January 6, 2006 Journal...My Story

January 6, 2006

As I write this an air purifier is whirring next to me...trying valiantly to counteract the musty, moldy smell in the air of my newly acquired mobile home. One of the walls and some floor was damaged by heavy rain two days after I moved in. I'm surrounded by towers of boxes. I can't really unpack until the rotting, 70's-mustard-gold colored carpet is replaced. The carpet can't be replaced until the floor is fixed. The floor can't be fixed until...I don't know. Is it a roof problem or a wall problem? My headache starts to come back when I think about it too much.

I'm still nervous about the rats. I haven't actually seen or even heard a rat...I just found lots of "evidence"...a nice word for rat poop...all over after I'd already moved in. Not to mention all the spots where they've obviously gnawed through the wood surrounding pipes and fixtures to get wherever they wanted to go. Okay, so I didn't notice these things before I signed the papers. I'd never dealt with the issue before. Not even mice. It had just never occurred to me. Welcome home.

I think perhaps the rats had already vacated before I moved in. I like to think so anyway. I spent the first couple of days stomping around here trying to annoy them...or warn them that I was coming just so I wouldn't run the risk of actually seeing one. I probably am rather annoying to live with as I am more nocturnal than any rodent. When I wasn't stomping around I made sure to have the washer or dryer or dishwasher running most of the night. On day two I put poison bait in all the cupboards that seemed most affected. (Why previous inhabitants didn't think to do this is beyond me...) After several days all of the bait appears untouched except for the tray behind the bar (more about "the bar" later) which may or may not have been eaten from. I could be imagining it. I'm actually beginning to relax about the rats. Hopefully I'm not being lulled into a false sense of security. Still, I'm having most of the kitchen cupboards replaced as soon as I can. No amount of cleaning could convince me to put my dishes and pans into them. On the upside, I haven't noticed any bugs here to speak of. Maybe the rats ate them.

"Okay!" you're thinking... "I've got it. She's a missionary! She answered the Lord's call to some backwater slum where she is bravely putting up with all sorts of adverse conditions in order to reach less-than-friendly natives with the gospel!" No. Sorry, but that's not it. I'm in a respectable mobile home community in a nice, friendly, all-American town. If I am a missionary, then you, my readers, are the only hostile natives I should have to worry about. I come in peace. Honest!

Besides the whirring of the air-purifier, I can hear noises in the living room area to my right. Click, click, click, click...shake, shake, shake....BANG! Over and over. No, it isn't the heater. That actually seems to be working okay. The noise is made by my son. He's sitting on the floor with a little M&M shaped tin that he got for Christmas. The M&Ms are gone and so he keeps filling the tin, one by one, with marbles. Then he closes the tin and shakes it a few times...then drops it from above his head. BANG...the tin hits the floor and all the marbles come crashing out. Makes a great racket. I'm not sure if he's having fun or not. He's repeated the process at least thirty times since I've been sitting here. He isn't two. He's sixteen. He's severely autistic.

Up until four months ago I had a husband. We had a modest but very comfortable house in a great neighborhood. But things went terribly, terribly wrong and, there is simply no civilized way to put this... One day at work he deliberately ran himself over with his semi-truck.

I know that it is starting to sound like I am making all this up and you're waiting for the punch line. I keep thinking that too. Sometimes I hope that I'll wake up one morning and it will have all been one of those bizarre bad dreams. But this is not really a book about me and all of my problems. Problems, hurts, both minor and severe are all par for the course. You know that by now as well as I do.

The reason I am writing is to share with you how and why I've even survived this mess thus far and what God has taught me and is continuing to teach me on a day to day basis. This is too painful to have happened just for me, if that makes any sense. Plus, the Lord seems to have built some odd mechanism inside of my head whereby I always feel the most relaxed and comforted when I am writing. I'm going to take one of those leaps of faith that I keep hearing about and assume He must have put that there for a good reason.

This story may prompt you to face a few realities about yourself. I'm going to be brutally honest and in return I'm asking you to be equally honest. Not with me, but with yourself. The process may be a little painful, but the outcome will be that you will meet the real person down beneath the good manners, the bravado and the frantic activity. Under the nice hair, the designer whatever and the expensive shades. Far below the never-ending smile and the calm facade. Yes, this person lives many layers down and it's kind of scary there, but if we just barge in and make a lot of noise, stomp about and wave a flashlight around, I think the vermin will flee from us.

This may seem like a very disturbing, dark and terrifyingly lonely place. Don't despair. Quiet yourself and wait a little while in the darkness. Doesn't something in you recognize this place? This is the place where you are finally going to be loved. Wait. Do you hear a baby crying?