Rocky Ground

Growing is hard.

I know this is probably true no matter what, but it feels much moreso right now, holding handfuls of half-unraveled threads, trying to sort out which ones to weave back in, which to pull out, while the experience is undercut by the dull ache of open wounds and heavy eyes.

And I find myself surprised tonight by a soft voice somewhere inside.

"Gentle...be gentle.  You're coming back from the edge of death.
Look at what you're already doing.  You don't have to be hard on yourself."

I'm breaking up in the realization that I'm longing for my own self-love, for me to be proud of how far I've come.  There's so much pain there...

If I stop to rest, will I fall apart beyond repair?

This feels like self-surgery, every night, every silent moment, studying for my life in the spaces between, learning what I need even as I apply it.  And I forget that I'm worth my care, equally as much as everyone else is.  Maybe that's what this process is missing.

I push myself hard into the learning, sometimes harder than I ought to.  I realized the other night, it made perfect sense: this forward edge of growth is the only direction, the only purpose driving me to move at all right now, and when your mind's entire context has been shaped by the struggle against despair, agony of living with no meaning to justify the pain, feeling eternally lost, and longing for any end, no matter how dark, then to feel like the only options are to learn or to die seems natural.

Am I running from something?

Oh...of course I am.  Even without being able to name it, that feels obvious.

So what is it?

Emptiness.  I'm running from Nothing.  I'm desperate to escape, more now than I've ever been.  If I stop running, if I turn away from the one thing that feels like a ladder out of the pit, where else can I go?

And yet, beyond the fear...there's still something else.  I'm not only running from.  I'm running to.  I'm doing something I once thought I would never live to do: I'm creating a future.

Rather, the future is creating me.

I'm beginning to understand why it's called growth.  No matter what I, or anyone else, wants, does -- this can only be planted, nurtured, and waited on.  Who I will be is now becoming, and for all my self-surgery, this is beyond my direct control.

Learning how to balance my active role with the surrender required to allow this to develop is hard, coming from a framework of desperation.  It feels relieving to discover that what I once thought of as being-stuck is actually a movement of breathing.  I've almost forgotten how to breathe slow.

Friends (is there a better word for this?), I'm afraid to tell you that I need you.  But I think I do.  I can't learn how to be part of a We without you.  And to some degree, I think that I need your care.  Not desperately, but achingly.  I need to remember that I'm not alone, and that there's space for this growth even at this pace, and it's hard to remember these things on my own.  My grip on reality is stubborn, but thin and worn.

I want to be closer to you.

A Quiet Nightmare

In the quiet moments, when I am alone and the night seeps in around the edges, I feel my heart crumble in my hands.

That goodbye, only days ago, it was the quietest heartbreak I have ever known.  It wasn't deep or shattering, just an echo of cracks etched down to my foundations.  I lied alone, curled up tight, and the darkness quietly flowed into the room, until the couch was an island in the murky water and my clothes were soaked in hopelessness.  It's familiar.

There have been so many stories like it in my life, some looming like waves of death, others just another splinter in my chest, making all the old wounds ache.

In those moments, I don't long for any great love.  I don't long to fall deep, or be swept up in dramatic romance.  I would give all hope of those ballroom, garden and cathedral fantasies away, if I could just be held, safe and comforted.  I don't fight heartbreak; it will happen with or without the struggle, and holding on will only ever make the shattering that much worse.  But the lonely darkness that waits beyond is a terror that haunts every one of my nights.

An isolated death is the worst fate I can imagine.

Forcefully Letting Go

I don't even know where to begin anymore.

If I'm honest, it seems like anything true I feel that I try to express runs up against more and more opposition, and I'm tired.  I'm tired of feeling like a tool for others to prove themselves right, and I don't know what I really believe or trust in anymore.  At least...not in the terms that anyone else uses.  My heart's language is drifting further out to sea, while the call of everyone else claiming to know where I should go is all inland.

I'm not ready, and I refuse to be lied to.

Somewhere along the way, I became desperately dependent on the approval of those around me, above me, beside me.  And for my trouble, I have fallen on the side of the road, with the ashes of the dreams I claimed were my fire choked in my throat.  The things that once made me feel excited are now a source of guilt, a neglected duty to uphold the identity I built for myself.  I've made many terrible mistakes, but the worst was to shape my image around passions I was weak in.  They still ring in the back of my heart, and I haven't given them up.  But for now, they are mine alone, to listen closely to, to follow in the way that I know only I can discover, until my voice returns.

