I can't believe it.

My first year of college is coming to a close.
I feel like I just got here, like I have a lot of time. But I quite clearly do not.
Sketchhh.

Pause.

I'm writing to you in the thick of my second all-nighter in three days.

I've had to have a marathon of heart to hearts with my best friends.

I had a visit from my mother, which was wonderful, but included a surprise group therapy session where all of my dirty laundry was aired out to my friend and her mom at the Green Gateau, and I received advice and pity from people I didn't want to share my problems with in the first place.

I have had several increasingly difficult conversations with the man I love since April 15th.

I've fallen asleep crying one day, and smiling the next.

I've been sick and healthy, lazy and productive, shallow and deep - depends on the hour.

I need a pause. Time to rest. Time to pray. Time to think.

But life is not kind enough to stop for a moment so that I can breathe.

Agape.

Agape means love. But it's more complicated and specific than that. Agape is the term for a perfect love, a forgiving love, the kind of love that God feels for His children. I am not referring to romantic love, so those of you who are tired of my posts about angst and love, this is not one of those posts. And I thank you all for your patience. I strive to be someone who is poised and balanced and wise. But on this blog, I have been far from that. I have been stormy, emotional, paradoxical, and, worst of all, flowery. These are trespasses which are inexcusable and out of line with my character and my mind. I have been . . . scattered lately.

Tonight I am here to discuss something that I have come close to abandoning. My faith. It really pains me to be typing this. I have found myself in a space in life where I leave no time, no thought for spirituality. I have closed my heart to the perfect love, the love of God, and I am numb. And I hate it.

Still Water.

Still Water runs deep?

Perhaps still water only hides a tumultuous feeling underneath

or perhaps still water does run deep, because the hurts have drilled so deeply, water is trying to fill the new space.

Tonight, I feel everything and nothing at once. Red hot anger and numbness. Hostility and compassion. I'm hurt, but I can't put my hurt into words.

Maybe I shouldn't have watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, I'm being so Capote. I feel like hiding out in a small, dark, overtly decorated apartment bedroom writing sensitive, deeply-felt prose with a typewriter, cold coffee, and a full ashtray . . . I don't even smoke. Ha.

Anyone who claims love is easy is full of shit. That's a fact.

. . . is anybody there? I feel like I'm talking into a void.

Lost.

I hate being forced into inaction.

I don't know what to do.

Please pray for me.

Fear

Is it normal to be afraid of yourself?

To fear one's own mind, and the problems it can create for you?

Last week during spring break, I faced a couple of my own dragons.

They are far from slain.

And I feel that they will always be a part of me, hiding in their caverns with the other beasts in the realm of my psyche, but I think I am at peace with that.

As long as those beasts exist, I will keep rising to try to defeat them. They will best me sometimes, they have before. Sometimes for hours, days, weeks, months, and even years. Like I said, they have before. But when they do, I always manage to get back up, not in a blazing glory like a phoenix, but quietly and gingerly like an injured warrior learning to fight again.

I'm not sure whether what I feel is fear, shame, or exhilaration at the presence of these monsters at the edge of the map, maybe a mixture of the three, but I know that I accept them and the battles with them are a very real part of me.

Hello Sun.

It's funny how even when you are presented with challenges and harsh truths and you see the grave you've dug for yourself right in front of you, you can look up at the sun and know that if nature can give itself a fresh start and melt the snow away, then so can you.


Thank God for these moments.