Two Realizations as a Result of the Women of Faith Conference this Past Weekend

I went to the Women of Faith conference this weekend in Philly. It was awesome and amazing and sad. Sad because this is the last year they are having the conference as they have been doing it, with all the amazing speakers that have been a part of it.

It is always awesome and usually amazing. Every time I walk in there and sit down I take about 20 minutes to relax, to adjust to being there. Then I get this deep feeling inside that tells me, "Yes!! This is just what I needed!!"

[Two of my beautiful sisters and I at WOF this weekend (I'm on the right)]

I don't know why it continues to surprise me that there are still things that bowl me over about God, how his daughters share about God, and how we and life work, but it does. It often does. It doesn't happen with every speaker, but usually at least one or two will say something that just really sticks with me. Sometimes it's just a spark of an idea that a speaker shared which causes me to come through a lightning speed thought process to some form of enlightenment. This year it was the latter.

So, this year I realized two things about myself. And these two things are huge. So huge that I'm not sure why I never realized this about myself before now. Perhaps God needed me to get to the place where I am now to know how to be able to handle it. Maybe I will never know why it took this long. But, here I am.

When I was a girl I always wanted my superpower to be flying. I thought it would be the most awesome thing in the world! I dreamed about flying often. Sometimes in the daytime, but mostly at night. In my dreams I would soar anywhere and be able to feel the wind rushing by me. I loved it because I felt free and safe and happy. If any bad guys came into my dreams I just flew up and was safe away from them.

I've mentioned some of the issues I've had in previous posts (Feel free to read the back posts). Yet, I have really only scratched the surface and gone down a couple levels. Here, I'm going to share more that goes down into the core of who I have been and am now.

So, back to what I realized this weekend.

The first thing I realized this weekend is that my superpower isn't flying.

It's been a long time since I've been able have dreams at night that I can remember when I wake up (I can count the number on one hand for the same number of years), let alone have a dream of flying. But, even still...

No, my superpower isn't flying.

My super power is running way.

I am amazing at it. No, I excel at it! I can run so fast and far that no one can catch me. I leave them in the dust wondering what just happened.

Those that know me by now might be raising their eyebrows or laughing because I have always hated running. With a passion! But, I'm not talking about physically running away.

In regards to my fight or flight response, when it comes to people I love being hurt or mistreated in some way I will have an initial reaction of fight.

But in every other way, and especially when it comes to things about me, my immediate internal response is flight. Swiftly. Silently. Immediately.

It isn't always visible on the outside. On the outside I might seem fine. But inside I shut down. I run away inside. I run so far and fast into the core of myself that my heart can ache with the emptiness I'm leaving behind.

This affects every part of my life. It affects my relationships with my boys. It affects my relationship with my parents. It affects my relationship with my extended family. It affects my relationships with my friends. And it really affects my relationship with my husband (bet you thought I forgot him!).

Yes, running away is my super power.

But, if there is anything I excel at more than running away, it's hiding.

I am a champion hider. Always have been. I hide so well sometimes when my son Reilly is finding me that I have to give a couple clues before he figures out where I am. If people found me quickly it was because I wanted them to find me sooner.

When I hide inside it isn't a quick little jaunt. It can be days. It's more often weeks. Sometimes it's been months. And people never find me.

This is why I've been pretty silent this summer. I've been running and hiding inside.

You might make the correlation that if running inside affected my relationships that much, then hiding affects my relationships even more. And it does. With the only exception being that when things are good with me and Steve (which is most of the time) the place I feel the safest and best is in the arms of my husband. It's my favorite spot. If I had my way I'd never leave that spot, but life does insist on moving forward. And it wouldn't end up being good for me anyway because I would still be hiding.

That's how I have responded to much of life ever since I was a little girl. If you run away inside then it won't hurt as much. If you run away inside you won't feel as much. If you run away inside then you can pretend things are different than they really are. If you hide then no one can find you. If you hide then you are safe.

I'm not going to share all of how I learned to handle life this way and how it got to that point. Some of it is part of other stories that aren't mine to tell, and most of them would just take a long while to explain.

However, I can tell you how many times that this superpower backfired. Almost every time.

I still hurt, I just let myself bleed inside while I tried to ignore it. I still felt everything, but I fooled myself into thinking my emotions were gone or didn't matter. Things were never different than they really are and reality always crashed in. People may not have found me, but they also didn't know me and I desperately want to be known and accepted for me. And any illusion of safety I had was a lie.

They were ALL lies.

But the thing with lies is that they are sneaky. They often start little but gradually grow into something big.

I've been trying to be really honest with myself and others for the past 13 or so years ever since I realized how hurtful lies could be (another long story). I have thought I've been doing pretty well at it. So, you can imagine my shock and surprise at realizing that I've been telling myself big huge fat lies for most of my life and didn't recognize it!

So, the first thing I realized this weekend was that my super power isn't what I'd hoped it was, and I've been telling myself big fat lies for years.

The other thing I realized this weekend is that I've pretty much just been waiting for life to happen.

I have Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. I have pain and achyness all the time (though better more recently which I'll share in another post soon). I have difficulty with normal every day things that other people hardly blink an eye at.

I am an introvert. On a scale of extroversion and introversion, with extroversion being 0 and the most introverted person ever being 10, I'm around 8.5. I might even be able to argue for 9.

I have a really active extroverted 5 and a half year old boy and a mellow but curious 6 month old boy. Most of the little energy I have is drained out of me just with taking care of them. I'm exhausted every second of the day in a deep-down-I'm-never-going-to-not-be-tired kind of way.

Since I can do little else, especially not do much of any work to earn money, I feel like I am just in a holding pattern of waiting.

I'm waiting to feel better. I'm waiting for my boys to grow older. I'm waiting to figure out more of what I want to do with my life. I'm waiting to be in a good mental space. I'm waiting to be in a good relational place. I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting.

I decided this weekend that I'm done with waiting.
I decided this weekend that I don't want to run away anymore.
I decided this weekend that I don't want to hide anymore.

I'm still trying to figure out the how. It might take a while.
Maybe I can get a new superpower some day.

Maybe some day I can fly.