Self Pity

This blog post is going to be one of those ones that no ones likes to know exists. You know, one of the ones that is "how I really feel". Even if it's not how I'm supposed to feel.

Today is the start of this weekend's General Conference. 

A man name Elder Shayne M Bowen gave a talk this morning. It was a touching talk, a great talk. If you want to listen to it click on the link below:

http://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/general-conference/october-2012-general-conference/2012-10-1050-elder-shayne-m-bowen-64k-eng.mp3

I think a lot of people are made to feel better by talks like this. Ones that directly relate to their "hard things".  This one absolutely relates to mine. And I don't know what's wrong with me, but it does nothing but make me feel worse. All those people out there who've intoned things similar to the "your babies were so perfect, they were too good to be on this earth"...and this talk...I KNOW all this. I know what the Church teaches. I KNOW. But what my head knows and what my heart feels-two totally different things. This talk? It depresses me. It does nothing good for me. It makes me feel inadequate. Like I'm feeling all the wrong things. Like I should walk around happy and cheerful and uplifted. And every person I know who has experienced burying a child and has done so more gracefully than me-again I feel inadequate and like I'm doing something wrong. As a mom NOWHERE feels like a better place for my children to be than my home. Not even Heaven.

I don't WANT to let go of my grief and pain. If I do that, the moments when I've realized that I have done that, it feels so wrong. Like I've forgotten. Because all I know of my babies, all I got to experience of them, was letting go. Giving them up. Giving them away. Nothing positive. Nothing but tears. So letting go of the tears means letting go of everything that I know of them.

So there you have it. That's how I'm feeling. That's how that talk makes me feel. And it's awesome. Because every single person who asks me if I heard Elder Bowen's talk is going to do so (has already done so) with the expectation of me being uplifted by it. Being encouraged by it. Being lightened by it. And how do you tell people that yes, I heard it. And I hated it. Yes, I know I've got issues, and they're MY issues. But I don't want to let go of those issues because they're literally all I've got. And yes, I know exactly where all my feelings along these lines are coming from. But just like what my head knows and my heart feels earlier-knowing where they're coming from is not yet enough for me to let go of them.

And with the incredibly AWESOME luck I have this talk will be one of the ones I'm expected to teach for a 4th Sunday lesson in the coming 6 months at church.