Whose life am I really living?

I do not know myself as I ought to, and I've stifled my heart until it's turned to a cold stone.  The world's voices are far too loud.

I've accepted no mentors.  I need to make this journey alone.  When the time for me to seek guidance comes, it will be my choice, not their demand.  I will not be anyone's mechanism to ease their conscience, or their need to feel right or superior.  Maybe I sound bitter.  And maybe I am.  But it will not be undone until I am ready to face it.

And I don't think I can become selfless until I face the fact that I am not.

Tremors

Tonight, I feel again the echoes of everything just behind.  And far behind.  If I claimed I remotely knew where I am anymore, I would be lying.  Or am I lying to myself?  I'm too dizzy to think about it.

My eyes have bounced from one thing to the next, carrying me along at a pace hardly allowing time to breathe, let alone think.  I didn't feel much, and I still don't.  I thought maybe I was weightless, but I feel the whiplash now and I know that it was just momentum, graceful numbness until the speed collapses into empty time.  Nothing but time, time to think and wish I could dream, time to wonder where I am, why I thought any of it was a good idea, why I still can't feel my own heartbeat by any means other than physical.

The question burns brighter, scalding and blinding, more and more with every day, every hour: Who am I?

The only answer I have: Not who I thought I was.

I see myself now, behind the curtains and the poise.  I am weak.  I am unclean and crippled, shot through the heart a dozen times over and half-braindead on overthinking.  I have tried everything, but it all leads to greater and greater wounds, and I wonder now if maybe the wounds are a novelty I seek because I can't feel much else thanks to their ruin.

Alone.  Alone.

Alone?  But...I have friends.  I have family.  Is that not enough?

No.  A voice from a tiny chamber inside.  It is not.  This is not enough.  I am still alone.

Small-talking about the troubles I've faced is like taking cough syrup for a cancer.  Only a surgeon could help me now, and all my friends know are home remedies and chicken soup.  Sometimes a comfort, never a cure, always leaving me gasping for more.  Save me, I'm dying!  Do you even see?

Dramatic.  Oh so dramatic, child.  You just need one good day to break through this.  One day of setting to your craft, one day of getting everything done before the sun sets, one day of reaching out to those friends, one day of good luck.

One day that never, ever comes.  I'm starting to think you're lying, and it never will come.

Were anyone brave enough to take me on, I don't doubt I would cry my eyes out.  I might well shake.  But I need more.  I need to scream this out.  I am being ripped apart by energy I keep swallowing down, a supernova spreading through my veins, desperation and hopelessness, anger and bitterness, and the anguished crying of a lonely child.  And the deep, violent frustration of an artist who cannot create, no matter how hard he works the gears in his mind.  He can dream well enough, but his hands will not obey.

Maybe I should stop claiming to be a musician, since I obviously don't have the discipline or drive to make anything.  Are all these plans in vain?  Am I hoping for nothing?  Am I just fantasizing about accomplishments I will never make to give myself some small sense of purpose, some lie to calm my disappointed heart?

I exist only for my own world these days, and the borders to the rest are growing thicker by the day, a hard shell.  Maybe the fire growing in my blood is gathering to break through, but I don't have a clue what to do.  I know that I'm dependent on everything I cannot control, and I've long lost touch with the only One who can.  He feels cruel, even though I know that this could have great potential, and perhaps still will.  I hope.

But hope is tasting so bitter right now.  Ever eaten the same meal for months on end?

I feel alone.

I feel so alone.

Will this ever end?

I pray that it doesn't destroy me from the inside first.

The Value of Being Here

I could hardly have asked for a better January.

It wasn't quite what I hoped for, but in some ways it was far better.  I feel so different.  New?  Renewing, certainly.

I'm still searching for all the right words, but I picked up a couple of things since the year began.  I'm learning to leave stress further behind, and somehow I found purpose that still doesn't really make sense to me.  Nothing grand or final, simply a sense that I am growing, and that is enough.  It's amazing how things change when life is no longer a mountain to climb, but a river to follow.

