Major breakthrough, some much needed insights....

I have struggled over and over lately, and really over the past year with how hard it is for me to be the person I used to be.  I have repeatedly stated that I died the day Madie died, but really I didn't, and really I remember who I was before. 
 So why do I struggle so much with simple things that I did without thinking before?  
I have analyzed this over and over and have come up with reasons for many things, but not really something that helped me give myself an emotional break and not be so hard on my lack of productivity.
 Hard to admit, but even not wanting to take care of myself, basically wishing with all my heart that I had a mother that could sweep in and help me till I feel like I am on top of my life again.  And yet I don't and won't. That is one of the hardest things for me, my mother dying the year before Madie.

 I have really been asking myself the hard questions, about rejection that are deeply rooted in my past.  About why I isolate, about why I don't reach out for help.  I know pride is part of the reason, wanting to be self sufficient, not wanting to burden others, wanting relationships to be genuine not out of guilt or pity. 

 I feel I have made good progress over the past few days and gotten myself in a shower that was long overdue, admitted to some people that I was deeply struggling, but the lightbulb moment came last Friday morning as I was walking and telling a friend about where I have really been lately.  Not the glossed over kind of transparent that I have shared publicly.  No, I mean the deep agonizing place of loathing myself for how lazy I am and how disconnected from a purpose I feel.  I have realized some of it is a life change that has been coming on since before Madie died. 
 I will be an empty nester in a  few years.  I have spent the past 32 years being a mother with children with needs and most of those children need me very rarely now.

This has been difficult to have at the same time I am grieving and feeling so unproductive still 16  months out. Then the lightbulb came on...

To understand I must share an experience from when Madie was an infant. 

 I was working with the 14 and 15 year old girls at church and had a swimming activity with them.  I brought Madie because she was just a few months old.  Because it was hot I had her in the pool with me in a tube that she slipped into a swim suit to be in.  I used her as an object lesson with these teenage girls concerning boys, and their natural desires to be attracted to them.  I was trying to make a point as to why it is good to wait to date until they are at least 16.  I likened their stage of life to the same stage that Madie was in.  She loved the water, she wanted to splash and play in it.  But she was an infant with no understanding of the dangers that the water could present if she wasn't closely watched. 

Camping with Madie as an infant,
 she loved the water from the beginning of her life!

 I then asked the girls how long they had  existed.  
We discussed that we don't really know, but we do know we were spirit children before we came to earth.  Our Heavenly Father not only created us but taught us and prepared us to come to earth and learn with a mortal body.  I then asked "how long have you had feelings of attraction to guys?"  Maybe a couple of years, but not a really long time and for some of them it was very new and recent.  So with that I asked "Can you see that you are really "infants" then in the whole boy/ girl attraction thing?"  It was a powerful moment. 

Still being safe, but in new territory (infancy) on a date...

What I realized Friday morning, is Heavenly Father sees my life right now in the same way.  I might be in my 50's with lots of life experiences, but I haven't ever in my lifetime had to experience the emotions, devastation and feelings that accompany losing a child, and also losing the needed place in mothering that I have had for all of my adult life.

 No wonder I feel like an infant,

 I seriously am!  

No wonder I feel like I need someone to take care of me...

 I do!  

No wonder on top of missing Madeline, 

 I miss my mother so incredibly much!  

My mom was the one who always helped me when I didn't know how to manage the infancy experiences of life. 

This insight finally gave me the green light....

 "It's okay if you don't clean your house, cook healthy meals,  take regular showers, or take care of all that you used to do without thinking, you are an infant!  

God isn't rejecting my efforts!

He isn't thinking,

 "oh you pathetic girl, why can't you get your act together!"   Instead he understands, and loves me in spit of how much I am not doing that I have always found the ability to do by now when I am struggling with a loss or issue of being overwhelmed.  He is teaching me about what happens to people when they don't look like an infant but truly are.

 It gave me permission to let myself learn to crawl, walk, then run... To quit being so hard on myself, an understanding that only the spirit can bring, and for this I am grateful!

(I wrote this on April 4th, then enjoyed General Conference April 5th and 6th.) 
Conference brought needed insights and encouragement. 

 Some favorite quotes:

"There seems to be something inside of us that resists endings...we are eternal beings.  There are no true endings, only everlasting beginnings."
"How much of life do we miss by waiting for the rainbow before thanking God that there is Rain?"-Dieter F. Uchtdorf 

Is the load I am carrying providing the spiritual traction that will enable me to press forward with faith in Christ.... and avoid getting stuck?  Sometimes we mistakenly believe that happiness is the absence of a load [of care]" -David Bednar

"This life is our 4-minute olympic event" -Gary E. Stevenson 

Once any of us conclude-
 'That's just the way I am, we give up our ability to change.  We might as well raise the white flag, put down our weapons, concede the battle and just surrender- any prospect of winning is lost... 
WHO WE ARE IS NOT WHO WE CAN BECOME!" - Donald Hallstrom

Referring to the Savior,
 "Realize how close he is willing to come, and how far he is willing to go." -Thomas S. Monson 


Last of all I wanted to share a video  about my 4th great grandfather John Tanner.  After watching this I thought "I can't let him down, he had faith that way surpassed mine."
I like to think that he and other ancestors are pulling for me, trying to help me make it through this dark period of my life.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-139-treasure-in-heaven-the-john-tanner-story?lang=eng