Just Ok

It is exactly what you think. It is that moment you dread every single day. The sun has gone down and life has settled. The smell of dinner cooking on the stove has slowly crawled out of the house. The sound of bath water has been replaced by the tub draining. The sink has run with the sound of the small children brushing their teeth. The laughter of them has been replaced by the sound of them sleeping. The dog has even fallen to the ground on his side asleep. The house is quiet and you are alone.

Alone….. a place you don’t like to be, but when you wake up every morning, you know you are just working toward that point again. No one cares what is wrong with you. No one wants to hear that you are not ok. No one wants to hear that you just cry a lot. No one wants to get in this with you. The minute you let the words leave your mouth, they all scatter like mice. You have no one to call. You have no one to just let you be you. You spend every day being as real as possible. It eats your soul apart knowing that this is the one thing you have to fake through. You sit in your chair and get lost in memories. You sit there and think of everything. You have analyzed, you have written it, and you have tried to decipher. You know that fighting it won’t get you anywhere.

Your heart is crying. It may never be whole again. You spend everyday praying for something that may never happen. You move through everything slowly so you don’t have to be distracted if it comes back for you. You are always sitting on the edge waiting for someone to tell you to jump. You can’t do it on your own. You make yourself sick to your stomach every day thinking about it. You can’t close your eyes because it just comes flooding back. You just don’t know how you will ever make it through it still today. You finally have to sit there and confess to yourself that no matter how you try not to, you just miss him so much.

There is not a shoulder to cry on. So many things went wrong…once. You have no idea how that one moment was the only thing that went wrong, yet it was enough. So, you assume. The more you think about it, the more you have to admit that you really don’t remember that moment. The only moments you remember are the amazing ones. The ones that involve meeting friends and spending Friday nights out together. The feeling that you hadn’t had in so long. Everything just fit together so perfect. He was the one. The one that was supposed to stick around for a while. You know you can’t count on “forever”, but you knew you could count on awhile. You knew it was safe to close your eyes and sleep. You actually felt safe and never worried. No matter what you were going through, it just didn’t matter. Your heart was happy. Your heart was fluttering with an emotion that you hadn’t felt in years.

You loved. You smiled the most honest smile you have had in a long time. The worst part about it, was that you weren’t even looking for it. You just turned around and in that second your life changed. You felt it in that moment. You knew in that second, everything inside of you was different. Your heart had softened in an instant. You walked away with a smile and for the first time in a long time, hope. The hope of a phone call the next day. The hope of an actual date. The hope of arms to fall into at the end of the day. You got it. You got hundred of text messages the first weekend. You got a random moment in the rain. You were held through the death of a loved one. You have never known comfort like that. It just felt ok and he managed to be perfect at just the right times.

Then you have to be awkward for a moment. You have to confess that you also miss his outstanding friends as much as him. They were so generous in welcoming you. They just accepted you. They laughed with you. They toasted with you. They danced with you and they talked to you. You met people who you honestly wanted to keep around in your own life.

You must admit that everything has to be your fault on this one. He was so great. He was so phenomenal that you can’t even think that he did anything wrong. He didn’t He just did what he felt. He followed his heart and you were in the path of destruction. You got demolished when the bomb went off. You were left alone with no answers. You still don’t know why and you still don’t understand why you weren’t given an honest chance to be perfect. You don’t know what it is. There is still something. You get a little stronger every day. You still just can’t figure it out. It feels like your hearts are still together on some level. It could be the fact that you miss just sitting around laughing. You could just miss all the long drives. You might just miss him. Something just seems really off and you can’t put your finger on it. There is still this tug in the back of your mind. There is still this something that you can’t explain. You know that it is just that. There is not going to be a time when someone asks you how you are doing. You merely know that you are just ok. You just know that is the only option if someone asks anyways. You are ok.

Where To Begin

Close your eyes, imagine you are in your basement with your family. This is not family hangout time. There is a storm raging around you. Who knows what precautions you have taken, a mattress over the family, maybe you are really in a bathtub, or maybe you are all just huddled together in a corner with your heads in your lap. You are holding yourself together for your kids, but sheer terror is on the inside. You might be praying to God, reciting Psalms 91 over and over again. You might just be hoping and holding.
Then you hear it, the sound of a freight train roaring through. It is the loudest, creepiest sound you have ever heard. You are gripping little arms or feet. You are clinging to your spouse for support know you are both scared to death. You don’t know how long it has been, but it seems like a life time that the noise goes on.
Then, it stops. It just becomes silent. You are still too scared to open your eyes. You call out everyone’s name. Wait…. Something is wrong. Your youngest child, maybe your spouse, isn’t answering. They aren’t calling back to you. You realize water is falling on you. You think, well the roof is damaged. Then, you remember you are in the basement. So, you open your eyes. You see that it is all gone. Everything you own is gone.
That’s the way it works. In a blink of an eye, a two-minute storm that feels like two hours, comes and everything is just gone. You were already living paycheck to paycheck. You were unemployed and barely able to feed your kids. You were just a happy family eating dinner one night. There wasn’t a lot of warning, but warnings were done to the best of everyone’s ability. It was all out of your control. No one could keep this from happening. Now, what do you do?
The storms a couple of weeks ago took a toll on my heart and my way of thinking. The story of two-year old Angel Babcock is all it took. The only survivor, yet still doesn’t survive due to compassion that was an incredibly hard decision for family members. She gets to be with the rest of her family and her grandparents get to bury a whole household of loved ones. Then the stories of other families and destruction starts rolling in and I was done. That was it. A two-minute something that changed so many lives for forever.
Have you ever thought about it? Have you ever thought about how you could just be driving down the road and one person not paying attention could change your life for forever? If you have then you already know the answer to the next question. If you haven’t, then here is the question to think about. After your life is changed, what would you wish you would have done? Do you know what you could lose or who would be effected? Did you help others enough or wish you did? Would you have made your significant other feel more loved? Would have tried to have a family? Would you have tried to get on a better life path, hugged someone more, made sure someone knew how you felt about them, or maybe even made a commitment no matter how many fears you had?
Take this, for whatever you want, don’t put off until tomorrow what could make a difference today. You never know what tomorrow or even the next five minutes could hold for you.

Though the storms were two weeks ago, there is still much to do and many needed supplies. You can take donations of personal hygiene products, blankets, flashlights, batteries, etc to your local Red Cross chapter or your local Salvation Army drop off. It is time to step up and make a difference.

To donate to the recent storm victims, please check out the following links:

Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/

Salvation Army:  http://disaster.salvationarmyusa.org/give/