bottom-dwellers.

21 Mar 2011 18 Comments

by mary kathryn tyson in life abundant., on singleness & dating

{i started this post on friday, march 11 to post on monday, march 14. then i learned of the tsunami in japan and then i went to jury duty for a capital case and suddenly this just wasn’t important anymore. i unplugged when i went to jury duty, which i will tell you more about later, but i wanted to finish what i started first.}

i was cranky last week, largely because they were repairing the railroad so the main road that runs through our town was closed right in front of my work, which meant most of us had to find alternate routes at the beginning and end of the day. for me, this was duly-frustrating because part of my job includes running errands -bank, post office, you name it. very few times has it ever been necessary to turn left onto the main road from my office; most of my errands require me to turn right. however, for three days last week, i had to turn left and go around town in order to get to, for all intents and purposes, the other side of the track which literally runs right behind our building.

i. was. CRANKY. just on the inside, though. i think i did a fairly good job of not letting it show, except that i didn’t go to bible study on wednesday because i didn’t think i had it in me to pretend to be nice so i went home after loving on my friends and their newborn because, really, how can you be in a bad mood around a baby?

i knew jesus was beckoning me to spend time at the well that night, so i did. and oh, what happened there was rich. (quick, which classic movie did that last line come from? come on, you know it.)

part of my detour last week took me around an area of town my church refers to as the ‘redemption zone’. it is poverty-stricken; prostitution and drugs are commonplace. i used to spend a lot of time down there.

and, no, not as a prostitute or a drug dealer.

AHEM.

driving back and forth through these streets for a few days brought to mind a relationship that ended a few years ago.

and, no, he was not a prostitute or a drug dealer, either.

(that i know of.)

(although i have dated a former crackhead. great catch.)

(WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY PICKER!?)

we were doomed for the start; the whole thing was a recipe for disaster from the very beginning. and yet i somehow thought maybe it wasn’t.

but, believe me, it was.

(love is blind, you know.)

(and sometimes love is also just plain stupid.)

and when it ended, it ended badly. as in…it. was. HORRIBLE.

{for the record (though whose, i’m not sure) the relationship that ended six weeks before i met this guy also ended terribly, only with that guy there wasn’t deception or manipulation or an ex-girlfriend who reappeared via facebook. just codependency, which is equally awesome.}

it didn’t take long for it to occur to me that there were reasons for my crankiness other than the detour. it also didn’t take long for me to realize that the lord was using my physical detour to bring to my attention an area of unresolved anger. it has been almost three years since i even met the a-hole; one would think i might have gotten over his mistreatment of me by now.

so, when i finally went to see jesus about it all on wednesday night, he helped me see through to the heart of the matter. (because isn’t that what he does? ugh, so sweet. thank you, jesus, that you will even orchestrate road construction to get us where you want us to be.)

as i sifted through the wreckage of my past, and identified the relationships that left the most devastation, i realized in every. single. case. not. one. person. owned. their. stuff.

what’s funny is, did you see my bachelor vlog last week? in it, i mention this very thing -this exact thing!- but i hadn’t connected the dots yet. the lord knew this is what we would be talking about when we met at the well two days later, him and me.

because of my codependent nature (that i would like to think i’ve left behind), i martyred myself at the demise of each relationship. not only did i own my own part, i accepted full responsibility for the ruin of each one.

for me, it isn’t a matter of hearing ‘i’m sorry’ – because, god knows, i have heard those words a time or twelve. i mean hearing someone say in earnest, ‘i was wrong. i’m sorry i didn’t treat you the way you should have been treated.’

i wish i could tell you that there were only a few cases of this. sadly, i came up with 9 different relationships in which this was the case. (hey! i’m 33! i’ve had a few boyfriends! sheesh!)

only ONE time did an ex come to me a year later and say, ‘i was struggling at that time and i want you to know it was also me.’ (we had a dialogue over text when i remembered this because i wanted to thank him. such an awesome guy.)

looking at all of this from outside of the well (where i normally envision myself and jesus) actually sent me into a cavern at the bottom of the well, which i see now is where i’ve been relationship-wise for the last few years. i’ve been hiding there. it’s safe there, if not damp and cold. no one knows to look for me there. i haven’t considered that anyone would really go looking for me but i also haven’t really wanted to be found.

seeing myself sitting against the wall of the cavern with my tired head laying atop my arms slung over my knees and realizing it’s where i am and where i’ve been for a while, i found i wasn’t alone. seeing this in my mind’s eye for the first time, jesus sat with his arm around me. ‘we can stay here as long as you need to, mary kathryn,’ i heard in my heart. ‘and i will stay here with you. but i will not let you stay here forever.’

with that, light shone down from above the well.

a friend was down there with me and jesus, just looking on. he’s the one who held up the mirror a few months ago, so he shows up from time-to-time.

i wish i could say this is the point when i started climbing out of the well.

but it’s not.

everything just sort of ended that night sitting with jesus and bob in the bottom of a cold, dark well.

and the next day i found my heart devastated. utterly, truly devastated in the ugliest of ways.

being at the bottom of the well has landed me in a place i never expected to be but, for the sake of brevity, i’ll save that part for tomorrow.