Dark weekend

Last night when I had a bit of an emotional crisis, I knew I needed to vent, and I knew I needed to do it here. So, I waited until this morning so that my head could be a bit clearer. (My therapist might hear about this later.) Reader, I think I should warn you that this particular post will be mostly therapeutic for me. I'll toss many different ideas around together, but I'll try to connect them with one another. I hope the result will be mostly aesthetic for you. Thank you in advance for reading.

My apartment has a dining room, but I use it as a multimedia library. (I don't cook, I rarely entertain guests, and I eat in my living room, so I don't need a dining room. But I need a place to store my books, etc.) At the beginning of this post, I shared a photo of the (mostly) classic and children's literature section and also the (mostly) secular music section of my library. Please pardon the mess. I'm in the process of selling some of my belongings on eBay, and I'm planning to do a bit of reorganization after I'm finished selling stuff and I have more room for the stuff I want to keep.

One of the walls of my multimedia library is decorated with pictures of my musical mothers and fathers. If "mother" or "father" is too weird of a term for you to consider, please replace it with "influence." These are pictures of people who I consider to be my heaviest musical influences. Starting from the top left and going clockwise, that's Freddie Mercury, Del Castillo, ABBA, Richard and Karen Carpenter, Billy Joel, and my We Are The World poster. (Not pictured are Elton John, Yanni, and anyone from Mexico who wrote pop music in the 70s or early 80s.) Yes, I especially consider Freddie Mercury to be my musical father and Karen Carpenter to be my musical mother.

I wonder what it would have been like to have had people like that as my real biological father and mother. Would I have inherited their issues? Would I have met Jesus? Would I have had my own record deal by now? Would I have had a happy childhood?

What I do know is how I was really raised.

The father and mother who raised me in real life wouldn't have allowed me to sell so many of my treasures on eBay, even though I'm 38 years old. When I was about 21 years old, I wanted to sell all my secular music (tapes) because I didn't want it anymore and because I wanted to earn some money to pay off debt. They made me give the music to my sister instead. The result: I still had my debt but no secular music. I ended up replacing some of it years later with CDs or iTunes.

On the bright side, years later, I finally got to discover how wonderful ABBA and Queen are, and I got to bond with my Heavenly Father with their tunes.

Seriously, who the heck doesn't allow an adult human being to sell her own belongings? I wasn't on drugs. I wasn't a shopaholic. I was just trying to pay off debt. And why the heck were they so obsessed with me not having a headboard on my bed? Freddie Mercury didn't have a headboard. He had a piano. What's wrong with not having a headboard? I've slept without a headboard for more than a decade now. I DON'T NEED A FRICKIN' HEADBOARD.

"Lord, why do You cast off my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth; I suffer Your terrors; I am distraught. Your fierce wrath has gone over me; Your terrors have cut me off. They came around me all day long like water; they engulfed me altogether. Loved one and friend You have put far from me, and my acquaintances into darkness." (Psalm 88:14-18)

I was born on a Friday, and I went home from the hospital that following Sunday, which happened to be Mother's Day. I think ever since I went off to college, the time around my birthday and Mother's Day has been a rough, lonely one. This is the time of year when college students are wrapping up exams and leaving town. Teachers are extremely busy wrapping up their school year. Anyone who still has a relationship with his or her mother is scrambling to buy a present and/or make lunch and/or dinner plans. What about me?

Well, after I went off to college and would celebrate my birthday, I would dread coming home to what I now understand was an extremely toxic environment. After I finally disowned myself from my family, Mother's Day became dreadfully traumatic. It's better now, and I think it gets better each year, but that first year was a doozy.

On Mother's Day 2012, I was literally curled up in a fetal position on my couch, and I cried like a three-year-old. I was racked with some of the most excruciatingly agonizing emotional pain that I've ever experienced. I was almost inconsolable. Have you ever seen a sitcom (e.g., Full House) where a father figure is desperately trying to comfort a screeching toddler who won't stop crying, even though there's a laugh track blaring in the background? That was the tone of voice that my Heavenly Father used with me while I was crumpled up on the couch crying for my ex-mother and He desperately shouted, "PSALM 58!" So, I uncrumpled and opened up my Bible.

"The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear, which will not heed the voice of the charmers, charming ever so skillfully." (Psalm 58:3-5)

While He was calming me down on Mother's Day 2012, God said, "You're mourning the loss of a cobra." I think that makes sense.

From what I understand, my birth mother was a Jezebelite (an outrageously controlling person who is acting out under the influence of a Jezebel spirit). So, when I was raised, I was taught that it was OK to lie, deceive, gossip, mock, and oppress. So, people were treated like playthings. After you had your way with them, you could throw them onto a shelf, throw things at them, and then forget about them. On a bad day, you could rip them off the shelf and stomp on them. On a good day, you could obsess over them, promise them the moon, and refuse to let them go. Then you could just throw them back onto their shelf.

