HOW FAR WE’VE COME

I am sitting in a room absent of sawdust, staring at pristine wood floors devoid of paint cans and drywall, electrical wiring, and plumbing parts.  

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There are many versions of this story. Several have been shared in the Journal. All are true. I think I’m not finished talking about it, how the flooding came along with the stripping of my hair. It’s interesting how we sometimes measure our lives like a long retractable tape with marks that speak to how we’ve inched our way through.

It has been thirty-six months of renovation. My body’s. My home’s. Both sanctuaries undergoing a kind of chaos that became perhaps a little too kindred to who I am. But I am in the business of transformation, not unfamiliar with this total takeover of spaces, outside and within.

This morning I tell Ron that the kitchen cabinet looks a little “wonky.” He lays the leveler across the bank of drawers and confirms that it’s off one sixteenth of an inch.

It’s the seemingly tiny things that amplify over time, until even the incremental losses seem insurmountable.

TONIGHT, I AM SITTING IN A QUIET ROOM. NO HAMMERING. NO MOLD. AND THERE’S MORE THAN A LITTLE BELIEF THAT I MAY JUST GROW OLD. INCH. BY INCH. BY INCH.

The truth is, this gutting was necessary in ways that could never have been measured in the midst.

For one who notices the fraction, this protracted tearing-down season made its way into the intimate parts of my serenity like construction dirt under my nails. You may find it comical that I have obsessed more about the drywall mud than some of my most daunting lab results. This irony with obvious [God-sized] intention isn’t lost on anyone who has poured through these journals: The metamorphosis in both home and human is evident. I marvel that the Creator of all things gifted me this “distraction”—that is to create something beautiful and enduring right along with him.

Thirty-six months. What have you accomplished in the last three difficult years?
I ask to encourage you to marvel at the bigger story behind all the grueling moments that might still be haunting you.

The reconstruction process is unending—the one that involves hyperbaric chambers and IV therapies, and the one that consists of hammers and nails. It is a myth to tell ourselves the “going through” will soon be over. There is always something left to do.

Ron says, “we are depleted.” I would say we are filled. I look at his tired face and see the lines like the ones on that measuring tape, each marking the endurance and determination of a thousand lifetimes, each etched with literal blood, sweat and tears.

WHEN YOU LOOK AT US FROM THE OUTSIDE, YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW THAT WE HAVE BEEN STRIPPED BARE. THIS EVENING I LOOK AROUND ME AND CAN SAY THE SAME THING OF MY HOME—

We go through things,
most are invisible.
The suffering incremental.
The enduring unending and often insurmountable.
But we are rebuildable, bendable, pliable.
And the best of us is never measured in this moment,
but in the collection of this one and the next.

Renovation is such messy business. As I write I am both exhilarated and terribly tired.
Yet throughout every grueling day, and the day after, the vision of wholeness and completion was kept alive. Even in the freeze of winter. Even in the darkest part of night.

Tonight, I’m not lamenting the time it took, or how much is left undone.
Instead, with quiet satisfaction I’m proclaiming, “look how far we’ve come.”  
Look how far all of us have come.

Perhaps you can’t tell but I’m bald under there. We had just stripped the first floor of everything…
dry rot and mold found everywhere. 
Then came the loss of that big black and white boy standing there. And then came the redeeming of everything.

NOTES:
In just three days, when we're blowing off fireworks to mark our independence, I will be celebrating the connection I have to you.

My friend, Kathy, said it so beautifully, “the invisible string that brings us together.” 

I see that string as a lifeline.

I am not the independent woman I appear. Your support, in so many generous proportions, has seen me through. I guess you could say The Journal is my gift back to you, my love offering poured out until my stomach hurts [sometimes], pressed down on the keyboard, often over tears.

It’s not easy to be vulnerable, to ask for help. But I highly recommend it.

Freedom is breathtaking…but independence is another thing entirely.

We are never truly disconnected. Everything we go through has the potential to bless someone else’s life. The only way this happens is to share. To be BRAVE enough to share.