Washed By The Water

Waking up and getting up are two different things. Waking up is the sound from outside. The baby crying. The music blaring. The ache and whine of the metal doors in your compound as they crash and close. Waking up is the touch from inside. The warmth of your puppy. The soft plastic shell of your burner phone, ringing out its alarm. The sweat of your skin, cold in the night, now blistering under fleece blankets.

The getting up is brushing all these things away, putting feet and puppy on the ground, pushing coffee into body, body into clothes, clothes and body out the door. But for me, lately, the distance between these things—the waking up and the getting up—is one hundred miles every morning.

This is because the waking up, for me, is also the noise of the inside of my brain. The things that I said or thought or felt, cling to the inside of my mind, caking it, like the pan of rice soaking on my stove. Fear about the day, what I will do, say, how I will act, look, be perceived, stands like armed guards between me and the door. Voices cut like knives, making me want to curl up, to flare out. Anxiety builds and bursts. Some days I quiet it quickly, forcing it back into submission, and some days it boils over, over my house, my day, over me.

Part 1: Waking Up

I have been dealing with anxiety and panic attacks for a long time. Back in high school it manifested itself as social anxiety. Two years ago, lost in the swell of a dark concert hall, I had my first panic attack. A year or so later, they got worse, and I began to see a counselor. Now, here, in this place, they have resurfaced.

Aside from any fear, any worry that comes into my mind, there is the incredibly guilt that comes in afterwards. It is the idea that I should be better than this—hold it together better, take care of myself better, do my job better. The idea that I shouldn’t still be afraid to walk out my front door. The guilt of feeling guilty.

Anxiety is a strange beast, because, for me at least, it can be based in fact, but it can also be this wild, weird thing—it can be one small look, one phrase—and then everything is suddenly scary.

It can be a lack of privacy, it can be missing home, it can be fear at what people are saying about you, it can be the fact that its Monday tomorrow and the thought of interacting with other people makes you want to bolt, it can be sadness, it can be isolation, it can be waking up after a sleep over at a friend’s and feeling overwhelmed, like your body and your mind and your heart can’t take in every good thing, or every bad thing, or anything at all.

Because panic, fear, anxiety can be all these things. It can also be none of them.

It creeps at the edge of your heart, threatening to take over, and you look around and see that all is well, and you want to shout at it, “Stop, stop, can’t you see I am fine? Why do you want to make me afraid when I am fine?” It is sometimes soft and burning, like a candle in the corner of your room; sometimes blazing, taking over, raging.

And anxiety plays well with others. It does not cancel out joy, or fun, or friendship, or purpose, or logic. It exists right alongside them, sometimes within them. I struggle with this, but it does not cancel out my strength, my love of my job, my passion to teach, my willingness to learn, to be uncomfortable, to grow. It does not negate my love of Uganda. But there are days when it forces me to hold everything I am and love and want at arm’s length—hold it back from me as I catch my breath, as I rest, as I recover.

And as I panic.

I recognize in myself this weird, repetitive voice, telling me over and over that “I can do this, I’ve got this, I’ve got this handled, no worries, I can do this, let me be, I can control this, let me go, I can go there alone, let me be, I’ve got this.”

That repetition, that mantra, has boosted me up onto adventures, and given me opportunities, helped me to be brave and independent and jump into some wonderful places, relationships, and realities. But, on the other side of that voice is the whisper that it makes, saying that all things must be done alone. That I can’t—shouldn’t—ask for help. That it’s a failure, a loss, a weakness.

Well, one morning, a few weeks ago, I woke up sweating, panicked, and realized what complete bullshit that was.

I wanted to be the best version of myself possible. My job here is to live with, to work with, to love with others. And yes, I could do that for so many days, but those days exhausted me because I didn’t know how to take care of myself after them and between them. I wanted my hands to stop shaking long enough to allow them to held by someone else’s hands. I wanted my voice to stop working long enough for me to hear someone else’s voice

I wanted balance. I wanted love. I wanted help.

