The Yellow Door Life

During a professional development last summer, we were given a sheet describing the four major attachment styles. 

It was the first time I had ever learned about them and as I scanned the sheet, I immediately found my own. 

The presenters asked us to raise our hands based on which attachment style we could identify with based on how we grew up.  

When I raised my hand (anxious, by the way), I had a particular coworker glare at me with a confused look on his face. This coworker had traumatized me in his own way the previous year and I was less than thrilled to have him staring at me now as I named some of my childhood issues that led to my attachment style. 

He couldn’t understand how the role he had played in my life had furthered trauma in my life in any way shape or form. (Again, people’s discernment is way off these days).

Regardless, I grew up in a home that while stable from the outside, was actually very unstable from a childhood development standpoint. 

My dad was never around when I was a kid. He worked in oil and gas and often traveled to New Mexico or the Dakotas. My mom and I lived in Walsenburg and we didn’t have any other family around. We would travel to see people, and vice versa, but it was her and I alone largely. 

I’m not here to give a TED talk on the importance of a nuclear family, but God designed a child to have a father and a mother for a reason. It is important for us to learn things from each parent and to experience watching them work together to problem solve and manage the stress of day-to-day life. 

I didn’t get that. 

When my dad was home, he and my mom fought almost constantly. About what is really neither here nor there now, but those arguments led me to associate my dad being present as a negative thing and in turn caused me to avoid him and be overly attached to my mom who was there for me all the time. 

I also didn’t have siblings, so I had no one else to turn to at home but her. 

…

I was sitting in mass this past Sunday and this adorable toddler walked by me with her dad and she immediately reminded me of myself at that age – brightly colored clothes and a WHOLE head of wild hair. As they walked back to their pew, I realized though how my dad was rarely at mass with us. My mom used to be a Eucharistic Minister and lector, which meant I had to sit alone in the pew at mass on the days she was participating. That terrified me as a kid, so sometimes, I would run up and stand with her. 

People in the church always used to prod my mom about it, “What’s wrong with her? Why does she do that? Why can’t she sit by herself?”

I was an only child, who felt abandoned by her father, of course I didn’t want to sit in a pew alone at 5-years-old. 

I can identify this now as an educated and post-therapied adult, but back then I was made to feel like I was the problem. 

That feeling manifested itself in many of my relationships growing up. I moved through constant fear about being in isolation or being abandoned, so much so that I even abandoned myself at one point, giving into fear and making several bad choices.

This last week of Advent is the shortest, but it has forced me to confront the most uncomfortable circumstance I’m still forced to deal with: isolation. 

I did everything I could in my life to avoid being alone, so without fail, God is putting me through what seems like an excruciatingly long season of isolation.  

What took me so long to figure out though is the isolation has never been a punishment, all along it has been a gift, a respite. 

I fled from isolation at every turn, when I should have fled toward it. 

God’s best work is done in isolation – when a person is focused, disciplined, faithful, and accepting. Jesus himself often retreated into solitude to pray and recharge.

Even though I have felt very sad in my isolation, I have finally reached a point where I have very few distractions. I’m locked in on my goals and have to believe, if it hasn’t changed yet, it’s for a reason. 

So, I sit here working on a blog, completing assignments for iteach, going to the gym, taking walks, purging stuff, all with the hopes that the isolation season will come to an end soon. 

People keep asking me if I’m ready for Christmas. 

I believe they mean, am I done with my shopping, have I bought all my gifts, etc. 

My Christmas hasn’t looked like that^ in awhile and I’m honestly glad. The world’s view of Christmas is noisy, busy, and rushed. 

Now, if someone asked me if my heart is ready for Christmas, that would be another thing.

Instead, I feel like I’m looking into a giant snowglobe filled with the world’s view of Christmas. Meanwhile, I’m waiting in isolation for the real Christmas – the truth, the love, and the hope – on the outside. 

Am I going to get a Christmas miracle this year?

Who knows, but either way, I’ll keep showing up, because that’s what I’ve been asked to do. 

Plus, the miracles always surface when I least expect them to, and that’s the most fun part of all. 

❤