To the girl on the Hello Kitty blowup chair listening to Kenny G

March 5, 2020

12:36AM

I know how you feel. You’re 7 years old. How can the world be crumbling around you and no one else notice it? How are you supposed to carry this gaping void everywhere when you haven’t even learned long division yet? It’s been days since you’ve been hiding in your room to cry and listen to Kenny G. Why is this happening? Is because of my dad? You’re crying but you’re so proud of saving money to buy that Hello Kitty blowup chair. And I’m so proud of you too. The more you cry the bigger the void gets. And you don’t know why you’re crying. 

Soon you’ll be ok. You’ll clean up like the energizer bunny you are. Perfectionist to a T, with your planners and your emergency kits. I get it now. I get you now. I’m sorry no one saw it. I’m sorry you were so ashamed of being the sensitive one. And you couldn’t understand why you were so different, why you were the weak link in such a strong family. 

If I could, I would be there for you that day. Where you cried yourself to sleep on that chair. Empty as a drum. I know how you feel. I still feel that way. But now I know it’s not our fault. Somewhere something went haywire in us. And it’s never been our fault. We did what we could. We coped and cried. And kicked and screamed. And we got stronger because we did the best we could with what we have. 

Today I’m wondering if things would be different if anyone knew sooner. Would I be better? Would there be less heartache? Would I have been more stable? 

It’s just Sharon being Sharon. 

Being Sharon always seemed so bad. So cumbersome. So much work. So weak. I know you were scared they’d hospitalize you. Or medicate you. “Sharon just needs controlled medication!” Those words still linger today. So you pretended to be okay. And God knows how many nights you just felt like dying. And how many days you just performed who you thought they wanted. 

Maybe that’s why you observe so well. You were taking notes on being the perfect mix of everything everyone loved. When you just wanted to be loved. 

I’m sorry we didn’t know. I’m sorry no one saw you. I’m sorry I can’t go back to change things. But I love you. It’s not your fault. I forgive us for being sad, and angry and euphoric all at once. I forgive you for being the Sharon you knew how to be. That goes for 7, 11, 15, 19, 21, 23 and now. You all were the best you could be with what you knew then. Thank you for pushing until this day. 

I will do better for us. I will do better for you. 

Growth Guilt

Healing doesn’t go backwards. Only forward. This means that any generational stronghold that is broken won’t go to your children, or their children. Great news, right? But what about our parents? What happens when they keep seeing you grow and change, and overcome all of these things, and they are exactly where they’ve always been? Almost like we’re leaving them behind. Queue in the growth guilt. What do we do when they still can’t see the light? When they can’t see that it takes work for you to be where you are? When they don’t realize that they’re stuck because they choose to be stuck? Not only don’t they tend to misunderstand you and why you’re changing and why you can’t just stay the same, but it’s almost like you’re betraying them by going forward. It isn’t a betrayal on your part to move forward and do better. Afterall, isn’t that what they’ve wanted for you to begin with? So why does it feel like it is?

Wherever You Are

A lot of people in the Christian faith talk about how God makes us go through certain things, overcome, to then help someone out of a similar situation. At times I want to believe this, and it’s not like I have the most unique case of struggles and mountains to climb. However, there are so many parts of myself that wants to hide this side of me, the love addict, the depressed and broken girl that still sometimes comes up from inside of me. Yet, if this can reach you, just one person that feels any of this chaos in your mind. You’re not alone. Wherever you are. The idea that no one would ever understand my pain kept me deeper in my pain, it wasn’t until I decided to start empathizing with myself rather than punishing myself that things began to change. For those that know me, know that I have an infamous habit of starting something, and shortly after shutting it down immediately. It’s this deep pang of regret that hits me as soon as I express myself, whether it be through photography, writing, painting, etc. I feel bare, like I need to retreat quickly before anyone gets a chance to see me. I have that urge to tear down every thought I’ve shared so far. But I won’t. I can’t, it feels like I’m suffocating if I don’t put this out there. What am I hiding? What am I afraid of hearing? It’s what I already know. I live in cycles. And for what? To be loved. Love to me is the only thing that I can imagine makes anyone feel alive. I used to believe that it was romantic love that gave this to us, and solely romantic love. The young naïve version of myself chased this because I had never really gotten it fully anywhere else, so I assumed it must have been where I haven’t reached yet. Don’t get me wrong, there was love growing up, but it seemed scarce, it seemed like work. And then life happens, and going through the motions of getting things done I started to notice the collateral beauty. I stopped and looked around to other beautiful things, started to savor the flavors, and let melodies inundate the parts of me that were so empty. I found that love, God, is at the end, middle and beginning of everything. This desire that I have is much greater than just being loved, it’s a desire to live. Whereas before I spent so many of my younger years thinking that I wanted to die because there was so much pain, when in all actuality I just wanted more of being alive and didn’t know how to do it.

