An esoteric thought

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing

and rightdoing there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.”

-Rumi

The Weight of the World

I've been chained to an idea for several years.

It shaped the way that I thought. The way I lived. And it shaped the way I interacted with the world around me. My parents, my husband, and my close friends can all attest to the truth of this statement.

I'm going to spoil the ending for you...this idea was unexpectedly shattered to bits tonight, but I think that's ok.

As reflected in my previous post, this same idea brought several aspects of my identity into question, especially recently. It did always had a way of doing that. It was back, of my own doing of course. Unveiling my vulnerability. My weakness.

It made me question the very foundation around which I have built my life...and without giving away an indelicate amount of information, I want need to write about it.

I fell in love with an idea. For years. No matter how hard I tried to move on, it lived inside of me, and I kept it safe because I have been afraid of losing it.

I didn't really ever want to give it up. Effortlessly, it defined me. I surrendered myself to the belief that my life would always be incomplete without it. After so many years, it still mattered more than I am proud to admit.

I guess I thought that as long as I believed it, it would be self sustaining. Little nothing else would matter as much as long as I kept it alive. It would shock you if you only knew. It sure shocked me. I refused to let anything else touch it. As the years passed, I polished it, and kept it safely tucked away from the harm of those who tried to taint it. Pretending, when the time came, that I had completely given it up...willingly, in fact...that I had given up. I smiled gracefully as I paraded on my own personally paved road through hell.

Because I lied. That's right. I lied.

I have never been as addicted to anything else. I never stopped believing in it.

It was taken away from me. I stood at a crossroads sincerely unsure of what to do when I realized it was all a dream. A fantasy. I'm still a little shocked, but at least the apathy that has only increased over the years has gone away. I am feeling again, and it's a definitely different than how I would have had it, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I believed in something that simply was not true. The weight of the world was taken away from me. I was freed. Unwillingly, but nevertheless, free. Freed from regret and confusion. Because I know. There is no doubt anymore. I doubted it all for something that just wasn't there. I had been wrong.

It's that simple. A little anticlimactic, I know...but that's the truth. I think know I would have believed it forever if the idea hadn't been taken away from me. I would have always wandered, and made my way back to it. I would have changed my life to suit it.

I hesitate to write about this because I have never felt capable of adequately doing this post justice, even thou it's been a long time coming. I imagine many more will follow...with perhaps less ambiguity, or great. But I needed to put into words the feelings I had this night...the way I'm feeling now. I need something to accompany the devastation, the relief, the fear, the confidence, the tears, and the smiles. So bittersweet.

Because my life changed in a moment, and while the world around me looms on, my world was changed. In however small a way, I need that to matter.

And so, I write.

__________

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed” (Alice Walker).

 

A Written Prayer

[Written this past weekend, but never posted.]

I've been told it helps to write down your prayers.

 

I wonder whether some believe it makes your thoughts clearer or more coherent...in doing so, perhaps, you give your prayers greater focus, and therefore, a greater purpose. Maybe writing down a prayer makes the whole praying experience more meaningful.

 

Or perhaps they believe that writing down a prayer has some sort of therapeutic effect on the mind...it might help you to make sense of things on your own before you take it up to God...then that way, He can help you with the rest knowing that you did your very best to figure things out alone first. He might, after all, appreciate the fact that you put forth some effort before asking for help. I imagine I would want to know that someone tried to figure things out on their own before asking for help. Maybe He does too. Maybe not.

 

Maybe writing down a prayer is like utilizing a kind of divine learning technique, you know? Kind of like when a teacher gives you 10 seconds to silently write down an answer to their question before talking it out with a partner or sharing with the whole class. They say the mere act of writing something down helps you to learn because you have to put it into your own words...and you have to actually know what on earth you are talking about. It triggers something within you and becomes forever embedded in your memory.

 

At least that's what I have heard.

 

So I thought I would try it out..after all I am a self proclaimed writer...and I think I should give this a chance...because I have exhausted many of my own methods of coping and finding guidance, and this couldn't hurt.

 

I also think a part of me truly believes that putting this out into the internet is kind of like pushing it out into the universe. So maybe God will have an easier time hearing me out from all the way down here...as foolish as that may sound.

 

So here it goes.

 

God,

 

I've lost my way. No matter how often I try to pick up the pieces of a shattered person, I feel unable to put myself together.Somewhere in my past I lost a part of me. An essential part, and no matter how earnestly I try to fill that void, I can't help but wonder why.

 

I'm not sure if this will make any sense, but I used to have all the answers. And they used to matter so much. But not anymore. Not now. I can only think about the person I was and long after her. Like Lot's wife, I do nothing but look back. Was she so wrong?

 

I'm looking back to the life I once had. The life I knew. Full of regret. Full of questions. Full of desire. The grass greener on the other end. I see it now. And while I know I shouldn't, I want it back. I want my life the way it was. Is that so bad? I want to struggle, and fight, and feel. If it means I feel more pain, I can deal with it.

 

They laugh at me when I say it, but it's a crisis. You're too young to have an identity crisis. Too young to know what pain is. Too young to know what life is really about....That's what they say. Too young, too rash, too impulsive. Too selfish.

 

Well, yeah. Maybe I am.

 

Whether I'm young enough or not, I'm living it. And life doesn't seem to mind that I'm too young to be hurt. It doesn't seem to be holding back, so why should I? Why should I set myself aside. I feel like I don't matter to you anymore.

 

What do I want? I don't know anymore. I don't know who I am anymore. I need some light. Some direction.

 

Are you even up there?

 

Can you even hear my prayer?

I need you now. Just give me a way out of this confusion. Just stop me before I walk away.

 

I've lost my trust. My conviction. My faith.

 

But I'm still here.

 

Waiting. Please.

 

Amen.