Thursday, October 23, 2008

Dear Daddy...

Dear Daddy,

I can’t do this. I just can’t do this anymore. It’s getting too hard, too complicated. I just want to quit. I know, I know. I’m supposed to do hard things. Builds character, perseverance, dependence...on you. I know, you never said life was going to be easy. I know, in fact, that you promised quite the opposite with the sure fire promises “I’ll be with you always...” and “Take heart, I’ve overcome the world!” Yup, I know that. I know a lot of things. Wanna help me figure out why all that knowing doesn’t seem to be making any difference? I can’t handle it all any more. It’s too much. It’s just too much.

Dad, I’m so stressed out. I don’t even know where to begin. I have homework and papers and quizzes and projects up to my ear lobes and I want nothing more than to curl up in your lap and fall asleep. I just want to sleep. Dad, I’m so tired! Where has my day gone? How is it that I’ve been awake for hours and have nothing done; nothing to show for it? What is my life except for a mere attempt to look like I’m alive, like I’m trying? Dad, wake me up or just let me sleep! I can’t handle the middle ground.

Dad, I’m sick. I’m sick of putting on a good face. And my good face no longer hides turmoil as much as it does the emptiness – the lack of anything else. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Nothing new. Good. God’s got it. One day at a time. We’ll get through.” All phrases. All excuses for an answer which screams “I don’t know. I don’t what what’s going on. I don’t know how I’m doing. I am numb, I don’t feel anything!” And just when the numbness starts to go away, there is radiating pain. An achy-ness like I can’t describe. It hurts so much to feel.

But I don’t even know what I’m feeling. Dad, I don’t even know what I’m angry at! I don’t even know if I can articulate why life just hurts so badly! One disappointment, followed by another. But it’s just disappointment. It’s just life! Make me get over it. There’s nothing there. My life is no worse off than anybody else’s and most days are really quite survivable in the scheme of things. In the long run, they really aren’t so bad. Why can’t I see that? Why am I wearing a mask that says I’m okay – when I’m not really okay – all while I have NO reason to NOT be okay?

Daddy, I am so lost and so confused. And I am so frustrated with you! I can’t make sense of where I’ve been – let alone make out a shadow of where I’m going. And, quite frankly, I feel totally in the dark about wherever it is you have me now. Can’t I have a hint, just a hint, about where any of this makes sense? I just want a window – even if it’s a dirty window, broken and boarded up. A window. I’m sick of this brick wall. This brick wall which confines me and traps – allows in no light and makes me feel as if there is no way out at all...

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

When I Cared Enough to Feel...

I was twelve. Working on being thirteen.
When my hamster died.
I had him for a whole summer.
“Houdini” was my first real pet. He escaped three times before actually securing a home next to the fish tank. Hence his namesake. He was kind of a boring pet. There’s only so much fun you can have with a hamster. Only so much fun a hamster will have with you. He did not appreciate my Lego mazes, cared little for me initiating walks in his hamster ball and after living wild for nearly a solid month when everything was said and done...he wasn’t much of a cuddler either. Sometime in the fall the stupid hamster got sick. Pneumonia is near as we could tell. I did my best to nurse that stupid little hamster back to health but when mom came to pick me up from school one day, she came with the news – Houdini didn’t make it.
I bawled.
I sobbed.
I made a scene.
Over a dead hamster.
I wrote the most ridiculous note you’ve ever read about how I loved the hamster. How he was my friend. How he died too soon. And I was completely serious. My sincerity was evident by the tears again streaming down my face. I put that stupid, dead hamster into a box with my letter and buried him under the bush in the flower bed. It was the saddest day of my entire fall semester of my seventh grade year.

I’m twenty now. Working on being twenty-one. It’s been nearly 8 years since Houdini went to be on that giant hamster wheel in the sky. And I laugh. I laugh because I cried bitter tears over a hamster that hated my guts. Not only that, I cried hard! I laugh because I wrote a letter to anyone who might happen upon my shoebox grave to let them know that the little rodent corpse they saw meant something to me.