Let Him Linger

It’s been three days since he left with no date to return. And the towel he used and folded neatly on the towel rod still hangs there with the last remains of him in this apartment. Last night I naturally had to shift around the furniture to get rid of the memories. My emotions live outside of my body, they’re in the people I love, they’re deep in the roots of my plants, my little loveseat couch, the green velvet chair I rarely sit on, some are on the ridges of my dusty records in the corner, and on the pages of all the books I have yet to open. When I need to organize the inside I have to tangibly move around the outside. It’s the only way to make sense of things. People leave and take pieces of me with them, pieces I didn't even know existed. And then one day on a sunny Monday morning it walks right out of your door and on the road East and you never see that part of yourself again. What’s left behind is the shell of me and Billie Holiday’s I’ll Be Seeing You on repeat. Yet the emptiness is so familiar, it’s like an old friend that comes to visit after so many months. The type of friend that just wants to sit and have a cup of coffee with you and remember all the times you’ve tripped over love. I like that friend now, it's one that I know will never leave me. I suppose that’s what growing up is, getting acquainted with your fleeting feelings, especially the painful ones. People can’t stay, I wish I knew why, but they can’t. Perhaps it’s the only way we can truly learn to be dependent solely on God. One day I will ask Him. I said I wouldn’t do this again, but I can’t hide and pretend I didn’t trip again. This time was different though, it was only bitter because it was actually sweet. Having him leave hurt because he was good to me. For now the towel will linger on the rod. I like knowing he was here.

Just Keep Coming Back

What is it with the human condition to keep reverting? The battle is endless. The soul wants to be disturbed. Why is pain so comforting? Emptiness? Instant gratification? The constant attachment to Christ is the only answer. If I even consider separating myself from the root for even a second I revert back. Even with all of the desires of my heart granted, it isn’t enough to sustain me. He is the only one that is enough. His name is Enough. Is it hard to keep coming back time after time with the same mistake? Yes. But the grace of even being able to come back is something that should not be taken for granted. I will continue to return. With shame, with guilt, with my burdens. Because there is no life aside from Him. There is no joy, no peace, no love. And life without any of those things, is not a life worth living. Whether it be just me and Him forever, it is still the only thing that matters. 

God, forgive me for taking a step out of  your presence. Forgive me for sacrificing my anointing to try to fill anything with my own doing. For trying to ease any pain with my own knowledge. For choosing the quick fix rather than your patient work within me. Help me stay in place, in the rest, in the trust that You are working. Help me not forget who You are and all that comes with you. 

In Jesus name.

Amen. 

