Nightmare

I nonchalantly dropped a little update in early June about an unexpected kind contact with my parents this summer after 6 years of estrangement.  That peaceful contact led itself into a mostly peaceful exchange of emails coordinating our meeting up with a family mediator this past Monday in the hopes that we could set down some boundaries for better relationship habits and conflict resolution going forward. Amazingly and unexpectedly, it exploded into no progress at all in the course of the 50 minute session.  My parents were furious with the answers they insisted on having to some old questions and there just was no recovery from there.  It was a mess very quickly.  It was a shock.  What an experience being in the presence of their fury and disapproval again. Surreal after all this time.  Nothing had changed! But man alive, did Josh and I feel the steadying presence of the Holy Spirit keeping me composed and clear and unrattled. It was intense in both directions.  But I drove back home to TN with my head held high and my hopes still out there that after they calmed down they would come back to the table.

However, as the day wore on and I processed the reactions they had and the anger they displayed, the fury and same old against-me position they maintain, my body and my mind went downhill fast.  I had not expected that, but the body will do its own thing to process apparently? I barely held it together to get home from working VBS that Monday night to collapse on the couch in tears and touch base with Josh again.

Wednesday, we received word via email from Lynn and Tracy that they would not be participating again with the mediator, along with their insistence that we should still come around though I do not see how they draw that sort of conclusion from the misery of Monday and their subsequent quitting in disagreement so soon.  I responded letting them know we hoped they'd reconsider.  And the responses that followed devolved quickly.  To say it was a hard week of email conflict from there would be an understatment - it held meanness and drama and judgement and non-communication and sarcasm and hypocrisy and mockery and insult. It was all I wished to never have to deal with again six years ago honestly, and yet here I was living the nightmare again.  It wrapped up with fresh new insults last night until I finally just bid them farewell and blocked them to make the bleeding and verbal vomit stop. Dear Lord, the mess and futility of trying to talk with my parents.

I am so beat.  I am so stunned at the nothing that was accomplished. I am so taut with I-don't-know-what at having to accept defeat in what I hoped would be some success in the Lord.  I am in a really low headspace as a result and the tears keep coming in random waves.  I am gonna give myself this week to shake it off and then step back into the goodness the Lord has built into our lives already .... the goodness that came this summer with a whole new chapter of adoption and birthdays and anniversary and summer fun and my sweet family and precious friends.  I will just have to entrust this unfolding to the Lord and believe He is accomplishing something, though I may never know what.

But just, wow.  Wow, y'all.  I have relived a nightmare and I guess I should consider myself lucky it fit itself in one week instead of spanning into a couple years before the you-know-what hit the fan again.  Which clearly it would have. 

Shaking my head. Lord, help.   I am rambling, I know.  That is what is left of my brain after a week's exposure to Lynn and Tracy's hearts.  Anyway, just wanted to post this here and get it off my brain so I could backtrack and post some really fun stuff that ALSO happened the past couple weeks.  I will enjoy their posting more for having gotten this ugliness out of the way here.

Coming up, Josh's birthday and Lasa's birthday!