I wrote this a little over a year ago. It was a portrait of how I felt at the time. It was very interesting to see how some things are different and how I have grown, but how I am still struggling to some degree with the same things a year later. Interesting... Let me know what you think.
I remember a girl with dreams. I remember she loved to lose herself in the unreal. I remember she could think up any story to tell anyone. I remember those visions that embraced her like déjà vu from a scene she’d already seen. I remember the photos that crystallized her remembrances of him. I remember the weight of the pen in her hand and the longing that she always carried in her eyes, as she drifted to that far off unreachable place. And that place, that place is now overgrown with weeds. The path is so faint from lack of use that the tread is barely visible. The way there is scarce and like seasons that change, the past always looks easier than it was. And now, as the sleepless nights invade again, I think of that girl once more, hoping that I can find the answers she once looked for and found in the song of her heart and the words on a page.
She left him because she had to. She left him, but her heart carried with her so many regrets and unfulfilled wishes. He had been her whole world. He had been the one who was supposed to care for her for forever. She had expected so much of him that he always felt like he was falling short. And when she realized her demands were such an affliction to him, it was already too late. He had isolated himself so far from her; she could not penetrate the fortress in which he had barricaded himself. She stood on the outside for so long, chipping away at the mortar, only to have him come back in the middle of the night and erect another layer of the wall. Day after day, she tried, until she was so exhausted and so broken from all the pieces of herself she had lost while trying to reach him, she bowed her head and left, knowing he would never change.
She was unwilling to watch her life pass her by, when she saw he had no intention of changing his ways. Does that make her selfish? She still asks herself that each day. Does that mean she truly did not love him? Or did she love them both enough to realize that they were not good for each other? She sees her emotional health now and realizes that she could never be in that place if she had stayed in her marriage. Some days she thinks she still loves him, in a little corner of her heart. It’s all she will give him. He was after all her husband. But then she thinks the only reason she thinks she feels this emotion is because a small part of her believes she deserves to be treated badly and only expects that from men in general. It is a bad habit she brought from her childhood into her adulthood.
She thinks of love- every day. She is restless- every day. She aches for the rest of her life- every day. Every day the drum of tomorrow beats in her heart, ferociously like a tribal member exiling a rebel. Every day she hears the callings of her future, beckoning her to come to them. But every day, she waits, for she does not know what her impending fate looks like.
A big part of her wants to be healthy, but just as big a part is scared to trust in a God who tells her it will only take time. Time means endless moments alone, with only her cats for company. And then, the drum begins to sound again… And for the first time in her life, she doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t know what the next step is. She doesn’t know how to move forward. She has reconstructed life completely- well not really her. She’s had a lot of help.
And now… as she stands in the wind, listening to the drum and watching the hands on the clock move slowly forward, she wonders. What does God have for her? She begs him once again to fill the void in her heart that threatens to overtake her daily. She pleads with him to forgive her unbelief, praying that God in his sovereignty will show her the path that is so hidden from her view. She knows he will always provide for her, because he is God and he has promised her that.
But she still is hobbled by fears and doubts. She still aches for a love. She still hates the fact that she has no mate. She is still overcome with loneliness every day. She is still threatened by the darkness that terrorizes her. Her doubts and fears will be her undoing. She is afraid of failing at life. She is terrified of being lost in the dark and never being seen for the beauty she longs to show. And when she sees no light in the darkness, the words stop flowing, the path seems all the more dangerous, and the pounding of the drum grows ever quieter.
And quietly, in the dark, a presence takes her hand and leads her forward, knowing that the drum will start to sound- not the beat of a restless soul, but the song He has written for her. The path is illuminated step by step, so that she walks by faith, her only assurance is the guide beside her, shining the light on the next stage of life, bit by bit. And in that light, that glows ever brightly on the places she most needs it, her confidence slowly returns, and the demons return to the dark. The peace saturates like the white glow all around her, permeating to her very core. She still feels the restlessness; she still feels the ache; the tears still loom on the horizon, but she is protected. The storm in her heart still rages on, but she knows, even if she can’t fully believe, that the master she has chosen will calm tempest that vies for her spirit. She has to believe in Him, for he is the only hope she has left.
-Written 21 March 2010
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