retreat

retreat:  the act of moving back or withdrawing
retreat:  a quiet or secluded place in which one can rest and relax

Sometimes you need a respite.  Some time to step back, withdraw and not be present in the moments of your crazy life. Of course, you can't really escape, but you can find a quiet and secluded place in which to rest.  I did that this weekend.  48 hours of alone.  I haven't had anything like that in these years since our children were born.

Once I booked the reservation, I never looked back.  I craved that space even though I feared being alone for so long with my own thoughts and fears.  Still, I needed these stretched out quiet moments as a way to feel it, face it, sit with it, write it and really see it.  I needed to be with it alone, not amid the clutter of dinner and laundry and "mom, can you come here a second?"  Let's be real.  Sometimes in that mix I feel like I can't think straight and the panic rises.

And so I went, and I read and wrote and walked and wrote some more.  I know that's how I process. I watch it appear on the page and it somehow makes more sense.  It becomes clearer even when the ink is smudged with tears.

It's always been hard for me to buy that line that my friends and therapist tell me:  "you have to take care of yourself in order to take care of your family".  It's something I too would tell a friend in my situation, but the reality is often not so easy.  I need nothing more than for Andy to get well and my children to be at ease.  I feel like I'll do whatever it takes.  I think what it takes now is some space. I'm spent and I know it.  I booked this retreat not as a gift to myself, but out of desperate need for change, even the tiniest, little scrap of a change.

Did I get somewhere?  Do I feel better?  It's not really like that.  This retreat wasn't a fix of any kind. It was just space. Space to cry without hiding it from the kids, space to write for crazy long hours, space to sleep a fitful sleep while missing Andy, disoriented in a single bed.  But maybe space gave me a little strength, maybe my depleted tank filled up a little. Maybe space lets my breath expand and my chest soften a bit.  Maybe space gives me renewal and hope.

On the last morning I sat for a moment in the chapel, even though I don't usually relate to human-made sacred spaces.  But I knew that so many voices have lifted up in prayer in that space, and I wanted to connect to that, to add my prayer as well.  Please let me open to each moment of hardship and pain with love.  May my actions sow a path of grace and compassion for the girls.  Let me celebrate their love and joy.  Let my great love for Andy, which he reflects back daily, show us also how to love ourselves.  Please let us be well.