All Things New

It hurts because it’s death. It’s lonely because we all die alone. It’s dark because it’s the crossing over. There is no life without death. To say I have died for myself and now I live for Christ, takes more than giving up a few bad habits. It takes more than just putting aside the lies and world identity. It takes death. Pure unadulterated death. This is something I always took so lightly, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Phillipians 1:21). This doesn't mean to simply accept Christ as a role model, as an inspiration, but to fully accept Christ means to accept death. His death and resurrection, in order for me to have my death and resurrection. Without death there is no resurrection. I am going through death. It’s been a slow death but sometimes it has to be slow because it takes acceptance of the things dying. It takes mourning the loss. It takes feeling every rotten and impure thing to leave who you are in order for you to become who you were meant to be. A new creation in Christ. How disillusioned of me to overlook death in my choice. To believe that by stepping into “All things new” it would be easier overnight. But the good work is real, y’all. The good work is deeper than what we can see. The good work is actual work. All things new is the surrendering to this process. All things new is only the threshold, only the beginning of death. This enlightenment has shone light to this pain. I constantly ask the Lord, is this what you want for me? This pain? This isolation? And the answer is yes, for a season we need these things to die to the parts of us that are attached to anything other than Him. How can He be front and center if we still cling on to our ways? To other loves? To other paths? To our own plans? To die is to gain. To die is to restart. The ultimate death in Christ in order to step into the ultimate life in Christ. I have been wondering when the light starts to come in and flood over my life, but I haven’t yet fully died. She lingered, she fought to stay. But this isn’t her life anymore. So here’s the good news, death has been revealed, meaning life is right around the corner. Cling to Him until it is finished. Allow Him to invade every part of your life, die to everything else. Embrace the pain and the darkness because what is coming will be so much greater than all of the pain of death. Surrender. Wait. Let His death wash over you, die to everything and everyone to be born again for Him. To be with Him forever and ever.

For Them

It’s undeniable that this journey of my life has taught me a lot so far. It’s undeniable that I have made my mistakes, but also learned from them and grown from them. What am I even searching for? What do I want to do? Why do I chase this career? Does it even matter at all? What is the purpose of knowing so much, learning so much? What’s any of this about? Can I even handle owning my own firm? I need this though, for whatever reason. This empire building, this generational break. I deserve this. My mother deserves this. My grandma deserves this more than anyone. For the miles that she walked with her two young daughters, for the shacks that she raised them in. I do it for her. For all of that to be worthwhile. I do it for my mother, and all the gritty jobs she had to face for me. For picking herself up even after my father left, for her not even batting an eye or considering giving up on me. I do it for them. They deserve the success, and my story is their story. I am their making, I am a collection of their lives.

beneath that tree

I feel excited about my future. There’s a lot of work that needs to be put into the life that I want but I know that me and Jesus together can make anything happen. I don’t know exactly what this life looks like but I know that little me is going to be so proud. It’s taken me so long to get to a place of peace. Even a few months ago, there was no peace. It was all torment. I am more alone now than ever, but at least I am not allowing myself to get hurt. I have built a home, I take care of myself, I have comfort, I have rest. These things should not be dismissed. I’ve worked hard to get here and I’m proud of myself. We’re leveling up, because there’s still so much more to live for. There’s still so many versions of myself that I haven’t met yet. I have still yet to sit and soak up Jesus. But when I close my eyes we are still there beneath that tree. I know he wants to speak but I have not yet learned how to listen to him. But I know he has never left me.

Intimacy

I woke up today in the early morning, dead quiet, pitch black and it all seemed too familiar. Too comfortable for me. The loneliness, the desert, I know I am in it because God put me in it. Only God takes us to the desert. To get closer to us, to whisper, to teach. I am just afraid to listen, to get too close. Intimacy scares me, but it is what I desire the most. Relationships scare me but it is what I dream of the most. To know someone closely and still love them, to love them even more when they’re not perfect, and their hair is a little greasy and their dark circles are a little darker because they’ve been working so much. To love someone because they work hard, and are passionate, and listen to the same song a million times. Oh to be loved. Better yet, to be able to love. I remember being a little girl shopping with my mom, and seeing flowers and telling her “my husband is going to bring me flowers every day just because.” And for some reason that keeps coming back into my mind, and it makes me want to cry. I was so innocent, I was so hopeful for love. I don’t want to let her down. I want her to have the life she’s always dreamt of. 

Anyway, back to the desert. I need to lean in. I need to stop making myself so busy.

Check In

February 4, 2021 

2:02 am 

What’s limiting me? What has me set up to fail? 

Being born fatherless to a single mother. 

Moving around consistently to the point where the only consistent thing in my life was the inconsistency. 

Having my identity and opinions stifled amongst my family’s strong personalities. 

Insecurity for being fatherless. 

Seeing broken relationships, and abusive relationships as a child. 

Running away. 

Changing schools every year. 

Moving countries. 

Seeing my mom work three jobs. Not seeing my mom at all. 

Never having my own personal space. Always sharing a room. 

Not having a voice growing up. 

Physical insecurities. Low self esteem. 

