no rest for the weary

My predicament afforded no obvious escape. I felt that God dropped me into a labyrinth whose exits He had sealed.

 

 

I wanted to suppress it. I told myself that everything would be OK if I just kept muddling through the days. Exercise, be patient. Love. Be loved.  Care for others.  Do for others.  But none of that was enough.  Something didn’t feel right.  Something was missing.  I wasn’t sure if it was love, my sister, a child, or more fulfilling work.  I felt broken.  Not lonely.  Just incomplete.  

 
 

I considered changing jobs or moving to other cities. But I had already done both of those, and I still felt stuck.  Thinking back to the happiest times in my life they had been being in love, interpreting, and engaging in interesting business deals.  Opportunity once fell at my heels.  Lady luck had sang over me as I slept; her sweet, soulful tunes stayed with me the whole day long everywhere I went.  Without trying I attracted beautiful circumstances, and in the most unusual places I met people who impacted my life and ways of thinking.  This was all before I understood the laws of the universe.

 

 

In a wicked turn of events, once I understood the laws I began to have trouble commanding them. The irony of it all swept through me.  As happens normally in life a few failures sprung up in the road.  Instead of dusting myself off for the next round, I started to play it safe.  My romances went down in flames, so the next time love knocked on the door, I pretended not to hear.  My entrepreneurial efforts resulted in incarceration and humiliation, so I took a safe 9 to 5.  That lifestyle may have suited me if I was doing meaningful work, but I wasn’t. 

 

 

Time passed. New experiences and places offered temporary relief, but the nagging eventually re-surfaced no matter where I went.  Slowly it dawned on me that I was an extraordinary beam of light that had tried to seal itself inside a dark crate.  The crate was safe; shining bright was not.  Had I really been hypnotized in Las Vegas? Dunked in ice water? A rat race baptism designed to wake me the hell up so I could see how far I was from where I needed to be.  Not even my colorful, strong social circle could pull me out from the hole into which I had fallen. 

 

 

I wanted so many things… Excitement, answers, financial relief, a full life and to help other people. I wanted my courage back.  Most of all I wanted to crush the fear that was living inside of my throat, stopping me from breathing full gasps of air.  Not every day felt like that.  But the heavy days were enough to make me want to just take off running and never look back. I had no idea what the solution was.  But I clung to the belief that one could come.

 

 

I won’t call it depression.  Let’s term it a spiritual deficiency.  I don’t choose to discuss mine for sympathy.  Writing about it feels therapeutic.   A part of me feels like if I write it in the past maybe it will become the past more quickly.  Instinct tells me medication is not the answer, and that these feelings are a result of me not doing my spirit’s work.  Besides, science tells us what prescription drugs due to your ability to connect to the universe.  But it seems to be easier to attract a bottle of feel good than to connect with your purpose.  Some nights I think of taking one or two, but I don’t want to live like that.  This pain and discomfort lives inside of me for a reason.  It’s up to me to take action toward something greater.  If I mask it today it will only be staring at me tomorrow morning like a bedside gremlin that I fed after midnight.  Natural healing is slow and exhausting, but I fear any other method will extinguish my drive. 

 

 

I wish that my best friend Tommy’s wife had found some therapy before she put a pistol in her mouth.  I wish my old childhood friend had told me how sad she was before she launched herself from the balcony where we had once watched the Atlanta skyline and talked about our futures.  I don’t think I would ever take myself out, just because I care too much for the people around me.  I couldn’t make them suffer like that.  But I do ask myself (often) – when does my own suffering end?  All I really want is to feel important and be happy.

 

 

I didn’t realize when I was younger that the mountain would be this tough to climb.