Here Is My Fish

I am not sure how to describe all of the emotions that I have been feeling lately.  There have been a multitude of ups and downs over the last few months.  I have recently been reminded of lessons taught and learned long ago.  I have faced uncertainty and longing and heartache, just like everyone else.  So here, I begin with a story.

Over the Easter weekend, Justin, the kids and I took an impromptu trip to Ocean City.  Our second night there, after the kids were in bed fast asleep, Justin and I sat on the balcony of our hotel room, taking in the view of the ocean, breathing in deep the smell of the salt air, listening to the rumbling of the waves pushing into the surf.

As we sat there, we began to reminisce about childhood, when we started dating, trips we had taken, soaking in the fact that we had spent nearly a decade together, reconnecting.  For the first time, we really talked about the heartache I have been enduring since the loss of my grandmother and the heartaches of our children and the hardships that the loss has brought to our family.

It is hard for me to be so vulnerable and open about these deep feelings of loss and sadness.  These things bring up memories of a time a few years back that were not very good for me, when I suffered a dark depression.  Each time these feelings of sadness lurk around, I get scared that I might slip back into that place with no light, when I felt not hope, and when I felt utterly disconnected from everyone and every thing, including myself.

When my grandmother passed, I had taken a week long trip to the beach with my parents and my kids.  Justin had just started a new job so he was unable to accompany us.  After what had seemed like a very long time of spending so much time apart because of taking care of her, spending nights along her bedside in fear of her passing when I was not there, it felt almost selfish to leave him behind.

I had a deep longing in my soul to be at the beach, though, at that time.  I could only explain it in one way.  I needed to be overwhelmed by something greater than my grief.  The only thing that I could think of that was that big was the ocean.  So I went. 

I spent that week much the same way.  Soaking in the sound of the crashing waves, taking in the expansive horizon, in awe at the immensity of His creation.  I spent evenings and mornings on the balcony with my parents, tears soaking my face as I tried to make sense of this new normal that I would have to make peace and live with.

That week was incredibly healing.  I had not been back to the beach since until our Easter trip.  So as we sat there together on our balcony, I began to become overwhelmed with the same feelings.  They resurfaced and pushed their way up my throat, erupting into quiet sobs in the night. 

As I allowed myself the chance to put to words the things my heart had been aching with, I began to feel a sense of relief.  I felt a physical weight come off of my chest.  As we spoke softly in the salty night air, I took notice to something stories below.

In the bottom of our hotel, there was a small café.  It had outdoor seating on a little patio, just off of the boardwalk.  It was getting late, maybe around 10 PM or so.  As I looked down upon the ocean, my eye caught a glimpse of something fluttering in the wind.  The café had an "OPEN" flag that was hung out over the rail.

It occurred to me that it was ironic that such a thing should capture my eye as we had this conversation.  God was speaking.  I knew that I was meant to share my words and I started thinking about what it was that He wanted me to say.  So I pulled up the camera on my phone and tried to take a photo of the flag.

As I tried to capture the image, the wind was fluttering the flag all about.  Each time the flag would open up nice and wide, I would snap a photo, and just as timely, the flag would flutter closed.  I tried for several minutes to get this picture, growing agitated that the wind would just not "cooperate" with me.

Oh, the irony.  This was God's very message.  Oh, how oblivious I was.  Every time I try to open my heart up, to be vulnerable, to let someone in, I just as quickly close my heart, turning inward, shutting the world out again.  Each time I let someone get a glimpse of me, I quickly make sure that it is only fast enough not to get hurt or judged.

Just days before our trip, I wrote a blog post called "Open Heart" in which I spoke of my Yoga journey and ending up in a training named "Open Heart".  It seemed to me as if, while I know the truths of living with an open heart, I had not necessarily been living it quite as well as I had thought.

Each day, I have the blessed repeated opportunity to live in this light of openness.  Each day I have the repeated lesson to learn that only by truly opening our hearts up to others can we live a connected and well lived, loved and meaningful life.

I wrote long ago that, often times, God presents us with the same learning opportunities time and time again, repeating the chance until we make the conscious choice to choose differently, to finally grasp and embrace the lesson, to live differently, to make the decision to live better, to love harder, to surrender more, to humbly accept, and to willfully desire a more connected and honest, truthful life worth living.

