Landmines and Trolls

This time of year always makes me pause and reflect. Looking back over the year, wondering how it went so fast. Seeing Trey and Teagan growing and changing. Seeing Grandpa shrinking and also changing. Realizing that we all have changed, even if everything seems like it is the same. It seems "change" is a word most people just don't like. It must have some bad mojo to it. Most would prefer to hear it when someone says "Here's your change!" and that's it. To find a synonym that actually works to define the process and not so much the outcome, that's what I am looking for. We've all changed. But what happened in the meantime? So many people say "transformed" but I can't get Bumblebee out of my head when I hear it (from the Transformer movies- just to clarify). Maybe it's just me, aspiring  to be moved. Moved to do..Moved to share..Moved to help..Moved to not gain 10 pounds of holiday weight! Moved to dig deep within myself to uncover, no, to excavate, those buried landmines. The ones that would bring me such restlessness and really, at the root of everything, fear. Fear is a sneaky, well camouflaged, and often times mean spirited little troll that hides under the bridges of our souls. An ankle biter for certain, and a relentless know-it-all that I sometimes have a hard time disproving. Not sure why. I could easily drop kick that garbage pail kid and move on with things. That wouldn't be right though. See- whether I want to admit it or not- it's been the troll that has buried those landmines. Buried them for me to carefully and gently remove in order to inhabit a better, and more safe, secure place in my heart. Shame, vulnerability, fear, perfectionism- these were just a few of the buried treasures (or landmines, call them what you will) that I found and blew to pieces. It's not easy to step away from the destruction of parts of yourself. Your coping mechanisms. Your security blankets. Your perceived freedom. What if I told you that the freedom you feel you have is really your prison? All those landmines within you are keeping your life smaller than it is supposed to be. Tip toeing around them, or maybe stomping right thru them, only to bury new ones. The prisons we lock ourselves in sometimes resemble our dreams come true. Having what we think we should want, doing what we feel we must, and being the passenger in the journey of our own lives. Life seems really beautiful. Unless you turn on the news. Unless you see something on Facebook. Unless someone comes along and shares with you something so powerful that your force field of indifference starts to crack. You start feeling the desire to move to do something. To help. To pray. To cry. Thankfully, that troll saves you from being broken by these things. Work, family life, and Facebook all return to normal in a few days, if not hours. You don't even realize that subconsciously you basically shrugged it off and said 'close call'.
You know what the beauty of blowing up those landmines and busting out of prison is?
Shrapnel.
Shrapnel embeds pieces of our struggle into our souls and reminds us of where we've come from and why coming so far has made all our dreams come true. Shrapnel gives us grace. Shrapnel holds our humanity in place. Shrapnel makes us stronger.
Stronger to look at the hard stuff that indifference never let us see.
It makes us stronger to live and love deeper, both ourselves and others, furiously.


May your life and love be furious in the New Year!