I woke up this morning wanting to die.
I was having the most beautiful dream. About all the people who I've ever known and loved. Especially the ones who I've hurt along the way: so many relationships that were broken because of me. Because of this mind that God let me have. But in this dream, everything was okay. The people I'd hurt, were telling me that they loved me. That it didn't matter anymore. We were all going to be together forever. And I thought that was what was going to happen. And then I woke up and until the alarm went off from its final round of snoozing I was just laying in bed... wanting to die. Wanting to be there, where there is no hurt. No past to be reminded of. No brain that has turned against me.
Instead I got up, and shaved and showered, and went into the office. There was a three hour training session done over Zoom this afternoon, about disclosure as peer support specialists. It was a continuation from the day before yesterday, and I gained a lot from it. But one of the exercises today triggered me. Triggered me hard. Reminded me that for all of my attempts to have some measure of happiness in this life, I might forever come up short. It will always be someone else who has the things that matter most.
I never wanted much. Just a little family. That's all. But would someone want to be associated with one with such a mind? That mind destroyed a chance for family. Hurt people I cared for and still do care for. Poisoned me from having another shot, when it had been so close. How close? I was going to buy the ring the next day.
I'm tired of hurting others, and I'm tired of being hurt all of the time. I want it to stop.
I'm tired of doubting God, more often than I really care to admit.
A few weeks ago something happened and, I told my friends that it was definitely a God thing. My car had a breakdown coming off the loop onto Pleasantburg Drive in Greenville. But the car had enough to coast into a friend's driveway. They drove me to work while my car was being worked on, and in the end it was fixed. It's the car I've had since 2007, the one that drove my dog Tammy and I across the country and back. I want to believe it will make it to 300,000 miles. Maybe it can now. But how the car had just enough to make it into their driveway, and how it resolved in the end... yeah, that was "a God thing" I told people.
I can see God in the small things. Is it wrong to hope that He will be good in bringing some big things along the way, too?
Am I going to die alone? If I am, what difference does it make if I die tonight and get it over with?
Why am I writing this?
I asked a friend today, since it seems a lot of others are doing it, what can I do for Lent this year. I don't really have any luxuries to give up for this period leading up to Easter. She suggested maybe write something every day. A gratitude journal, she said. Something along that line of thought.
It reminded me of one time, some years back, when I gave up blogging for Lent. It was hard, but I did it.
It would be too easy to do that again. My blogging has become pretty lax. I want it to make it at least until its twentieth anniversary in 2004. But there are times when it seems I'm just ready to give it up entirely. But I don't really want to do that either.
So the idea hit, that maybe for Lent, I could write a blog post a day, every day, until Easter.
Just writing something. Anything. Whether it's stream of consciousness or a book review or whatever. Just WRITING, whatever comes to me. I can do that. And maybe it will help me along with some other things that have grown stale in my life. I've lost something as a writer, I blame the meds more than anything. Maybe writing despite them will help me find it again.
Maybe it can help me draw closer to God again. I used to write about God... more than anything. I used to write about Him in college, for our newspaper. I've written essays about Him for newspapers. Maybe writing again here will let me find my way back to Him like that. If so, this will have been an exercise well worth undertaking.
So that's what this post is. The first of Lent, 2022.
I'll do my best to resist the doubts. I have to resist. There are forty-some posts left to write and I've got to get to it...
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