I’m twenty now. Working on being twenty-one. And I think about the years that have passed me by. Years since I cared enough to feel. My seventh grade year was filled with plenty of tears...long after the great hamster tragedy. My eighth grade year was far from a picnic. I cried often, probably daily. I felt everything. Everything hurt. Evident by the bitter tears streaming down my face. And sometime come my high school years, I quit. I couldn’t handle it anymore. It was too hard to feel. And quite frankly, I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care enough to put the feeling in.

I’m twenty now. Working on being twenty-one. And I wonder what it would be like to again be able to cry over the simple things. Heck, I wonder what it would be like to cry over the hard things. So often I will tears to come. “God, I’m breaking inside! Let me cry! Let me somehow release everything built up inside of me!” And sometimes, if I’m lucky, a single dry sob will come from my throat. I want it to be okay to cry. I want to feel. I want to care. What happened to the girl who sobbed when her hamster died? Does this have more to do with life than merely “growing up”?

I’m twenty now. Working on being twenty-one. I cried the other day and wish I could do it again. I wish I could find my way back to being twelve...when I cared enough to feel...

Friday, October 3, 2008

Irony?

As I sit at my computer screen, with plenty better to fill the void of time I’ve simply decided I wish to kill, I can’t get over it. The juxtaposition that is. The dichotomy. The irony. On my computer, more specifically on facebook...hoping for a message, a wall post, a poke. Anything. Something. Someone. Someone to remind me that I still exist. Like an artificial high – I live in these current moments for connection to the world. Any part of it. So excited I was to open my inbox to three notes on my wall. Only to crash and burn when I realized my replied wall post was not going to replace an actual conversation.

When was the last time I had a real conversation? Not an exchange of “how are yous” in the hallway. Not me telling you when my next doctor’s appointment it is. But a real conversation – talking about things that actually mean something...a chance for me to spill my heart about things that matter and listen as you respond. About anything! I can think of very few of these conversations since school started...A handful tops in the six weeks I’ve been here...if you count the general discourse you would expect out of any moderate friendship (my roommate’s bothering me...calculus sucks...)

And furthermore, for as much as I would love to talk, I long to be touched. I crave touch. Isn’t that weird? Especially from me. Anybody who knows me AT ALL knows I spent almost 6 years of my life totally encased in a bubble. Hugs were a definite no-no. I didn’t like them. From anyone. I didn’t have friends and it transcended to even my family. Getting something as simple as a hug meant I’d have to reciprocate and I wasn’t willing to give emotion to anybody – because anybody who held my emotions could destroy them. If I rejected you first, you would never have the opportunity to reject me. And it worked. But I opened myself up for the kill... And in the process I found for as awful as it hurts – for certainly some of those I have allowed to hold me have also dropped me – I can’t ignore the feeling of being held. To know...if only for a second...that I mean something to someone. That another human being values me and is willing...if only for a second...to keep me safe. I’ve been hugged twice this week...I think. Well one was a loose side hug... And I’m sure there are some out there dying for a hug and a half a week. But how do you wean yourself off of people who care? How do you spend a year and half - almost two - basking in a life of community to be ripped out all too suddenly and placed into a familiar but foreign land?

I love that blogs are like over grown diaries – journals for the world to read. And yet, I post this completely convinced that no one actually reads my blog. I don’t normally. Anything I post is something I am completely “o.k.” with the world seeing. Am I “o.k.” with the world knowing these things? Things I don’t know if I’ve ever told people before – not my closest confidant – at least not in so many words? I don’t know. And for, perhaps the first time ever, I don’t care. I have no idea why I post this now. Perhaps because I can’t get over it. The juxtaposition that is. The dichotomy. The irony. Of knowing I’m posting something almost private for the world to read...all the while knowing no one will read it.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Christian Hologram

It looks almost real
It moves just so
It says the right things
So you’ll never know...

That it’s just a hologram.
A 3-D projection up on a wall.
A single hologram...
Looks so real,
But there’s no substance at all.

Just an image lacking all matter.
Just a picture without all the “stuff”.
Just an icon of all I’m after.
But just a hologram will never be enough

Any image without substance is a lie.
Any Christian without the heart, the core, is a fake.
In the name of keeping up appearances,
It doesn’t matter if they’re asleep
As long as the outside looks awake.

Sick of watching a bunch of Christian holograms.
3-D projections up on a wall.
Sick of living with a bunch of Christian holograms.
They look so real,
But there’s no substance at all.