Feeling abandoned and rejected. 

Which lead me to seek out relationships at 11 years old to finally feel loved. 

Seeking out validation through school performance. 

Education fueled me. Because if I became smart and learned everything that I could then I was worth something. 

First broken relationship. 

Second. 

Third. 

And now a broken engagement. 

I gave myself to abusers. I gave everything I was to morph into what they wanted me to be until I was suffocated and numb. Then I’d wake up from the daze and run as far away from the relationship as possible. 

Running away is comfortable. 

Lying is comfortable. 

Leading people on and playing games is comfortable. 

Having a secret life is comfortable. 

Being the other woman is comfortable. 

Keeping them on a string is comfortable. 

Isolation is comfortable. 

Especially now that I have my own space. I never leave it. 

It’s comfortable. 

I am comfortable. 

I grew up with no knowledge of diet and exercise. 

Diet meant that I was too fat so I needed to starve myself and not eat so much. 

Exercise meant pain and I didn’t have to put myself through any of that. 

Comfort was a band-aid. 

It’s not until I started getting asked what was wrong. 

Then I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know. Because I was so in denial. I was so fake I was such a good performer. 

Make them laugh and then go lay in numbness alone. 

Overcompensate in giving. 

The only time I ever felt alive was when I was learning. It fueled me because it made me feel small. Like I didn’t know anything and I needed more and more and more. 

Until the pandemic hit. And my grandma had a heart attack. And it was my thesis semester. 

And this huge unavoidable mirror was put up to my face. 

And when I looked into her eyes I didn’t recognize her. 

And everything I’ve been avoiding my whole life came up again. 

You’re a liar. And a cheat. And inconsistent. 

You aren’t enough because they never stay. 

He didn’t stay. He ran away as far as he could get. And he’s still running. 

And you still want him. You like to feel rejected. 

It’s comfortable. 

You like to feel like you’re not enough. You like the feeling of being hungry. 

It’s comfortable. 

It’s all you know. 

The emptiness in your heart and the emptiness in your stomach is all the same to you. 

As long as you feel empty. Then you’re comfortable. 

Stay there. Stay hungry. Stay isolated. 

The demons you already know are better than the ones you don’t. 

But knowledge is leading me somewhere. It’s been calling me since I acknowledged the emptiness. 

Since I called it bipolar. When it wasn’t. 

With every book I get closer. I find a piece of me and I get stronger. 

I stand my ground and no one is going to take me away anymore. 

No relationship is going to corner me into thinking that I deserve just the bare minimum and that if I want to keep a man I have to put up with everything else that comes with the bare minimum. 

But I don’t. 

And I won’t. 

I’m at war. And shallow cannot come near me. 

This shallow version of myself is going to die. Because I’m going to war with myself. 

School was the only thing that was mine. 

I gave it everything. I didn’t care. 

I took on being alone and broke because the knowledge just felt so good. 

Broke. Still broke. Until I discovered broke is a mentality. 

Knowledge was only mine. No one could tamper with it. 

I wanted increase and I still do. 

That’s what’s been leading me here. 

My mind. The liar. But my fuel. 

Alone Together

Thom Andersen states in Los Angeles Plays Itself, “Movies have a few advantages over us: they can fly through the air, we must travel by land. They exist in space, we live in dying time.” Films are romanticized because of the different perspectives that it gives the viewer. However, reality demands that we see the world from street level, and Southern California demands that to be from the confined insides of our vehicles. The automobile is an enabler. It is a dream chaser. A symbol of freedom and adventure. It allows us to feed our busy dreams. Reyner Banham states in his writing of Autopia, driving on the freeways “become[s] a special way of being alive” and brings on a “heightened state of awareness that some locals find mystical.” Many times said by those seeking a new beginning  “I packed all that I could fit in my car and came out here to start again.” It is a symbol of new chapters. There’s no sensation that approximates that of driving away and seeing your small town in the rearview. Or of that of being on the highway blasting your favorite music after a long day of work. A place for contemplation, and reevaluating past conversations. Sitting in traffic alone yet together. 

