Trapped

Tonight, tonight I am feeling trapped.
Somehow smashed between the life I live, the life I hope for and the realization I have no idea what the latter consists of.
I wish. I wish I had a space to call my own. I wish every movement wasn't invading someone else's turf, every action wasn't stepping on someone else's toes, and ever word wasn't indirectly hurting someone's feelings.
I quit. I quit putting on mask with the good Christian answer. I can't wear it when everything within me cringes at God. Or at least others' sentiments in regards. With flowery language and the perfect answer, they quote to me what I should believe if I claim. And yet it all feels so fake. Maybe it wouldn't if I felt it, I believed it - but do they? Do they know what they're saying? Do they realize how worthless their words sound, how empty and pointless it all appears.
I'm done. I'm done trying. The trying gets me nowhere. I so accutely wish for the joy others find and I can't, I can't find it. I know in my head the right answers - I don't question who God is, the Saviour who died, His power to work in my life. Yet, I don't feel it in my heart. Or anywhere else for that matter. Head knowledge is all well and good until it demands back up and finds itself short.
I give up. I give up trying to figure out where this life leads and for what purpose. Whose purpose. Where am I going? And what am I doing? Why do I care? I am so lost. So terribly alone and terribly lost and feeling as if God has once again tossed me out into a dry and dreary land.
But perhaps I'm lost because I'm trapped. Because the only expanse I can see are the walls which cave in against me. The one's that leave me gasping for air and wondering if I'll make it out of this world alive...

Early Morning Panic

I woke up panicked. Remembering only bits and pieces of what I have been about, I could not recall who I was, where I was, what I was doing, who the people were sound asleep to the side of me, or why I was there. No, with sun beginning to illuminate the dusky hotel room, I was conscience only of a sneaking suspicion that whatever I was doing...I was running late. All with intense understanding that regardless of my location it was imperative I find a bathroom.

I found the bathroom and spent what seemed like several minutes trying to come up with a name – any name that sounded familiar. Something to assign to my roommates and specifically the one with whom I was sharing a bed. There was something oddly uncomfortable about returning to the safe haven of sleep under the covers along side someone I couldn’t remember. And I had to do it soon...after all, I was running late. As I stood staring with my head cocked at the two double beds, it dawned on me. Youth Ministry Convention...Nashville...hotel. Morning. Late? Not a chance. I could go back to sleep for another 45 minutes at least. Sleep!...Roommates? Michelle and Steph lay breathing softly in the bed to the end. And Kenzie, the girl whose name I’ve known for three years, was following a similar pattern in my own. And my, my name was Anika. There was no reason to panic, I would be just fine.


And yet the panic is all too familiar. How many times have I stopped in the last semester, let alone the last few weeks and went “Wait! Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? Why am I here? Who is in my bed?? (not literally of course...but with whom am I sharing my ‘intimate’ space?)” I’m conscience, really, of only two things: this underlying feeling that I am running out of time and the intense overwhelming desire for release. But unlike the dusty light beginning to peak into my hotel room, there is little illuminating my oppressive questions. I find few answers to the riddles of my sanity...and perhaps they only grant to bring more questions.

Who am I? What do I mean? What do I stand for, exist for, fight for, live for? What makes me tick, what makes me function, what makes me unique, what makes me special, what defines me? Who is Anika – who is she becoming?

Where am I? Why here? Where is life taking me? Heck, where have I been? How come I can no more pin point a spot on the map of my existence than I can give you the name of the town and status of my being? How come I feel so lost?

What am I doing? What should I be doing? How is it I am about so much...and so little? How is it I have no purpose for my doings and doings for my purposes? To what end does any of this matter? If ever I can articulate the things that I do...

Why am I here? Do I have a purpose at all? Am I here for the doings which I can’t understand? And where is here? What am I supposed to be about? What does my life mean? What does it mean for me and what does it mean for those around me? Why do I exist?

And how come I am so terrified of the people who seem to be sleeping in my bed? Or more like this morning, I can’t identify the person at all...which terrifies me the most. Why can’t I find the people with whom to share my intimate space? How is it I can so intensely desire someone to be there...close enough to touch because heaven knows I need it...and yet still keep them at arms length because I have no tolerance for abandonment – no ability to process the fear of sharing me with the unknown?


Mixed in between is the thought that perhaps it’s already too late to have my questions answered and yet they’re building up inside. Building up and spilling over and if I don’t release soon I’m going to explode. And I wonder if I woke up in this familiar panic so that I don’t. As near as I can tell, my early morning adventure occurred because I was still sound asleep when my body was screaming to pee...either I get up or wet the bed – something that would have affected my bed-buddy as well. I had to go to the bathroom, but it wasn’t time to be awake, it wasn’t time to understand. But it was that or explode. I’m not ready to be awake. I’m not ready to face the causes of my day the things I can’t understand...but it was either come to grips with reality or leak and gush out...something that will surely spread to anyone I can convince to come near. No wonder I’m so lost when it comes to the intimate areas of my life...

Oh God, help me with the things I don’t understand...

Anklets and Tan Lines

My anklet broke off today.
I’ve been wearing it since...well since at least the beginning of the summer, if not before. So a solid six months for sure.
And today, today is just sort of fell of.
Broke at the tiny little knot and fell. It’s been used and abused. Snagged and jarred. Pulled at and jostled. But it never budged. We made it through my week in the mountains of Montana, two weeks of camp, New Student Orientation week, and countless other tussling adventures.
Never did it show any sign of weakness.
But today it fell. There were no battle screams of glory. No pulling and ripping off. No scattered beads. No damaged strand.
Just removal. Off came my sock and with it, my anklet.
It left behind a crooked tan line and the odd empty feeling. The one that shows up whenever something goes missing.
When you stop wearing that ring.
When you forgot to put on your watch.
When you switch from glasses to contacts.
When the passions you sold your soul to, fall away.
When the friendship that was going to last forever, dies.
When the gentle whisper you’ve come to know as God’s seems silent.
All the things that become so staple to your life...leave a gap when they’re suddenly gone.
All the things that weathered so many storms...seem indestructible...seem to whither away, fall off without warning.
And it leaves an awkward mark – the proof that something was once there.
Like a crooked tan line and that odd empty feeling...

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...

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...

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.

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.