See, if you're anything like me, you're acutely aware of every way that you're failing to match the pace of everyone around you, and of all of the mistakes that you've made and the things you're still falling short in, and of your own limited abilities.  It's incredibly easy for me to drive myself crazy with all of it, as my perfectionism takes stock of every imperfection until I implode with the impossibility of fixing myself.

But I realized something.

First, I had to learn that my life is unique.  The path isn't determined by anyone else's life, at all.  It's my existence, and failing to match someone else's is not failure.  Some things come easy, some things take a very long time, and all of these are unique to who I am.  I cannot change this.

In the end, I am not in control of the path my life takes.  I am given critical choices in every moment, and I have to live with the results, for better or worse.  But so much is beyond my control, and life is going to happen, one way or another.  I still struggle to understand how it works, but right now, it doesn't bother me.  Life is always in front of us.  The past has already happened, and beyond what it can teach us about how to be better people (which, truthfully, is quite a lot), it has no worth in the present.  It can never be changed.  And the future hasn't happened yet, so beyond wisdom for the sake of making good choices, it doesn't have worth in the present either.  Learning from the past and planning for the future are not bad things, unless they hinder us from living in the present.

How much can I really change in this moment?  Not much.  Often all I can change is myself, by reminding myself of what's true.  Why worry?

Appreciating the life I'm living right now is feeling so much better than worrying about where I will or won't end up.  I've missed out on so much that was right in front of me thinking about the past and the future.  Is that really what I want to see when I look back on my life?  Do I want to spend my whole life taking a beating from myself for mistakes I can't undo, or worrying about where I'm going or what I'll have to face someday?

I'd rather cross that bridge when I come to it, and take in as much of the present as I can while it's still here.

Time is steady, and my Redeemer is faithful to lead me on the right path, as long as I stay present in everything that is true.  I know I'm not perfect, but mistakes are a part of growing.  Humility is worth more than regret.

Onwards.

Empty To Fill

2015 was a long year.

I've seen a lot of retrospective posts, resolutions and goals for the new year, the usual stuff.  But I haven't done anything myself yet, so...here I am.

It was a long year.  A lot of it blurred together, but I remember a few things.

Adventures in the winter, before 2015's spring came to life, standing on the ice at the edge of the frozen lake, breathing in the cold air, taking pictures, letting it in through the car windows with music on.  The joy of spring's green and rain and life, so welcome after the year before.  Learning the practice of circling, connecting with strangers in a way I never thought was possible, making friends, finding emotional freedom never before felt, discovering myself from new angles.  The adventures of the fall, taking half a dozen trips over two months to Kansas City, Omaha, and Denver.

It was a year of new life, new realizations, strange and wonderful things.  And a year of growing emptiness.

Standing on the other side of the line, I have the distinct sensation of having been hollowed out.  Pain was healed, goodness filled my soul for a while, and then it left, piece by piece.  My mind spins in cycles trying to understand everything.  Too much.  I don't know what I want.  I want what I had back, but I know it wouldn't be the same.  You can't stick the leaves back onto a tree after they've fallen off, withered and died.  There's no going back.  If those things ever return, they must be different, and I can't expect them to.

So, with the road of a new year emerging...what's left?

I'm not sure who I am when I'm empty.

The voice of my faith and the people I share spiritual heritage with whisper that in this, I'm still a child of God, and I still have that hope that can't be taken from me.  But if I'm honest, that hope has long been flavorless, and my mind is unclear.  Ever more strongly, the questions wait for me to answer them: "Do you believe?  Will you follow?  Can you give your heart to me?"

I avert my eyes.  I don't have an answer yet.

When it comes down to it, I only have one hope for 2016, only one longing.  All my other wants and ambitions and goals are shadows compared to this:

My heart is dead, and I want it back.

To be brutally honest, I've spent a lot of time alone.  A lot.  Hours and hours, days and days alone, playing games or watching videos, driving out just to sit in a coffee shop and listen to music and read books I've already read, hoping that I'll see someone I know, anyone to alleviate the isolation.  Birthdays and holidays and milestones and good news and beautiful days have been tainted by tired detachment.  I want to be happy.  I really do.  Superficially, I am, now and then.  But I can count on my fingers how many times I felt real happiness last year, soul happiness.

