Ashes. Dust. 11 months in.

I am dust.

You don't need to smear any on my forehead, I am already there.

Apparently the dust outside, you know the kind of dust found in soil,  is very finely ground up rock.

This is the metaphor that is mine.

The past couple of months has ground me down from a stone, into fine piece of sand and lately into a tiny bit of dust.

I don't feel like I am made of stardust.

I don't feel like I have the lovely symbol of palm branches burned.

I don't feel like I am of the soil which is a lovely mix of organic material, sand, clay, and all sorts of things from which new life can emerge.

I am not a mix of various soil parts.

I am dust. 

All alone in this godforsaken year.

I have been ground.

and ground.

And ground again.

Ground by the ordinary labor of it all.

Ground by the exhaustion and loneliness.

Ground by the intensity of being with my children near constantly.

It's parenting that is grinding me up.

Today it is -5 degrees.

The kids are home from school.

I wept when I found out.

Really?! I want to scream at the school!?

I want to scream at the universe.

Really! After a 4 day weekend I cannot get a break from my big kids. 

Really!?

Parenting was never designed to be just kids and parents. That's not what family is. 

Anyone who watched their children with their cousins knows that children need more than us. 

 Most of the time, so do we.  But here we are.  Barely thriving before March2020 and now we, okay maybe not we, I am ground up, and if you throw me into water I will slowly sink to the bottom.

There is no place to go to get away from each other.

There is no outside that feels like respite.

There is no family sharing in this miserable chaos.

It's just me. 

My spouse who gets to leave the house to go to work everyday.

and a trillion meals.

a trillion dishes.

so much loudness I wear earbuds just to dim the volume.

And the incessent nag that I should be doing the contracted work I am paid to do.

The grief of a career I may never again have.

The loneliness of being lost in the world of ministry.

I am so tired.

So angry. So so angry.

My insides are churning with rage about how bad this is.

Rage that my children will not stop fighting.

Rage that people won't wear their masks and get this over with.

Rage that I am so invisible.

That's right. I don't care about lent.

I don't care about ashes to ashes or dust to dust.

I don't feel connected to a God that reminds me that I will die.

Believe me, I've fantasized about it.

I suppose tonight we will take a tiny bit of my fathers ashes and bless each other with them.  

He is the only extended family who is with us. At least in the form of dust.

I am already ready for the Jesus who is mistaken for a gardener.

I am ready to muse about the soil quality and if we need rain or not.

I want a Jesus I can sit on a beach with and eat fish while the kids play in the sea.

I want a nap, and a cry, and some relief from this.