Days

The sun is just up. The sun is just now rising. The ability music has to convey the exact cravings of my heart is astounding, and will always be astounding and mysterious. In my life, at least, the life of someone who probably has too many feelings hahaha, there is this tension between my loneliness and my knowing that I don’t need you. At once, I often feel lonely and driven to succeed without you. I don’t need you; I really don’t, but it often makes me sad and even angry that she isn’t here. When the night is over it is gone, and the sun is out and rising and is both hopeful and dangerous. It starts out and the realization I have what I was like last night hurts my heart but more than that it inspires me to do something greater (without you). I know that all that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved; but that certainly does not mean I need you—not that I don’t want you in my life, but that it is my fault when I get needy—I want you and love you, but in no capacity do I need you. The sun brings almost the anger, you know? The anger may be brief but it is no less real. Why would I even think I need you? That is the feeling. It is like, You can be over there and let’s never speak and it will all be okay, Okay? And you move from an uninformed anger almost to an anger that is knowledgeable. I am understanding now, in the later part of the morning, what I was so angry about, and it angers me less against you and more against myself—for the knowledge lurks in my head by so rarely yields itself in my life—no, actually, not that, it yields itself, much more in the last five months, but it pains me that the fruitfulness of what I know doesn’t yield itself all of the time, you know? I understand that I need to not focus on you, really, or at least not focus on you at first. You know, that whole priorities thing. I need to get them straight. The anger, though, is terribly fruitful, because it shows me that I don’t need you, and that is such a powerful realization, because last night I was my old self, and I don’t hate my old self but I realize he’s non-existent now. But now—without you!—I’m moving faster, and I know what I’m after. The anger gives way to hope with a chip on its shoulder, hahaha I like that.

 

But then—

 

there’s this drop-off. And you know the anger was real, and even important, and even vital, but now you have to surrender. So there’s this moment of surrender. And it really can be a moment, and is a moment often. It’s almost noon. And the stillness of the day is creeping into my marrow. It produces not nostalgia but peace, because it’s not if I believe in love but if love believes in me. In my head, when I pray, when I really pray in deep and hurting earnest, I often imagine myself in rags at the bottom of a pearly-white staircase, my King sitting atop it in a golden and dazzling chair, and I am crying, weeping, tears streaming down my strained, red face, and I throw my arms out because there is nothing I can do by myself without His love, and I say to Him, “I am sorry; I have forgotten my First Love—Lord, will you yet have me?” and He sprints down the stairs, off His throne, leaving majesty in His shadow, and embraces me, even in my rags. And this is what the moment of surrender entails—love has left His glory and is among us. He sweat and thirsted and hungered for us, for me and for you. And just after this moment of surrender comes a soft revelation, a revelation that I can’t make it on my own, a revelation that I need Love. It’s not that I need you, because I don’t—at all—need you, but I need Him so desperately that it’s absurd. Sometimes you can’t make it on your own. A house doesn’t make a home—please don’t leave me here alone. And last night I thought I was all alone, empty and abandoned and left to die with no-one even to say, I am here; but that is not the case and never will be the case, because He has not left us alone, but will be with us always, even to the end of the age. I will fight for my life. It is mine. My paper heart isn’t paper anymore.

 

I fight and fight and fight and then it the light comes brighter than the sun, and it is early afternoon now; the nostalgic morning is over and the brightness of the day is fully upon me, and suddenly I see—I am her. Everything around her is a silver pool light; people who surround her feel the benefit of it—she holds you captivated in her palm. This is who I want to be. This is what I want to be. This is, perhaps, the greatest happiness—the realization that the person who you wanted to be is the person you are. I’m not empty—how dare you say that. Don’t you ever say that. I hate, despise, absolutely abhor sermons that are in the second person (you! you! you!) and label you incompetent. Imago Dei. We are intrinsically good. Do they not see that? Before we were sinful, we were good, and that remains in such majesty. I’m at this happy crossroads, and I just linger for a moment—I’ve been hangin around this town on the corner. It took me a very long time to realize that He loves when we are able to revel in peace and joy and contentment in His love, and that’s what I’m doing. Suddenly I see, and then I linger in the carpe diem. It’s like stretching time, meditation is, you know? When you meditate on one feeling or fact or phenomenon you are warping time. And that’s what hangin around does for me. But you spun me around and you loved me instead—after I revel in it, I realize that after all this, after last night and that terrible dip into my past self—I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright baby I’m alright—not because of me, but because of Love, and what He has done for me. Though the deadly torrents of loneliness occasionally ensnare my soul and emotions, I’m all right.

 

On it’s way down, the sun loses its bright light and descends into more of a glow, and though last night it briefly, so briefly, wrung my neck, I know that this night it will be different, because He has loved me and put me at a place for a reason that taught me something I needed to hear, or rather it re-taught me something that I intentionally turned my hear from. Instead of fear, this late afternoon brings reflection, reflection on what I have learned in so short a time, or what He has taught me in so short a time. We were perfect. And then we sinned and were torn apart from Him. One of the million lies she said is all of the things you love are dead, but I see what she thinks of love and it leaves me laughing—we will come around. I don’t need you; I’ve never needed you—when you’re gone we will come around.

 

And at last the sun is sunken. It gives way to darkness. It gives way to solace. The anger is gone, the happiness dissipated, the revelation ingrained, and I realize that this is my life, it isn’t much but at least it’s mine. With this night comes complete composure, a containment of my collected satellites.

 

With everything, I can only walk on. If every step I take is forward, then I become a continual source of renewal and life, an existence opposite of last night. I will walk on.