I knew I needed to do two things. I needed to start seeing a counselor and I needed to move. I needed to live in a place with more space, more privacy, more air. I needed to talk to someone about all this, start to sort through all this.

But, in order to do these things, I had to do a third thing. I had to start talking. About this weird invisible rope, pulling at me. About my mental health. About my anxiety.

I picked up the phone and called. I went to a counselor in Kampala, clutching tight to my backpack the whole taxi ride through the downtown traffic, fighting the urge to jump out at every stop, fighting the urge to run back home.

I spent an hour on a porch, the birds singing and the cars on the road roaring. And here was this woman who looked at me with so much understanding, who listened so intently, who validated me. Getting there and staying there felt like getting a tooth pulled—painful, but needed. It didn’t make all my problems and anxiety go away, but I felt this weird victory—like the battle that was going on, invisible inside of me, was suddenly being witnessed by someone else. Someone who wanted me to win.

In the following days and weeks, I felt that painful pull again and again, and yet, with each release of pain, there came relief. There came love. Love in the form of coffee dates, long distance phone calls, encouragement. Love in the form of others opening up to me—sharing their own pain and hurt and struggles, coming to me and allowing me to come to them.

Love came in small steps. In quiet mornings. It poured down from God in deep, soft gentleness. In prayers and candles and evenings spent resting. In term breaks and time with friends.

In vacation.

Part 2: Getting Up

I looked up from my book and saw that we were almost there. After three months at site, everyone in Cohort 4 was called back together, with our counterparts (teachers at the school who work most directly with us and partner with us on projects) for five days of IST (Inter-Service Training) and SFS (Safe and Friendly Schools) Training.

We rolled up the dusty path of Muzardi, the training center where we spent our first couple of weeks in country, meeting and training and freaking out. It was just as green and bright and safe as I remembered. I walked around its green lawns, I hugged friends I hadn’t seen in three months, and embraced kitchen staff I hadn’t seen in six. So much had happened, so much work and change had taken place in the last six months—and yet Muzardi sat, green and pure, unchanged and vibrant, welcoming us back.

The week was overflowing. Sessions and information and conversation. Frustration, shared experience, efforts to reach understanding, victories, and failures. I began to see the wounded hearts of my Cohort. Not everyone was dealing with what I was dealing with—there were so many good things, and so many struggles individualized to them and their journey—but the color of the sky above their world looked a lot like the color of mine. It made me feel so much less alone.

Somewhere in the at the end of one of those endless days, I found myself sitting in a circle of my peers, plastic chairs on the green lawn, discussing the day and watching the sunse

One of my old trainers, a go to person in the moments of fear, was talking about life in service. She has been here for a year and a half. She smiled at us, like she loved us more than we could quite understand.

Then she spoke, kind and firm. “The way that you survive here is by cultivating the ability to continually forgive yourself and to forgive others.”

Oh.

A little part of me melted. In a soft, warm and safe way. It felt like, in those words, I was given the permission that I didn’t know that I wanted or felt like I needed before that moment. The permission to fail, the permission to be so messy and worked up and broken and to give myself a break. The permission for others to also be that way, near me and to me and because of me.

It was the permission—no, the capacity and depth of love to live in a constant state of forgiveness. To not allow the mistakes of myself or others to create barriers. To be unrelenting in my loving-kindness. To never give up reaching out or taking in.

Forgiveness. It is the word that lets me open my eyes in the morning. It is the element that lets my feet touch the ground. It is the power that lets me open my door.

Part 3: Opening the Front Door

Three days later, I was falling asleep on a couch in Bujagali, East of Eden on my lap, glass of wine on the table, the sun setting over the Nile, and music drifting over the speakers. Most of my cohort had come with me to Jinja, and then to Nile River Explorers in Bujagali, to spend time together, hang out on the Nile, and go white water rafting.

That afternoon, most of everyone had gone to the pool. I thought about it, but, what with the couch being so comfy, and the book being so good, and the wine being so…well, wine, I decided to stay. I dozed as Teresa ate Rolexes (egg rolled up with veggies in a fried chapatti) and Caitlin wrote postcards and Megan read.

