This life...

I hate MS.  Oh, how I hate it.  Right now, I want to shout that from every bloody mountain top in the entire world.  Better yet, the whole flaming universe!  I have been trying to figure out the name of a plant in my yard.  It is the same as ones I had in my last home--yet another blessed surprise of my new home.

I got them from my writing student's mom.  They were so big and beautiful. I divided them and passed many on to others.  They were variegated, which is my favorite type of leaf.  When I spotted similar chutes coming up amongst the ferns I was thrilled, though they do need to be moved.

Someone has called a few times and I simply cannot talk to her.  I cannot face explaining things.  But I thought if I described the yard, it would soften my needing not to talk for she is a truly amazing gardener.  So, I sat there staring at a photo trying to remember the plant I discovered in my yard.

Nothing.  Nothing came to mind.  I tried Googling it.  Nothing.  I finally called Bettina, though I could barely keep my terror inside, to ask her what the plant was.  She told me.  She let me say how much I HATE MS.  And she went back to her evening because she knows she gave me what I needed.

I have hostas in my yard.

I have a brain that used to fly in the highest academic clouds with such ease but can no longer access words and processes that are as familiar as my name.  And I oft cannot tell you what that is either.  Or how to form letters.  I struggle to decipher the buttons on elevators.  There is so much.

I hate MS.

I also hate dysautonomia. 

A week of new medications have only served, once again, to make my innards worse.  Worse.  I am so bloody weary of roiling guts and innards agony.  Five months in just six days I will have been battling my digestive system.  I have been sipping on Gingerale wishing the morrow really was the day my Good Shepherd was coming to sling my broken body across His shoulders and take me home.

I hate fainting. My doctor told me last week that I need to be more proactive and prosaic about it. She gave me a script: "Hi, my name is Myrtle. I faint. It's just this thing that I do. When I am horizontal, it resolves itself. So unless there's obvious blood or broken bones, don't worry." I stared at her slack-jawed. It's just this thing that I do. Nothing about hating it in her script. But I do.

And I hate that when I try to talk about how I feel, what I am experiencing, inevitably someone tells me that they, too, forget or they, too, have rotten insides.  I do not mean to diminish their experiences nor the kindness behind their words, but their words diminishes my struggle.  That is how it feels to me.  Their words hurt.

So often, even with my best friend, I find myself hiding from her my confusion, hiding from her that I am not following her words.  She will know now.  I have wondered if she already does.  Even with her, even with the one who has given me love in myriad and many ways, who reminds me more than any other in my life that I am forgiven, who has never, ever made me feel the bother and who has let me speak my deepest fears...I still hide from her.

I hate this.  I truly do. 
I wish I understood better the theology of the cross.
I am astounded by two acts of mercy:  You statements and covenant friendship.  When I find the words, I want to capture both here.

In one of the books on my shelves, there is this idea of unmaking.  It is a fearful, fearsome thing.  A thing of death.  Sometimes, I feel as if I am being unmade, only in my case, death is actually life.  For I have died in my Baptism and though I understand it not I have been risen and hidden with Christ even now, even this day, even unable to say that I have hostas in my yard without Bettina to tell me.


Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!