I don't know what's wrong, how to change anything.  I'm holding out hope that I'm going somewhere, and I do know that I've learned a lot as the months went by, and I've changed, in some ways, for the better.  I hope that soon my soul will be breathing regularly again.  But I don't know when that will happen.

I want to make music again.  I want to spend my days with people I love, people I can be open and honest with, people I can invest in and care for and laugh with and speak deeply (and simply) with.  I want to follow my faith and take risks and give of myself for other people.

I have hopes that this year will lead me to the places I need.  They're small, but they're all I have right now.

Here's to 2016.

On Despair

Hey.  It's been a while.

It's been a while since my feet touched the ground.  It doesn't really seem to happen often anymore.  Now and then I stop, I see, I feel alive and okay.  Only on occasion, now.

Most often of late, I've been...stranded.  Spinning.  Drowning and dying of thirst all at once.

To be honest, I have no idea what's wrong with me anymore.

I thought I might finally be free, you know?  I had direction, and even though it was undefined, it felt like peace.  A reason.  A "purpose", though I'm finding I don't like that word anymore because it implies we have to be good for something.

What about when we're not?

What's my purpose when I'm isolated and falling apart and don't even remember what happiness feels like?

What am I good for when it feels as though every ounce of emotion I have ever felt has been spent?

When I'd rather just lay down outside and become a pile of dirt and let the grass grow over me forever, what's my reason for living?

Some days, I feel good.  Other days, I feel nothing.  And still other days, I feel nothing good.  The good days are sometimes few and far between.  And this is the life I've got.  So...what now?

This is the part where people would interject their answers, telling me that God's got a purpose for it all, that I just need to focus on the good things, that people really do care and I should just reach out to them; and the fact is, every single one of those thoughts has already gone through my head a hundred times over, and unless I happen to be in the place to hear it, it doesn't change a single thing.

Because what we really need sometimes is not to feel better, or to be distracted from the pain that feels like the final nail in the coffin of a bitter existence.  Sometimes happiness is not the answer to agony, anger, or despair.

Sometimes...we need to feel the full weight of it.

We need to feel it because, if we let it, it will lead us somewhere.  Through the darkness, we come, not to the end of the road, but to the wounds that desperately need to be felt, because only in acknowledging that we have been hurt (by others, or by ourselves) will they heal.

The light of a bitter reality is still more healing to hurt than leaving it in the depths of our forgotten selves.

But oh, how hard this road is.  How lonely it can be, if that's what it takes to unearth the unresolved pain.  But how wholesome the moments of release are.

Purpose is not always the answer.  If there is a purpose...it's simply to be, and to do so as sincerely as possible, even if that means falling asleep hoping we won't wake up again, ten nights in a row, or a hundred.  Even if it means the screaming and the tears of despairing rage.  Even if it means unjust irrational anger and rage toward someone or something we've been hurt by.

The point is not that our feelings are true, or right, or even lasting.  The point is that we feel them, and that we are deeply, passionately honest with ourselves.  We can't always give the weight of the emotion toward the person who caused it (irrationally raging at someone for the unintentional wounds they caused is not the answer), but we can always be honest with ourselves, and with the God who created our wild, chemical-filled, passionate minds and our tender, love-needing hearts that have suffered the nastiest of cuts and bruises.  He can take it, because he will always give it a home and a redemption.

"I am not fine.  At least sometimes, I am not fine."  And I won't pretend otherwise.  But my Father, he listens, and he loves me even when I am caught up in the smoke of my own despair and can't feel even a sliver of his love.  And I want to feel joy at the things that he has given me, but that joy is some days nowhere to be found, and to conjure up something that isn't real and true is more a crime than to cry for relief at pain that never seems to end.  Besides, like the poet once said, "The best letters are the ones written in tears that smear the ink."

So please, I beg you to feel the pain that keeps you awake at night.  It is a hard road to walk, but "be still my soul; thy best, thy heavenly Friend, through thorny ways leads to a joyful end."

I'm fairly certain that these past seasons are some of the most painful things I will ever walk through, but I would not trade away a day, for these dark days lead to the brightest and most holy of places.

"Praise be the maker of my fate for the suffering he ordains."