My husband suggested this title when I told him that I hadn’t been blogging because I was too angry at “everything” to write anything “nice”.  His idea made me laugh so I decided I actually would write a blog with that title.

In my lofty dreams of who I am as a person, I am kind (exceptionally), gentle (absolutely), loving (always!)…and so on.  Of course, the truth is that I began writing a blog called “Bitter to Better” because I realized I needed to turn my grief into something more productive than becoming the feminine equivalent of a curmudgeon.

As I started writing these blogs, I began to be able to move the deep pain from my heart through my fingertips into words that expressed how I felt.  As I finished and posted each blog, I could feel my ravaged soul become a little more alive until I could feel again without breaking.

The last six months have been extremely tough and I have pulled in again emotionally.  There have been wonderful moments certainly, as when my oldest son became engaged to a young woman we adore.  There have been other moments though that have been so painful that I have been avoiding writing so that I can avoid hurting.  I do know though that there is something extremely cathartic about verbalizing my feelings and if I can walk through that process, I will get through to the other side in a better state than I am now.

It is not just that my older daughter conned me with her pregnancy story and played the victim when I became upset at the betrayal.  In my mind, I know that I think that one difficult daughter should be my lifetime quota of pain.  Everything else in my life should go well…isn’t that “fair”?  I have four other kids and all should be well with them.

Hello God, it’s me…I’m just letting you know that You are over your quota with me.  I’m sure You know this by now but I am mad at you.  Really mad.  Haven’t I adjusted to having a convicted felon for a daughter?  Seriously, do You have to give me more?  I don’t want more.  I just want to live the rest of my life in some semblance of peace but I can’t find peace.  All I can find is anxiety and I’m having a hard time seeing the page I’m typing on right now for the tears that are blinding me.

My younger adopted daughter (from China), age 20…beautiful, somewhat headstrong but has always had strong core sense of who she was…took a sleeping pill overdose (on purpose) last Halloween weekend.  Blindsided is the only word I can use.  It’s shaken me to the core.  As an adoptive mom, the first thing I thought of…and still do…is what did I do wrong?  Not on my radar.  How could God let it happen?  Hasn’t our family been through enough?  I will write more another time on that weekend and the aftermath when I can muster the energy to face the emotions.

My youngest son, also 20, creative and talented with all things filmmaking, is almost certainly also on the mild side of the autism spectrum.  He struggles with high anxiety (like me, wonder where he got it from) and has trouble sleeping.  He is in college and does well with the classes he is passionately interested in but is having trouble passing the Gen Ed classes that he isn’t interested in.  I don’t know what is in the future for him.

I worry constantly about these youngest two, as if my worry can change anything. I know the bible verse (Luke 12:25-27) that says,

25“And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? 26“If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters? 27“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.”

I love that verse but worry anyway.  High anxiety people like me should have really plain, non-eventful lives where absolutely nothing happens and there is no cause for worry.  The problem is that there is another part of me that also likes adventure, thus the conflict.

Since I think in metaphors, the Tuscany vineyard in the picture at the top of the blog is what I want my life to be.  I want an ordered, lovely, “everything lined up neatly in rows” life.  But it’s not.  Instead, my life feels like this picture….completely and utterly pruned.  I’m fully aware that God prunes us.  I am just saying I don’t want to be pruned.  It hurts too much.

Ok, that’s my not-perfect, not feeling like the perfectly accepting Christian… blog.  Somewhere, somehow, I will try to write my way into a better emotional place.  I’m picking myself up off the ground now after my tantrum and I will try to walk forward.