This thing. The engine that spurs life. I don't feel the rumbling beneath me. Don't hear the revving and the purrs. I feel locked beneath the tires. I feel the hot rubber of the tires skidding over me. Leaving me behind. Maybe I felt alive before, but now I watch my life speed away and shrink to an ephemeral sparkle in the distance. Let's just lay it out now. I am sick of life. Sick of people who disappoint. People who you choose to trust and know, people who you are forced to trust though you don't know them. I am sick of them. I am sick of the places these roads lead me. I am sick of the mishaps. Sick of being nice and being demoralized and being diminished and being disparaged. I'm sick of the secrets that I have sewn into the hem of the cloud my head is always up in. I am sick of making mistakes and poor decisions. I am sick of being here. My only joy right now is my daughter. But to be honest, I am lost in this thick, enervating fog. Black and dense and heavy with misery and doubt. The exhaust from this "life" vehicle. I have lost sight of the Lord. I have lost sight of myself. I am full of disappointment and wonder and thoughts and I envision myself as a balloon. A dark balloon in the dark sky, floating upward. Flying far away from the constraints and the sharp talons of this stalking, hungry world. No one looks up and sees me because over the years I have become invisible, devoid of identity, of self. I imagine myself atop a cloud. Like a coral pink satin pillow. Like the clouds you skim when you're in a plane at dusk. I sink into it and it cradles me. I am. Unreachable, untouchable. Unable to be hurt or scarred or damaged. The drone of passing planes is a white noise shield. Blocking out the memories that I wish to reclaim but that are out of my reach now. Blocking out the sorrow and the regret and the guilt and the wonder. I study the monotonous hum and curl into it, fold myself into it, layer it over me until I am no longer a blip on the radar. I am gone. The pain of this world has left me numb, whitewashed and blank. I am an empty stare. The stare one has in the moment when a hallucinogen takes you beyond consciousness and you are slipping down a black hole, the slime slick and unrelenting as it vacuums you inside its tube, stretching you like taffy. And you just stare, as if you are behind the curtains of a nightmarish dream.
I am reaching for a wall to press against, to hold me up. Feel the cool lacquer against my face. But there is no support nearby.
And I am fading away. But no one notices. My heart breaks everyday that I'm alive. I am a shadow fading with the rising sun. And no one notices. Not even Him.
Some years ago this girl pulled her desk up to mine in history class and just decided that we were now friends. It was one of the coolest things that ever happened to me because this girl who had been traveling in the dark transformed before my very eyes. It is something truly amazing to see someone come to the lord but I have yet to see someone change like she did and with such fire and love for the lord. We were the closest of friends for a long time but life pulled us down different paths but during one of the last few times we spoke she said something I will never forget. I had been struggling with deep depression and fierce anxiety attacks for some time and told her that they were just a part of my life now. She stopped me right there and said "no, that's wrong! God does not want you to feel that way". She went on telling me how God loves me and does not want me living my life feeling this pain and thinking it was ok. She was right. That is not what God wants for our lives and it saddens him to see us hurt and suffer with the struggles this "life" brings and wow is there alot of them. But then I stopped her and told her that there is not one single thing I would change about these struggles I had. God lets us struggle, and hurt, and bend, and break, and reach that point of complete and total defeat at the hands of this world. This is where we find him again. Lying flat on our backs looking up through our swollen, black and blue, tear filled eyes. This girl I knew was someone truly special. She was strong, and brave. She beautiful and courageous. There has never been anyone so far in my life that was more in love with Christ then her. She was my best friend and I hate to see her writing such sad words. But if she is any bit the girl I remember then I know all she has to do is let herself go and fall back into the arms of Jesus. He loves you Jenna and you are not alone.
ReplyDeleteYou can certainly talk someone down from a ledge, my dear friend. Beyond words, thank you for this. And I still stand by what I say about not accepting a life that Jesus died to protect you from. Thanks for that reminder and wisdom.. I just need to engrave his promises on my heart. I suppose we all do, right..
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