Sometimes when people asking me how I am, I start crying. So. That has been answering the question pretty effectively lately. I mean, it at least cuts the conversation short.

There are five more weeks of school. I turned in my separation paperwork. I am officially not teaching next year. That is all I know.

The answers I was sure would materialize by Christmas, didn’t. The questions I was sure would be answered by Spring Break, haven’t been. I told God I just really really needed to know by April 14. Apparently God thinks otherwise.

I appreciate how many people care about us and our lives. I wish I had answers for you when you ask. I just don’t know…anything really. I don’t know if we are moving. I don’t know if I am going to the seminary or if I will ultimately need to defer for a year. I don’t know if I should Priscilla’s name in the pre-k lottery. I don’t know.

The church has a meal train for births and deaths, but where is the sign up sheet for I just need help getting through the day because the uncertainty is weighing and I have been giving into my children on a regular basis because I don’t have the energy to fight them. Where is that sign up?

I know how to sign up for casserole delivery when a woman in my church delivers triplets. I know how to get someone’s mail when they are out of town for a funeral. But what do you do when life is just too hard? When the daily grind how ground you to dust and you just can’t do it anymore.

I don’t know how to ask for help when I don’t know when the need will stop. I don’t know if it is proper church etiquette to keep putting the same need in the prayer request blank. I don’t know how to teach, and parent, and write and edit and do all the things I could manage even six months ago when I can’t even remember to eat lunch every day.

I don’t know how to tell you this without my mom emailing me to make sure I am okay. I don’t know how to grieve a job I love that isn’t the same anymore. I don’t know how to leave my students without an explanation of what is coming next. I don’t know how to stop the tears and I don’t know how to cry with dignity at the copy machine.

I don’t want anyone to worry about me. I know we are going to be okay. I mean, I am choosing to believe that, but right now in this moment. This part is hard. I don’t know that there is an end date on that. Every end date I have set has been ignored by the universe.

But I also need to be allowed to feel  like this. I need it to be okay to my community that I am terrified right now. I need to see it as radical uncertainty before I can see it as a grand adventure. I need to be not okay.

Every time I pray, God is there, but silent. And every time I get mad, I get sad, I am confused, God is still there, silent but not shocked. Almost relieved for me that I am finally moving through.

The season is hard, but it is made a little easier by speaking it out loud.