Only the water at my house isn't clean!
Yes, folks, we have a blockage. To be more precise, a friendly Roto-Rooter man told me that for $2400 he could dig up and patch the hole that currently exists in the main sewer line about 85 ft. from my front door. I can tell you with certainty that it takes 8 days of conservative living to fill 85 ft. of sewer line to capacity. I can also tell you that there's only one way to know you've reached capacity. {See above photo...only imagine MUCH dirtier water.} I can also tell you that I don't have $2400.
My roommate, who has been an absolute blessing of patience during this whole fiasco, suggested we formulate some form of "Power Plunge" to blast through the sewer line blockage. I LOVE the idea. The City of Beavercreek? Maybe not so much.
Of course, the city used my call to the police to report an attempted break-in at my house as an opportunity to threaten to sue me because a piece of my fence had fallen under the weight of the snow and my pool was no longer properly secured. So maybe I wouldn't feel too bad if there just happened to be a giant sewer explosion on my street! I'm just certain they'd find a way to bill me for it. So we're on to find other solutions.For those who wonder if God has a sense of humor, I offer up my current plumbing situation which just happens to coincide with my coming face-to-face with my own spiritual constipation. Oh...and I've had bronchitis. So I've literally had a life threatening blockage as the crud in my lungs has made it difficult to take in oxygen.
I'm finding relief of these personal issues is much less financially taxing than the plumbing problem but oh so much more expensive. To break through the spiritual and emotional blockage, I'm having to encounter and deal with all the "stuff" that I've carefully built up around my heart and mind. The mind stuff is the most surprising. Discovering that you keep people at bay because someone hurt your heart and you don't want to be hurt again isn't exactly a "Contact NASA! We've got news!" kind of discovery. Everybody has those kinds of protections in place. If you ever had a stupid boyfriend who decided he needed to break up with you right before summer because he was going to be working at the pool and there was a good chance the tramp in his neighborhood was going to be at the pool everyday so he needed to be free just in case she decided to prove her trampiness (and there was a good chance she was going to do just that), then you've wrapped your heart in bubble wrap and made sure that every boy since has paid the price for the lessons you learned from that first love. [Yes, Jason, I mean you!]
The most difficult blockage to break through are the stories I've built up in my mind to protect myself. See if any of these sound familiar (either because you know me and have heard me saying these things or because you've told yourself the same or something similar):
- I can't do this by myself. I need someone to help me.
- I prefer to work with other people. I don't like to work alone.
- I can't meet the demands that the "public" puts on me when I'm in a helping position.
- I don't know how to do it.
- I feel like it shouldn't be this hard.
- I know I've told former clients these things but somehow I can't seem to learn my own lessons.
- I don't really want to do it.
- I have all these great ideas. I just don't know how to make them happen.
Last week I had a MISERABLE night. I couldn't sleep. I had what I thought was gas pain, perhaps caused by dehydration (I had taken a LOT of cough syrup at this point and was desparately thirsty). I took all sorts of remedies for that problem (drugs, home remedies, prayer, you name it). The pain got so bad that I couldn't lie down for more than a minute at a time. The only way I found relief was to pace. I was also completely exhausted from having bronchitis and coughing til my muscles ached. I have never experienced another such miserable night.
Since I thought the pain was intestinal, I was doing everything I could to try to force the release of what I believed were air bubbles trapped in my abdomen. For hours, I stood in my bathroom wrapped in a sheet repeatedly falling against the wall trying to make something happen that would relieve the pain. I prayed for God to relieve my suffering. I prayed for sleep. I prayed for Him to stop the pain. I was furious that He wouldn't solve the problem I knew full well He had the power to make disappear without an ounce of effort on His part. I was furious that He would leave me there struggling, hurting, crying, calling to Him. I was especially perturbed because I'd been working through my feelings about Him (well, you know...you've read the earlier entry). I felt like I was putting all this work into our relationship and He wasn't even bothering to show up in my hour of need.
The next morning I went to the pharmacy. The minute the pharmacist asked, "How can I help you?" I fell to pieces. Her question reached the place inside of me that hurt the most. It was all I had hoped God would say to me all night long. It was exactly what I wanted to hear from everyone in my life. I wanted someone to help me. I was desparate for help. I was desparate for someone to stand beside me and do this whole life thing with me. I didn't want to have to live one more minute of one more day by myself. Afterall, I had done what I believed God wanted me to do. I admitted that I was powerless by myself. I admitted that I needed help. Isn't that the big fear we're all supposed to be fighting? The fear of reaching out and asking for help?
