn’t have fixed their relationship if I had tried. My dad’s relationship with his girlfriend is not more important than his relationship with me and he did not choose her over me, even though it is easy to think that and be angry at the both of them. None of it is my fault, and I need to keep reminding myself of that. Just because I went off to college does not mean that that was the reason my family fell apart. Me working with my dad did not cause nor prevent his affair, nor was it my job to help him with his stress levels, his business, or his relationships at work. I cannot fix my relationship with my mom overnight, nor can I ignore the fact that eventually I will have to pick up that book and begin the healing process in admitting that I have been hurt and shaped in a particular way based on how I was raised by someone with a tendency towards narcissism. But label or no label, diagnosis or no diagnosis, she is still my mother and I have been praying to God today that my moving out and confronting the problem with my therapist and in reading the book will in no way cause permanent damage to our relationship. But I have to remind myself that I can only control myself and my emotions, feelings, and reactions. My mother is not someone I can control. I cannot fix her problems, I cannot confront her with my ideas about how she has problems she needs to address, face, and own up to so that she can live a better life. That is not my decision to make and I need to accept that and move on. Dr. Mitsch recommended that I add a book to my stack of books to read called “Forgiving Your Parents, Forgiving Yourself”. I sort of laughed and later that night as I was out walking under the stars I was questioning the idea of forgiving myself. “What did I ever do?” I wondered. “Why do I need to forgive myself, and what for!?”. It was then that I realized how much pain I have been in and that I needed to forgive myself for so many things I have blamed myself for in the process of the divorce and in the year following it, the relationships that have faltered, and the ones I have been working on mending. I allowed myself to have so much power and thought I was responsible for so many things that I look at now and just want to laugh because I realize that I had absolutely ZERO control over those things. So yes, I do need to forgive myself and allow time for more healing, no matter what the world around me says about just ‘getting over it already’. I have no timeline for moving on from the divorce, accepting it, forgiving people, and whatever else may go along with that. I am putting it in God’s hands and asking Him to provide the timeline, even though I probably won’t get to see it, but I’m okay with that. I am ready to work on forgiving myself, and maybe through that process I will be able to choose to work on forgiving the other people in my life who have hurt me more than I ever thought possible. I know now that there is no rushing any of these processes, like grieving, forgiveness, and so on. I am at peace with the fact that God will come through in more ways than one and show me how I can live my life without being held back by the chains of my parents’ divorce, my father’s affair, and my mother’s issues. I am free to live my life without all of those problems getting in the way now. I feel like a butterfly in a sense, who had just been transformed from a caterpillar and is breaking out of her cocoon. I am ready to spread my wings and let God lead me in my journeys as I fly freely and allow myself to see the beautiful Creation that surrounds me. Just in case you were wondering, I am in fact a pink butterfly (it is my favorite color ?), probably with polka dots who is finally breaking free, and learning to fly without being held back by the chains and baggage of my past.