This past weekend was my first full one away from the kids without The Husband. My pre-kid self would be horrified, intent as she was on “getting the hell out of here” and “dropping the kids off somewhere” so that I could make every girls’ weekend on the calendar. She was kind of a bitch, though, and also not well-acquainted with the deep ambivalence, and complicated mechanics, that characterize my actual life–not the one I planned and prepared for and read up on. Turns out I have a hard time walking away from these boys. And a hard time sleeping in a bed that’s not my own (along with having a hard time sleeping in my own bed, but that’s their fault). And a hard time releasing (my illusion of) control long enough to leave my comfort zone and step into the unknown.

Which, a few days ago, looked like a women’s retreat with my church. We drove two hours into north Georgia and spent two nights at some cabins in the mountains. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to be a person apart from my family; after all, I’ve stopped working, and my writing relationships are mostly–and safely–virtual, conducted within the confines of an online presence that can be edited at will. It’s so much easier to be likable with a delete button.

So it was more for relationship-building that I went on the trip than for rest, knowing as I do that extended periods of time in anyone’s presence but my own (and maybe Jesus, though sometimes even he can get talky) can lead to emotional exhaustion and empty introvert tanks. I’m old enough to have learned how to be “on” when I need to, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t wear me the hell out. Not to mention that I am not old enough to have stopped caring whether people like me, whether my jokes land well, and whether I’ll be invited to whatever the grownup version of Sally’s tea party is.

I had a great time. And I am worn out. Not mutually exclusive.

I feel like my own neediness–which I can’t stand when I sense it from others–is revealed at times like these. A part of me will always be the girl who didn’t fit in and would rather be at home reading a book. That girl didn’t have wine, though, so there’s that now. And she also didn’t understand grace, like at all. And I’m…working on it.

On Saturday afternoon we had free time, and I went to the main lodge with my journal and books and internet devices and sat by a roaring fire, my cozy scarf wrapped protectively around me like armor since it was too early to start drinking. In the quiet–and I don’t mean of my surroundings, as the theme from Gone with the Wind blasted from the lobby speakers; I’m talking about the absence of that dull roar I typically hear in the presence of others that is just my fear over whether I’m performing adequately in this particular social environment–I felt the heat from the flames warm me, and the chair I was in hold me. And in that moment, I knew that I was being loved right there by the fire in a way I always am but seldom feel. There’s just too much noise in my head, too many doubts in my mind, too much anxiety in my heart that drowns out what is most enduring and real, tested and true. I considered that moving away from that noise–moving away from the person I used to be and still often am–isn’t so much a retreat as it is a step forward, a walk of faith, into what feels unsure and unshaped and unplanned and, therefore, unsafe. I’d so much rather provide my own analysis than let go and just be. I’d so much rather complain about doing the dishes myself than run the risk that they’ll be done “wrong.” I’d so much rather rule my world than cede authority to a more benevolent sovereign, whose movements are unpredictable and mysterious, and who calls me away from the safe and small world I prefer.

We talked a lot about death over the weekend, which may sound depressing but wasn’t. Because it revealed all the parts of me that are being asked to leave, gently but unequivocally, by a grace that loves too much to allow them to remain: loves me too much, loves my family too much. And that grace-full conversation isn’t so much the high school mean-girls interaction I let it become in my mind as it is a beckoning forward–away from something comfortable and toward something more. Growth looking like retreat; life looking (and feeling) like death. Prayer sounding more like anguished cries than self-assured recitations. And this is progress? Could it be true that we are always somehow walking forward toward both death, and life?

I came home and buried myself in laundry; there’s always so much to just do that the tasks can feel like the whole narrative, the moments by the fire lost in the noise. The next day I drove Little Brother to the same surgical center where The Kid had his first of several surgeries. I’ve driven there through the dark so many mornings I’ve stopped counting, but spring must be coming because the sun had risen and we made our way through the light. As the nurses and doctors gave their speeches, I wanted to stop them: “I’ve been here before. A lot. I know the drill.” But I didn’t know it, because this time was easier. I thought I was prepared, but this was something new. A surprise. Our last nurse did a double take–“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” she asked, and I nodded, recognizing her too, and so the past wasn’t for nothing, this shared smile of veterans rising above the noise. Later that night, the kids in bed and each being made whole in their own way, I felt the exhaustion and aches of the day and weekend settle in. There was still so much to do, and I had been such an ass over dinner about the cleaning. Still, grace cut through the noise: You’re loved. Just be still and try that on for size. Conflicted yet sure, fearful yet bold, I stepped forward into the cross-shaped stillness.