The perfect example of this is artist Mindy Alper. Acute anxiety, mental disorder and devastating depression has led her to be committed to mental institutions and undergo electroshock therapy several times which caused her to spend a 10 year period without the ability to speak. Her hyper self awareness is what influences her work that expresses her emotional state with powerful psychological precision. Alper discusses how life can be seen differently through life’s traffic jams. Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405. Traffic is her remedy. It is the time she feels the least lonely, yet she is completely alone. Sitting in traffic on an LA freeway, to most Angelenos, is maddening. To Alper, it is bliss. A time and place for her to slow down, to recap her emotions and thoughts, a place for inspiration. Perhaps we took the jams for granted. Perhaps it was the only time any of us ever slowed down throughout our days to not perform and just to be. Perhaps it was 37,935 hours to stop and look around for once. Perhaps the extraneous circumstances of COVID-19 is just another metaphoric traffic jam.

In The Politico, the rules we’ve lived by won’t all apply, Astra Taylor writes: “All along, evictions were avoidable; the homeless could’ve been housed and sheltered in government buildings; water and electricity didn’t need to be turned off for people behind on their bills; paid sick leave could‘ve been a right for all workers; paying your mortgage late didn’t need to lead to foreclosure; and debtors could’ve been granted relief… It’s clear that in a crisis, the rules don’t apply—which makes you wonder why they are rules in the first place. This is an unprecedented opportunity to not just hit the pause button and temporarily ease the pain, but to permanently change the rules so that untold millions of people aren’t so vulnerable to begin with.” This is the picture of capitalist America. Where does community happen? Where do our narratives merge? Seems as though the savior came disguised as a beast. The silver lining of a pandemic is that we have ripped off our societal masks, we are forced to be empathetic, to think worst case scenarios not just for ourselves, but to look beyond into our communities and how they will be affected. What seemed to be alienated communities, COVID-19 shows that community happens in the middle of the storm. Where people have time and space to build relationships, time and space to look beyond our own navels. Space to revive the narrative of being human. Lower class meets upper class, young meets old, art meets sport, individuals meet community, and this time, quarantine is our host.  It seems as though we are able to locate our humanity in the times of most need. As Dallas Willard once wrote, “Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all.”

Whether humanity is like this because it is still in development or because our natural condition has been overlooked. Whether the cause is greed or neglect. The fact remains that it has a barrier. Unseen, yet felt. We have nothing that makes us seem human except our proud high postures. Against the bright lights, silhouettes fighting to be seen. Buried in the brokenness of isolation. Buried in the memory of what used to be. Like newborn sinners, we fight for new lives, for better lives. Condemned by what it was, yet we fight for what it can be. We seek the chase. A second chance. The empty cities that we believe will give us what we want. Though the question of the matter is: are we chasing the right things? 

Socrates once wrote, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” While we sit like a child on time out, the universe has been replenishing itself without our footprints. The running around town slowly fades each day that passes, and now the only running around is from room to room in our homes. It is hard to imagine us going back to what used to be, but then again, the human heart is a creature of habit. For a quarter of a century, this is the first encounter of a new model of society. The pastimes have changed from accumulating void goods, to filling our time with that which fulfills our minds, bodies and spirits. Should this not be the model from which we thrive upon? We have been given a chance to refocus our endeavors and our emotional investments. A chance to reverse the barrenness of our busy lives to that of a rich and mindful one. As Brene Brown once said, “'Crazy-busy' is a great armor, it's a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we're feeling and what we really need can't catch up with us.”

What has really changed for us during this self isolation? Aren’t we still producing the same as before? Still stuck behind the screens that dictate our lives? If anything, the only change has been our setting. We have been limited to certain walls. It is not isolation that is affecting anyone, it is the fact that we are being forced to face ourselves without any distractions. Henri Nouwen once said, “In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered." 

Perhaps we are all Theodore Twombly from Spike Jonez’s film Her. Set in a futuristic Los Angeles, Jonez tells the story of a man that resembles more a machine and an operating system that seems more human than him. It is a story of how the machine rescues him from his solitude, lifting him up from his loneliness and back into life. Like Theodore, we have become a society that is more fond of retreating from people and jumping into a machine world. In “Her,” Jonez isn’t asking whether machines think, but whether human beings can still feel. Jonez portrays the story in the smoggy Los Angeles we all know and love, though without the presence of vehicles. He displays Theodore in a world of constant crowds of the streets, the trains, the offices...though the isolation is evident with everyone with their ear pods in and speaking down to their navels. Isolation is his default state. It is a world where people are more plugged into their machines than to people in their lives. 