The pharmacist was lovely. She told me not to worry about the fact that tears were pouring out of my face like someone had knocked the cap off a fire hydrant. She didn't mind that my nose was running and my words came out with sobs as I gasped for breath and told her of my pain and asked for help. "Pedialyte!" She believed my self-diagnosis and suggested that a good rehydrating would give me the relief I desparately sought.
I drank nearly 2 gallons of Pedialyte. It's perfectly lovely stuff and if my problem had been dehydration I feel certain that Pedialyte would have done the trick.
I went home miserable, frustrated and convinced that God was done with me. I thought, as Ruth Graham once wrote, "Have I outsinned God's grace?" I was sure He had abandoned me and I was on my own. That's when I decided I might as well start solving some problems on my own since no help was on the way. I sat down at my desk, back still throbbing, and began to make phone calls. I called plumbers to get a 2nd opinion. Afterall, I still didn't have $2400. I called the mortgage company to talk about my current financial situation and the fact that their daily calls weren't going to help me come up with the January payment. I started facing every problem that I had been ignoring for fear that facing them was too much and I couldn't handle it.
Slowly but surely I began to feel better. My back was still hurting with that acute and agonizing pain that hadn't ceased for nearly 18 hours now, but I was feeling better. I was still coughing. The bronchitis hadn't let up. The plumbing was still overflowing. I still didn't have $2400. What was different? That's when I realized that I was feeling my own two feet underneath me. I was standing on my own. I wasn't lying around crying about how miserable life was and how weak and powerless I was. I was just handling it.
How irritating. So all my weeping and calling and crying to God had to be ignored because I was too stubborn or too encased in the stupid fear-filled self-talk to realize that I didn't need to be rescued? I had to be allowed to moan and wail and bellow about my complete inability to help myself before I would wake up and realize that leaning on God doesn't mean ignoring the natural abilities He has given me? How disgusting. I felt like I'd been flailing my arms and crying for a life guard only to discover that the water didn't even come up to my knees and all I had to do was stand up.
The back pain still persisted and I needed to find relief from the pain because it was something I truly couldn't resolve for myself. No amount of self-actualization was going to take the pain away. So I returned to the doctor who had prescribed the cough syrup that I believed had caused my dehydration and pains the night before. 
"Sciatica!" he said.
"What?!?" came my incredulous reply.
"You don't have gas pain. There's no constipation. You have sciatica. It's a symptom of a more serious problem...which your regular doctor will have to help you discover and treat. But for now you need Vicodin."
"I'm sorry. WHAT?!?!?!?"
So I spent that entire night throwing myself against the bathroom wall, drinking olive oil mixed with orange juice, downing Mylanta and Gas-X and drinking gallons upon gallons of water to solve a problem I don't have?? Um.......MY PLUMBING ISN'T WORKING! That is to say the actual plumbing at my house is stopped up. This isn't exactly the time to discover that MY personal plumbing is not only working but is now fully loaded to work in overdrive. SON OF A *%&#$!!!!
So there I sat, having just realized that I've spent time, money, tears and physical pain trying to solve problems I don't even have. How can someone who is literally trained to help people discover their problems and work through them be so far off in her own diagnosis? Will I be denied my license if the Counselors Social Workers Marriage and Family Therapists Board discovers this major character flaw? Oh, wait. Does this classify as negative self talk?
I drove home, took 2 Vicodin and in 10 minutes was completely pain free. It was the most unbelievable shift from the unbearable emotional and physical agony I had felt for the last 24 hours to a feeling of pain free, energized, relieved bliss. I was stunned.
Why have I clung so tightly to the belief that I'm incapable? Why have I wanted so desparately for someone else to do everything with me if I'm perfectly capable of doing it on my own? Am I actually afraid of success? I always thought that was a cheeseball theory. Or am I afraid that discovering that I don't need to depend on someone else will mean that I never get to? Does being strong and independent mean that I don't get a spouse to share my life with because I have the capacity to handle it on my own? Do I have to be single because I can be? Do I get less of God's help because I need less of it? Will He leave me to struggle on my own because I can work it out? Does the squeaky wheel get all of the grease? Do those whiny, snivelly girls who act all dainty and helpless end up getting the men who want to take care of them? Does being strong and successful mean being alone?
As I floated in the sweet physical peace that Vicodin provided and grappled with the questions that the day's and week's experiences had raised, I decided to check the mail. My school loan had come through and the school sent me a check for the amount that exceeded what I needed to pay for classes. $1800. Or as I like to call it....75% of the way to sweet flushing freedom.
It's funny. Even though there's no water flowing around here, it sure does feel like I've just been given the world's biggest swirly!
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