That's not how you're supposed to treat people. That's how you're supposed to treat things before you sell them on eBay. (Especially He-Man toys.)

Are you familiar with that scene from Home Alone where Kevin realizes in horror, "I made my family disappear"? That's how it was when I was first grieving the loss of my family. But then Kevin remembers how his family treated him, and he realizes with a triumphantly happy smile, "I made my family disappear." That's how it's been while I've seen the results of me NOT being under my family's chaotic covering anymore. I think living under God's covering is infinitely better. Freedom!

Speaking of He-Man, we're taught in church that the psalmists of the Bible poured out some really nasty stuff into their songs, but they always ended their songs with, "But I trust You, Lord." I think that's mostly true. Sometimes, however, I think the psalmists just had really bad days that didn't have happy endings, the Holy Spirit inspired them to puke it all out, and now it's scripture. At least, I think that's the case for Psalm 88, which I quoted from earlier. From what I understand, that psalm was written by Heman the Ezrahite. It starts out with "God, I'm crying out to You," and the entire song stays dark. No happy ending. No "But I trust You, Lord." In fact, I think it's almost accusing God of putting the psalmist in a bad place. Couldn't God strike him dead for talking to Him like that? Maybe. But I can't find any evidence anywhere that He did. (Wikipedia tells me that Heman was Samuel the prophet's grandson.) Was Heman in therapy? Maybe. Did he intend for Psalm 88 to be played thrashingly in death-metal style? Gosh, I hope so. At any rate, he wrote a darn good psalm that has helped me put my finger on what bothers me sometimes. God definitely knew what He was doing when He made sure that song was included in the Bible.

So, if Heman the Ezrahite can experience dark catharsis, so can I. My multimedia library is a tiny bit messy right now, yet it's organized in a way that helps me know where to find things. Yes, sometimes organization can be therapeutic. So, I think I'll organize my feelings about this weekend here in some lists.

WHAT I DON'T HAVE IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW, AND IT HAS MADE ME CRY:

a family

a husband

a job

visitors

friends knocking down my door to hang out with me on a Friday night

people competing with each other to spend time with me on my birthday

someone to officially celebrate on Mother's Day

WHAT I DON'T HAVE IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW, AND IT HAS MADE ME HAPPY:

cobras

an ex-husband

a soul-crushing, toxic, Dilbert-esque job

inconsiderate visitors who overstay their welcome

codependent "friends" who refuse to leave me alone on a Friday night

relatives who remember my birthday on the wrong day, if at all

a mother who shooed me off the phone when I called her on Mother's Day 2011

DISADVANTAGES OF BEING RAISED BY A COBRA, TO BECOME A COBRA:

having finely honed deception skills

knowing how to get away with lying

having a sharply bad temper

understanding how to whitewash myself

mastering the art of infiltration

ADVANTAGES OF HAVING COBRA SKILLS THAT GOD REDEEMED TO BE USED AGAINST THE DEVIL:

having fiery-dart-dodging skills

knowing how to be wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove

having strong urges to charge into hell during warfare prayer

understanding the need to be as honest as possible, because whitewash doesn't work anymore

mastering the art of infiltrating the enemy's camp, dumping out as much love and truth as possible, and stealthily slithering away

"For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore I am glad on your behalf; but I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly." (Romans 16:19-20)

Hmm. I guess if I ever fantasize about ripping the devil's head off and pulverizing his slimy, squishy corpse with my combat boots, I'm not alone, and I'm not the first to do so. I think God thought up the idea of stomping all over the devil Himself. Hmm. I like God. He's cool.

I think Jesus is the Snake Charmer that Psalm 58 talks about. He's the One who's ready to tame any slimy, slithery liar that will let Him. Then once you hear His song, and once you tell Him yes, you'll never be the same again, and you won't want to live anywhere else but in His house, in His arms, between His shoulders, where He won't forget you, where He'll nurture you, where He'll sing to you, where He'll enjoy you, where He'll cherish you, where He'll love you, where He'll keep you safe, where He'll be your God forever, and you wouldn't want it any other way.

So, this Mother's Day weekend, I would like to take a moment to honor my musical mother, Karen Carpenter. Karen, I know you suffered from an eating disorder that contributed to your way-too-early death when I was a little girl. I don't know what sort of pain drove you to harm your body, but I am sorry that you hurt so much. I am glad that you poured yourself into your music and that technology preserved your songs for posterity. Thank you for sharing your music with me that way. I barely knew your music when I was young, but now I know your rainy-days-and-Mondays voice much better than I knew the voice of my birth mother. I hope that when I sing, I can remind people of your deep, rich alto-ness, and I hope that I can influence others in a similar way that you influenced me. And I hope you understand that I'm hopelessly in love with a God who compels me to point people to Him, even with music.

Sigh. I feel better now. I think Heman the Ezrahite had the right idea.

Seriously, I DON'T NEED A FRICKIN' HEADBOARD.