Sleepless Night?

Since I can't sleep and all I seem to be able to do right now is pray and think about all the things I could be or should be writing, I decided maybe I should just write. If nothing else, maybe I will finally get weary enough to actually fall asleep. Weary? I am definitely weary enough! It is just that I can't go to sleep for some reason! I have now been trying for over three hours! I feel desperate! My mind is racing, my head aches, my face is stained with tears, and I am feeling a bit angry and bitter that I can't just stuff the things of my heart into the internal Tupperware and seal the lid that doesn't come off until I am ready to deal with the stuff inside!

What are these feelings? There is a whole menagerie of them! There's a range from anger and hurt and injustice to gratefulness and indebtedness. Too many for this all too often, overly introspective me to identify!

But what started all this is that I just feel so much tension at home! For any who have read my bio, you know that I live with a family that I identify as "amazing". I don't take back the comment of amazement! They are very kind and loving and generous. The problem is that I just don't feel like I fit or belong! There seems to be a constant pressure or tension between Kathy and I, which I hate! Prior to me moving into this house, she was probably one of the women that I admired most in my life! Now, I just don't feel like I am important to her anymore! I just don't feel like she cares about me in the way that she did before. It hurts!

I was talking with a friend today who recently moved to another state for school. She was telling me how she is hurting because she is in a new place, with new people, in a new school, and no one around her knows how to love her in the way she needs to be loved! This is kind-of how I feel. I just don't feel like I am getting loved in the way I need to be loved!

What I feel like in large part is that she feels like they did their part by getting me here and now it is sink or swim! It may help you (and my internal Tupperware that is so full it is overflowing at the rate of a riverbank in a flashflood) if you knew more about how I came to live here. Now keep in mind, this is the story from my perspective.

In the last year, I have been overwhelmed with financial burden - primarily medical expenses! I have health insurance, good health insurance, but co-pays are still expensive when you are seeing 4 specialists, on a cocktail of chemotherapy and immune therapy drugs, and regularly getting labs (like blood work and x-rays) done! Then you add in the days of missed work because I was too sick to go, hurting too bad, or just didn't have it in my inner-being to go in and spend my day helping sick people solve the very same (or very similar) problems that I felt were swallowing me alive! What this means is that my bills added up to roughly $2700.00 a month and my income was roughly $1000.00 a month. Any good mathematician can tell you that unless you have an abundance of savings or you live on borrowed money, this math just don't work!

Well, savings was gone very quickly! I don't use credit cards, at all. So, this meant I just couldn't pay things that needed to be paid. At least one of my utilities was off almost all the time. I had a very kind neighbor that would let me take showers at her house and fill all the pitchers with water when the water was off. When the electricity was off, I just left windows open and lit candles. When the gas was off I would cook in the microwave and take really cold showers - presuming I still had electricity and water! I was not living well! Mean while, most of the people in my life had no clue that this was going on - only those who were very close to me. I was exhausted!!!! Not only did I just in general feel like crap, but I also felt very irresponsible and ashamed! Knowing that I was about 2 months away from my landlord kicking me out on my butt, all I could do was pray! I prayed for miracles! I prayed for money! I prayed for grace! I prayed that I would be able to set aside my pride and let people know just how bad things were. I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed!

One night, I was babysitting for my friends Kathy and Gary. When they got home, they sat me down and Kathy said, "You know how I have always said that if we had an apartment above our garage that we would want you to come live with us? Well, we don't have an apartment above the garage. But, we do have a garage! I was looking out there today and I thought, 'How could we make it so that Lynn could live here?' Then I saw it. We could turn the garage into a bedroom for you. It wouldn't be much and you may not want it. But we could turn it into a home for you that wouldn't be as expensive as where you are living right now. We would have to do some work on it. Gary can sheetrock it in and actually give you walls and a door. You would have to share the bathroom with the kids, because there isn't a way to get plumbing in there easily. It would be for a year or so, to give you a chance to get your feet on the ground and decide what you want or need to be doing; if you want to go to nursing school or change jobs. It wouldn't be much, but it would be something, and it would be yours. It's what we can offer you."

I think that is almost verbatim. That conversation still echoes in my heart! Finally! There was an answer! There was release! And, it was an answer that I had very directly been praying for. In an attempt to keep this novel from being as long as Gone With the Wind, I will leave out some of the details about why I believe that accepting the invitation to live here was the right thing to do. But obviously, I said yes. In about two months time, I was living in their home.

Please know, that when I write the struggles and frustrations that I have, I have not forgotten where I came from or the sacrifice that was made for me to be here. But, that is in part, a portion of the problem. This is where the indebtedness comes in. In part, I just feel guilty for feeling so stressed still and not just being content. I feel like I could never do enough to repay them and will never be able to. But I am still a person and I still have needs.

So, what am I not getting that I need? Or what is happening that is currently so hurtful to me?

