Hello all.
It feels like it has been ages.
It hasn’t, I know that. But this somehow feels alien. My fingers are already stiff, like they forgot how to tap the keys to type the words that correspond with the feelings in my heart. Maybe they have. Maybe my heart stopped telling them. Maybe they know, but they don’t want to disclose. Is this weird yet? Maybe. It’s weird for me.
4 “maybe”s in the first paragraph. We’re off to a good start.
I honestly have zero idea what is about to come out of me. I’m hoping that writing will somehow tap the spile into my being so I can see what will pour out. This will be as much of a surprise for you as it is for me. Hooray. O_O
Is this awkward yet? It is for me. The last couple weeks I’ve felt completely disconnected from myself. I lost her. Kyra. She’s somewhere out there. Have you seen her? She has dropped by every now and again when someone needs her, but other than that she’s been MIA. Does she not know that I need her?
She connects so well to God that she can feel Him tangibly with her all the time. She can see His smiles and laugh with Him when He laughs. Her every thought is intertwined with His and she can’t go a moment apart from Him roaming somewhere in the hallways of her heart. Oh, and she can connect with people too. It’s like she can see the spirit of them: the cracks and breaks, aches and longings, joys and delights. She can see what they need and how to love them, but before she can apply “how” to love them, she already is going about loving them.. it just happens. I look at her now and I realize it seems like she floats. She’s a little butterfly fluttering from flower to flower, giggling with delight at the beauty of them all, twirling and twisting in admiration of her wings, and resting them open under the perfect rays of sun that called her out of her cocoon and are bringing her to life even still.
In contrast, I, name me what you will, feels like a toad. Or maybe a rock. Something that just— sits there. Staring. Being. Boring. Flat? Unbothered? Or maybe bothered… but unable to say it? Left to watch the butterfly completely dumbfounded at how something could move like that and be so beautiful. Oh look. There goes another one. And I’m still here.
I’m sounding a lot like Eeyore. I never understood him.. how could he be so sad all the time when he had so many people who loved him? I never got him, but I liked him. I remember being drawn to him as a child, but I was torn in two because I was also drawn to Tigger. Bouncy Tigger who couldn’t be kept on the ground because his spirits were so high that they tugged him up up up and gravity laughed and gave up trying to keep him down. Wonderful Tigger who never stayed sad for long because he had so many things to be happy about. How could these two creatures be from the same Wood? And how could they live together? And why did I love both? None of the other characters appealed to me, just those two polar opposite ones. Maybe I connected with them because deep in my subconscious I saw myself there. Maybe I was Eeyore but wanted to be Tigger… or I was Tigger and wanted to be Eeyore… Or maybe the child-me saw the need for both and the possible harmony of the two together. Oh, bother…
We don’t like being sad.. or worse… depressed. *gasp* We wanna be happy happy happy, bouncy bouncy bouncy. We’re supposed to be, right? Jesus, the joyful, jolly, do-a-jig kind of guy.. right?
And that’s where my Bible knowledge cuts me off. Way more verses come to mind where Jesus is weeping, crying, or yelling out of grief, than scripture where He is laughing, telling a joke, or making everyone smile. How else would he get the name “Man of Sorrows”? What a name… No, He wasn’t always sad, I don’t think. There are many passages that would just be humorous to imagine them being said in an Eeyore demeanor. Of course not. But He certainly wasn’t always happy-happy-joy-joy.
I’m not positive where I’m going with this, but I think it’s that I am not good at being okay with Eeyore-me… with Sad-me. I’m not very nice to her either. When she comes around I shoo her off and tell her no one likes her. But that (obviously) doesn’t help. She just gets sadder and sadder until she is unavoidable.. her gray cloud taking over my mental space until I can’t ignore her. Then when I look at her I realize I am her. And when I realize that, I can’t escape the flood of emotions that crash over me and drown me in their surf. I sink into it fully and now Happy-me is a distant memory, flitting about in the one last square inch of space that isn’t over taken by my downpour.
I don’t have a reason for this. My lack of explanation is likely what keeps me down. I like to reason my way out of emotion, but this one I can’t find the key to. It probably happens when my codependent tendencies have stretched me too far and left me too hollow that I have to break in order to see myself as worth defending.
That’s it… A couple weeks ago I remembered the day I broke, the day I decided I wasn’t worth fighting for anymore, when I realized it was easier and better to just let other people win and give up on self. The moment was insignificant if seen from the outside, and no one else knew it meant so much. I know I didn’t see it either, but that day started a slippery slope into complete self-denial and self-sacrificing to the point of martyrdom. It means I don’t ask for help when I need it if it could in any way inconvenience someone else. It means I don’t speak up for myself if it steers the conversation away from another person. It means I don’t have a favorite color because if I do, it somehow would separate me from someone who hates that color, and everyone else is always right all the time. It means even when someone is wrong or has wronged me, I’ll carry the blame to my tomb because it’s rude to tell someone they were rude to you. It means all my limbs could be falling off and bloody, but I’m gonna inch my way to you to help if you have a paper cut. And if my blood gets on your clothes and you get mad at me, I’ll try to scrub out the stains with my teeth. That probably sounds crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me if I step back and listen to it from the outside, but it is my reality on the inside.
Anyway, so I remembered the other day when this all began, but I didn’t know what to do with it. And I think the reason I’ve been so lost is that although I know where it started, I’m not sure where this ends. I know when I stopped believing I was worth fighting for… but then the question must be posed, do I believe I am worth fighting for? No. I don’t think I am. At least right now I don’t think so. God keeps saying I am. He keeps saying He’ll fight for me even if I won’t. He told me this morning He’d waste His time on me if I would let Him. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just not letting Him fight for me, and thus I’m losing me. Maybe I’m telling Him that Sad-me isn’t worth loving, and that while she’s still around He isn’t allowed to love me. But His love is what I need to stop being sad. Or maybe it’s not about the sadness. If He is the “man of sorrows” I don’t think my sadness bothers Him, and I don’t think His goal is to make the sadness go away. I think Happy-me and Sad-me aren’t things to Him, it’s just me. I don’t get that. I think Sad-me is an inconvenience and a bother. I like butterfly-me… I don’t want to be here. My eyes aren’t trained to see the two as one and the same. But His are. I shy away from Him because when I see how He’s looking at me, I can’t take it. He’s looking at this me the same way He looks at that me. I don’t get it.
Sure, throw out the word “grace” and whatever the fancy word is for when God the Father sees the holiness of The Son when He looks at me. I get that, I just don’t get that. It’s reality despite my understanding of it, I just hope I can understand it more and trust it more, so I can love Sad-me the way that God does. Then maybe I won’t get so hung up on this and miss time I could enjoy being sad with my Jesus.
“Maybe” count for this post: 15 16
remnants of a homeland 