Bag Lady

 All rights reserved by Flickr user grumpy.dang

I woke up today with some serious bags under my eyes. As with many conditions I've experienced as of late, this is totally new. I never experience heartburn or indigestion until a year ago, and I guess I can add bags under my eyes to the list.

Life has been a bit wacky lately, and aside from the proverbial "this too shall pass" or "what can I learn from this," I have not much to add. To tell you the truth, I've been avoiding it--the big elephant in the room...ok, elephantS in several roomS. Regardless, I've dug my head firmly in the sand, because it's just too scary to deal with.

A girlfriend likened anxiety like ours to a little girl, alternating between pacing back and forth on the same well-worn path in her bedroom and sitting on the floor, ringing her hands and biting her lip. It's as if I've got a broken leg. I haven't been able to run freely or even walk without pain, and it bothers me every second of every day. But the fear of a surgery to set my leg back straight again is just too painful in my mind. I don't want to go through it, even though I solidly know that it will get better. It seems so ridiculous to be trading a freeing sense of health for a dull, albeit quiet, pain.

I told a girlfriend yesterday that I just felt like I was "done." I'm such a selfish, ungrateful, brat for ignoring the truly atrocious sufferings people in this world endure, but I just thought, "Really? Really? I'm done. It's too hard." Things have been rough the past few weeks, and I feel super schizophrenic. My head and my heart aren't only on separate pages, they're in entirely different libraries. I'm thankful that God is with me, that he's sharpening my character, that he hasn't left me, but I'm also so so mad at him for cutting me open, making me feel this pain.

I'm beginning to think that loneliness is like an addiction that we can never be truly free of. Every so often, we remember. Something or someone reminds us of what that deep, dark, drowning, sinking feeling of loneliness is like, and we're there. Like a person who escapes a life of poverty and grows obese out of a determination never to feel pangs of hunger again, I'm searching for that thing to fill me, make the black hole disappear.

On some days, this is when I find God waiting for me, whispering my name, wrapping me in his arms and shielding me from the hell of this world. On other days, I hide under my blanket, calling out, wondering where he is, why he's hiding from me.

It's still undecided what kind of day today will be.