I looked out on the water, and the thought of kayaking entered my sleepy mind, briefly, before flitting out again. In and out. I wanted to. But it was too late in the afternoon. It would be fun. But too expensive. I loved kayaking. But…

I sat up. “Guys. GUYS. I’m going kayaking. Right now. Yep. Doing it. Who wants in?”

Quickly, before I changed my mind, Megan, Teresa, and I dashed down to the kayak rental place, and tossed our money at the guy, (trying not to think about how much it was) and, before the idea had fully solidified in my mind, the three of us were making the steep trek down to the docks, bedecked in life jackets.

The two of them were together on one kayak, and I was on my own. We spent a few minutes laughing, taking pictures of each other, and pretending to fall in, before each boat struck out on its own. Their boat, having two people, moved much faster than mine, and was soon out of sight behind an island.

I was alone on the Nile River. A few inches of plastic between my damp bottom and the deep, holy water. Fish and birds swirled around me. The clouds above darkened. The wind was cool on my cheek and the water splashed up with every churn of my paddle and I was cold and bright and soft and free.

After a while, I looked up to the sky with a shiver. The whole expanse was a dark grey—a color that might have meant danger, spoiled plans, or frustration to anyone who didn’t grow up in Washington. To me it was the color of home. Of childhood afternoons spent splashing in puddles, and evenings on porches watching thunderstorms, and nights falling asleep to that sound, that feel, that atmosphere of rain.

A roll of thunder, louder in the giant place, filled that sacred river valley like a cry of pain and victory. It broke out and I caught my breathe in my throat. I let the sound cover me, so much more than any sound, before hollering, before letting out a much smaller cry back at the sky.

(But my cry was also pain. My cry was also victory. My thunderstorm was also about to break.)

When the rain began, I couldn’t see anything. Water poured down and splashed up, and my glasses and eyes were covered. But I kept rowing, hearing the whoop and cry of joy from the other boat (Megan is also from Washington), arms pushing, straining, through wind and water and waves.

And then I sat, still, in the midst of a storm that no one thought was coming, thinking about how, of all the places in the world, I got to be right there. Of all the journeys people were allowed to take, I was on this one. This was my river, this was my country, these people were my family, and this was my thunderstorm.

I rowed past birds and rocks, and I sang, knowing that no one could see me or hear me but myself, folk songs and pop songs and worship songs, howled out, my cracked voice, my shouted joy, adding some small something into of all that sound:

Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water

In that water and sound, I felt my God come close around me, reminding me of the wonders He had promised to show me, and the wonders that He promised were still inside me. In that wet, loud, windstorm, I felt loved and warm.

Later, back on the shore, I sat again, dry on the couch by the bar. I was so tired and so worn, but I was clean. I was grateful and warm, and the rain kept falling outside the walls of the bar, and people streamed back from the pool, and I got to be rest in that place, of all places.

And I knew that there was no magic formula, no routine, no attitude that would fix all my problems, that would turn me into this perfect person, this amazing volunteer, that would heal my innate panic, that would sooth my innate insecurities. I still saw all the walls and boundaries that get put up between people.

But, although there isn’t something that will fix everything, there is something that can begin to fix some things—or, if not to fix them, to sit with them, to allow them, to love them.

Forgiveness is allowing myself and others to be broken and to love anyway. Forgiveness is to feel lost, to not be able to see, but to keep paddling. Forgiveness is asking for help, it is giving help, it is advocating for others, it is advocating for yourself. It is yelling a song into a thunderstorm, and being content with the knowledge that you are the only one who can hear it.

Forgiveness is opening your front door, day after day, and not getting angry at yourself for how terrified it makes you. Forgiveness is seeing past circumstances, past sin, past frustration, to the heart of the person standing in front of you, asking for help. Forgiveness is also allowing yourself to be that person. A lot of the time.

Forgiveness is love in spite of everything.

With love,

Lucy