In 2013, Jonez made this prophetic narrative that seems to be fitting more into our realities today. Even more so during these times. Among the negative there is still good, finding our humanity is the greatest gift COVID-19 is giving to us. Our relationships are being held by the powers of technologies, though even that has shifted from the superficial polished posts to a more openly raw connection. Sherry Turkle professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT wrote in the Politico, “This is a different life on the screen from disappearing into a video game or polishing one’s avatar. This is breaking open a medium with human generosity and empathy. This is looking within and asking: “What can I authentically offer? I have a life, a history. What do people need?” If, moving forward, we apply our most human instincts to our devices, that will have been a powerful COVID-19 legacy. Not only alone together, but together alone.”

Bibliography

Andersen, Thom, and Encke M. King. Los Angeles Plays Itself. , 2014.

Banham, Reyner. Los Angeles. The Architecture of Four Ecologies. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2001 (1971).

Brown Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Avery, an Imprint of Penguin Random House, 2015.

Jonez, Spike. Her. 2013.

Nouwen, Henri J. M. Making All Things New: an Invitation to the Spiritual Life. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.

Stiefel, Frank. Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405. 2016. 

Tannen, D. (2020, March 19). Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here's How. Retrieved April 4, 2020, from https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/19/coronavirus-effect-economy-life-society-analysis-covid-135579

Willard, Dallas. The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesuss Essential Teachings on Discipleship. HarperOne, an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014

Here We Go Again

I am back to where I always start: deception, heartache, loneliness, abandonment, rejection, insecurity, and worst of all emptiness. They’re all old friends of mine. So much so I’ve learned to embrace them in the past, we lived well together for many years, but I’ve been so busy building and keeping occupied that they were dormant, and in all honesty I have missed them. Is that wrong to confess? “But Sharon, these things aren’t things to be missed.” Trust me, I know. But if we’re going to be honest, we have to be brutally honest. Here it is: I am comfortable with pain, I seek it out. I am familiar with emptiness and in the emptiness I at least feel deeply enough to know I am alive. It’s been worse before, because I used to willingly choose situations and people that were hurting me because if only for a brief moment, they were at least choosing me. Surely for the wrong reasons, lust, desire, possession...and that is what I have molded love to be. To be loved is to be desired. So promiscuity, provocation, lust, abuse...this was love to me. I was willing to live with this so long as someone stayed. Why couldn’t someone just stay? I have done it all to make someone stay. Overexerted myself and stretched my capacities to be the best, the smartest, the sweetest, the sexiest, the most understanding doormat that you can ever fathom. Good, sweet, quiet little Sharon. Who had to be obedient and useful, and try her hardest to be beautiful and put together. 

But we are here today to begin this journey of redefinement. It actually all started August 13, 2017 on my way back from a trip to Boston, where yet another man managed to reduce me into a speck the entire time I spent there. He wasn’t the first, and surely wasn’t the last because many were to follow after him. It wasn’t until my last day on my way to the airport that I realized I couldn’t live like this anymore so I wrote myself my vows. “I, Sharon, am embarking on a new mission of a remodeled state of mind and remodeled lifestyle. I will solely focus on my King Jesus, myself, and my family. I will invest my time with the people I love, doing things to benefit my mind, my body and spirit. I will invest my energy into my personal growth. And I will invest my money into new experiences. The Bible tells me that I have the capacity to change my mindset, that I am able to renew my thoughts therefore influencing my reactions and habits into better results. I will carefully choose the people I surround myself with, no longer giving pieces of myself to anyone just for the sake of it. I will take care of myself, I will travel, meet new people, I will become a successful architect, I will be a wife, a mother, a better sister, daughter, granddaughter, aunt and friend.” And just like that everything changed…