I feel like I am being overlooked! And not only do I feel like I am being overlooked, but also I feel like it is happening from the person that I love and admire and need affirmation from! I no longer get the hugs that I used to cherish - or the sweet kisses on the forehead that came with them! I used to look forward to seeing this dear friend of mine because she would always greet me in this fashion and then ask me how I am doing or how I am feeling. She no longer asks! And, when I speak, she doesn't listen to me. I am just another annoying nuisance of a noise in her day! On the brief occasion that I do get to actually talk to her - just her - she proceeds to tell me how everyone always needs something from her all day long. She can't even go to the bathroom alone because the door doesn't lock and even if it did one of the kids would be on the other side banging and crying out "Mooommmyyyyyy"! She starts listing off all the things she would like to be doing and could be doing instead of talking. It makes me feel like what she is saying is, "Not you too! First I wake up to children yelling my name and then Gary needs something and then I have to take the kids to school and then the other kid(s) want something and then and then and then and then...YOU. Now you want something from me to! Just go away and leave me alone!" It hurts!

And then she tells me that I just don't get it, that I can't possibly understand what her life is like because I am single and don't have children. I feel like she looks at me and thinks that just because I am single there is no way that I can see the struggles that she is having or attempt to offer solutions. I feel like she looks at me and thinks that my life is in the same place that her life was when she was 21, when she was last single, even though in reality I am only 6 years younger than she is. I don't know what it is like to have a husband or children, but I have a lot that I can offer - if only she would allow me. And, when she is listing off all of these things that I just can't get because I am not married and don't have children, not only does it hurt me because those are relationships that I greatly desire to have, it hurts me because I feel like she is overlooking so many of the joys that come along with having these people in her life. I know far too closely that they could be gone in an instant and she would long for a child to be banging on the bathroom door or her husband to leave his underwear on the floor! Aside from all of this, I fell in love with her family and invested myself into them long before I moved into this house. I feel like I am supposed to be less involved now than I was before. And you got it; it hurts.

Then there is the "payment" aspect. I don't really have any significant issues with this. Just that I wish we could tweak it a bit, but I don't know how to talk to her about it. When we started this arrangement, she made it clear that one of the things she wanted was to be able to have periodic date nights as a trade off for me living here, in addition to paying for 1/2 the cost of renovation and the difference in the cost of electricity for each month from the same month in the year prior, and we worked out a dinner arrangement. This is a very fair offer, and I do not dispute that! As we talked more, what she desired for periodic date night is to be able to go out once a week. That is HARD for me! They are very willing to go out on occasion after the kids are in bed, so there really just needs to be an adult at home to make sure everybody is ok and gets out if anything happens, but the problem is that I CAN'T SLEEP!!! We got a baby monitor thinking that would help. NONONONONO!!!! It does NOT help! What happens with the monitor is that I am hearing all of the wishing and whirring of the sounds inside the house (like the A/C coming on and off) and tock of clocks and children moving in their beds and I can not sleep. Then there is the added anticipation of them arriving home and me being startled by the door opening and them turning the monitor off (which any mom or babysitter knows means the one in my room is going to sound like a TV whose cable has been disconnected as soon as they turn the base off.) I HATE IT!!! I JUST WANT TO SLEEP BUT I CAN'T!!! As for dinner, I cook one meal a week and clean after, Kathy cooks 5 meals a week, and we fend for ourselves the other night of the week. I just feel like there is too much pressure! Not to mention, I don't feel like it is really working out to be fair! I don't know how to say this. I don't know how to talk about anything with her right now, much less touchy things! I feel like there is such a disconnect between us and the rift is getting wider and the bitterness and hurt are getting greater! I HATE IT!

Relationships are too important to me to throw the towel in! But, I get exhausted feeling like I am the only one fighting! Or even worse, like I am the only one who cares! Or even worse, I am the only one that is struggling with this - because then it is just my problem and the only fair thing left to do is just get over it, which makes me feel like what hurts me doesn't impact the people around me.

Cordiality has remained in tact, but truth and trust are fading away. It hurts me, because I feel like I am losing the friend I loved. And, I don't think it is just that we are living together and so we are now seeing things we didn't see before. That can account for some of it. But really, I just don't feel like she respects me. I don't feel like she values me. I don't feel like she believes that I have much to contribute. I feel like she invited me to be here and wants me to be here, but doesn't want to incorporate me into the life that is happening here.

I say that last part because I feel like I am not included. I don't get asked to go to McDonald's when they go as a family or to go on walks when they go as a family or to play outside with them as a family. I just don't feel included.

I know that there are two sides to every relationship. I also know that there needs to be room for ebb and flow. And, I know that not everything in reality is how we "feel" or "perceive" it to be. There is also a big difference between knowing something and feeling something. You will notice I have used the word "feeling" a LOT tonight! I don't know that I am trying to get the solution to any of these things tonight, but I do think that the internal Tupperware is a little less full and I may be able to go get 2.5 hours of sleep before I have to wake up and go to my job that I just don't feel like I have it in me to do.

If you read all of this, thank you! Please pray for me. Please pray that I would have the sustenance that I need. That my dear friend would see how I need to be loved by her and would make some changes to love me in those ways. Pray that I will feel more at home and that I will feel more included. Please also pray that I never forget to be grateful for everything that I have!

Blessings to each of you, and good night (or really good morning)!