This weekend during "Open Heart" Yoga training, we were read a small excerpt from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  The verse was a metaphor.  It spoke of our "self" as a fish and how we should put our "fish" in an aquarium and put it on display, as if to say to the world, "Here is my fish!"  It is meant to say that we are as we are.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Just as we are. 

So, here I am, guys!  This is my fish!  This is who I am.  This is my heart.  I ask that you take it, not break it, but hold it gently.  If you hurt it along the way, I will forgive you and move on, tending to my brokenness.  As Jesus declares, forgiving 7 times 77 times. 

Melissa and I taught a Sunday school series last year to the high school kids about wearing masks for people.  The recurring theme is ever present in my life.  Think about this: If all the people who know you are put in one room together, would you know who to be?  Are you always the same, never changing, or do you wear masks of different colors and shapes when you are accompanied by different people? 

Our Yoga training class took a visit to a local charity a few weeks back that we will be supporting in an upcoming event that we are putting together.  Olivia's House is an organization in York that offers free grief and loss services to children and their families. 

Side note:  As I walked in the door, I first of all could not deny the presence of hundreds of butterfly symbols throughout the facility.  And if you know me, you know that the butterfly is a sign of the presence of the love of my grandmother.  Needless to say, I cried, SEVERAL times, but only when I could be in the back of the group so as to quickly wipe my tears quietly away.

Back to the organization though... They provide many services to these children, including art therapies.  In the hallway upstairs, there were masks hanging on the walls.  As our guide talked about some of the art therapy projects, this one really stood out to me. 

The children were tasked with writing and decorating the front of their masks with the things that they wanted other people to see, the outward sign of "Okayness", words like happy, okay and fine splattered the fronts of these masks.

Then she told us to flip the masks over.  On the insides of the masks, they were to write how they really felt.  Words like hurting, sad, lonely, and the most heart breaking one that we saw, "Help me!" were inked upon the inner walls of these children's hearts.

And I sympathized.  My dearly beloved yogi friend, Laurie, kept checking in with me, "You okay?"  As I choked back the tears, wiping my eyes in the back of the group, I would nod, yes.  But she knew, she said she could tell that I was feeling it all.  This place spoke to me, to my heart and to my grief.

Even as we wandered the halls of the facility, I held tight to my mask of "Okay".  I don't know why.  But here is my fish.  This is the inside of my mask.  I refuse to wear that outward "Okay" mask any longer.  I still hurt.  I still lash out.  I still bottle up my feelings of loss and sadness.  My heart aches.

As we sat there on our balcony that night at the beach, I took that mask off for the first time in I don't know how long.  The truth is, I barely recognized myself.  I had hidden away my inner self for so long, even I was not sure who to be any more in an aquarium full of all the people that I know.  I have been so many things to so many people, I forgot who I am.  Mother, wife, daughter, home schooler, Sunday school teacher, care giver, and the list goes on.  They are all things I do, but not WHO I AM.  More than anything, that is what I am learning on this Yoga journey.

I proclaim it now, though.  Here is my fish.  Here I am.  Here is who I am when the masks come off.  Here is my heart.  I am hanging it out for everyone to see.  We all hurt, we all cry, we all have fears, we all face loss.  Why, then, are we so afraid of doing it together?  We share these heartstring moments with everyone else in creation.  We need to live this openness, not just fluttering between open and closed, but we need to let our "OPEN" flags extend out, remaining there indefinitely.

So there was my sign to keep my "OPEN" flag out, long past when I want to close up shop.  God is urging me to let the winds of life carry me where they may, to trust that my destination is already determined, and to believe that He would keep me safe in the travels and the storms, holding tight to the promise that I would be delivered. 

It is not my purpose in this short life to protect my heart.  My purpose is to live out loud, strong in faith, open and raw, holding my heart in an outstretched hand to anyone who is willing to take it.  If and when it does get hurt, I know that I can rest easy in the storm, in the palm of The One who carries us when we can not walk.  And I know that I can always take comfort in the immensity and overwhelming expansiveness of the healing waters of the ocean, the sounds of the late night tides, the salty air, and the glorious sunrises that promise a new day with new opportunities to learn and heal.