Yeah right! If only it were that easy. To become aware is only one quarter of the first step. That moment for me was the spark in the midst of my pain and depression and what people don’t really tell you about being depressed is that it takes a whole lot more work than just a spark to wake you up. To come out of that state requires you to wake up every single day, go out into the wilderness of your inner being and fight bears and lions, hunt and gather, rediscover fire to then even begin to try and start a flame and then you wake up the next day like you’re learning everything for the first time again. Over and over and over again. Every day it is back to the beginning. So where was God in all of this? He was at the bottom of the well with me. See, one thing I learned about God in this process is that He doesn’t whip us into shape with a snap of a finger, but He sits with us in our pain in order to comfort us, encourage us and speak life into us with a tender and loving kindness. He doesn’t want to see us in the depths, He never planned for us to go there. But we stray, the human condition without the Spirit is wired to try and find their own way. We seek out what we think are solutions to our problems and sometimes like in my case end up being in a vicious cycle of hurt because I kept going back to the very things that were causing the pain. He has the solutions, but rarely do we stop to listen. So, here I am again. The vows I set out for myself were mostly kept and fulfilled; I traveled, I began to take care of myself, I sought out therapy to deal with past wounds, I began to heal my relationships with my family, I began to be honest about the inner battles I had carried for so many years. I spent an entire year reading every personal growth book I could get my hands on. I began to be mindful of the people I let close to me. I completed my degree in architecture, started my career in a successful firm… but as I write this I see I neglected to vow to my main vice: romantic relationships. I tend to joke and say that men are my drug of choice, and again, to be brutally and shamelessly honest they are. I’ve always been the type to have rosters of men on standby, those that I could reach out to get the high of validation and comfort, the high of being desired. But like every drug out there, this high is temporary and it makes me the monster to use people like this. It is inevitable though that pain causes pain, I was hurt so I would hurt, as Meggie Royer once wrote: “I know better than anyone that I’m more accustomed to holding a knife than holding someone’s hand.” Having your guard up so high comes with the price of being on high alert at all times, it’s being quick and cunning to plot for what you think is your safety. So you end up doing things like cutting someone out of your life before they get the chance to cut you out of yours. This is just one example of the many things that I did thinking I was protecting myself. I find myself here again, after another heartbreak. Reliving that which I am accustomed to, but I know one thing with all of the certainty that I can muster up: I do not want to be here ever again. So we begin again, we seek healing for the hundredth time, but this time we will seek it solely in Christ. And yes, I’ve said this in the past before, but I was quick to take matters into my own hands because it was the easiest thing to do. However, we are taking the harder path this time, we’re digging deeper until we find the root of this cycle and tear it into shreds.

With that all being prefaced, here we are. I am back to the beginning.

3:23 am

I feel so sick to my stomach 

Sick of being surrounded but alone 

Sick of smiling when I want to be crying 

I’m shaking trying to suppress 

My body aches of the dis-ease of my soul 

I can never shut it off 

Over and over and over it comes back 

This weight of everything I am and everything I’m not 

Just handle it 

Be patient 

We need you to understand 

I’m dramatic 

Neurotic 

Selfish 

The self proclaimed victim 

But no sees that I’m dying inside 

This weight crushes every inch of my being 

I pray to God above to carry it with me 

I fear He doesn’t hear me 

What if it’s all to break me down to build me up 

He lets them do what they want because I’m not supposed to be this way anyway 

But I can’t do it anymore 

I am their burden 

Their cried out neurotic burden 

I am sick to my stomach to think they only come to leave 

I would rather be my own burden 

Sit in silence in my numbness

Do not awake me 

Do not ignite me 

Leave me be to spare us all

Life After Death

I’ve decided to stop killing myself. Overloading myself with the pressures of accomplishing everything at once, rather than enjoying each part as it comes. I’ve decided to stop giving myself away to him, him, and him. I am my own. Mine before anyone’s. I have the power to decide when and how I bring upon myself the ardent passion of living, of blossoming joy, and of calming peace. I do that. No one else. And don’t ask me why it’s been so long to understand. I just had it all wrong. As a girl I thought living was reaching, accomplishing, and endlessly pleasing anyone but myself. Today I know that reaching and accomplishing is the aftermath of hard work, creative passion, and consistency. I know that pleasing people will come if I learn to please myself. You see, life can only begin when you stop killing yourself.