I am unraveling.
The illusion is broken: I can’t always trust myself. Sinking deep into the beats and even the palpitations of my own heart was always my saving grace, my peace and my candle and my anchor.
Maybe it’s just that I haven’t had enough time to sift and plunge into the clamoring silence with my bare hands. Maybe I didn’t go deep enough, maybe my eyes weren’t clear enough, maybe I wanted it too little, or too much. Or maybe not. Maybe it was always going to implode, no matter what I did or didn't do.
I’m always trying to convince everyone, myself included, that I’ve got this. I don’t need you, at least not in the way a dripping, panting person needs water, the way a purple, choking person needs the Heimlich. No, I only need you in the way the organizer of the world’s largest bake sale needs another plate of cookies: “Sure, if you want to fill that tiny corner of the table, go right ahead, but by all means don’t trouble yourself, we’re really fine with what we’ve got. But while you’re here, can I interest you in a macaroon?”
"Cerus scarf" by Tony & Wayne (Flickr's creative commons)
I am unraveling because I’m realizing that taking every feeling and sticking it under a magnifying glass, or carrying it headlong through all the corners of my mind, or simply staring it down in a confined space, sometimes muddies the waters instead of clearing them.
I’m unraveling because I’ve run out of road.
I’m unraveling because I’m considering the very real possibility that I have fewer inner resources than I thought I did to combat everything that is kicking me from the inside out. And, horror of horrors, maybe those “inner resources” are taking a few swings at me too.
What do you do when you’re afraid to lean heavy on anyone’s shoulder, but you also can’t lean on your own anymore?
This is where faith comes in, they say, I’ve said. You can lean on God’s shoulder. He will “never leave you nor forsake you.”
"L'arbre - The tree" by Gustave Deghilage (Flickr's creative commons)
I’ve held onto the slim trunk of a water tree with one hand, straining and reaching out with the outstretched fingers of my other hand. I’ve turned full into the wind and let it flatten my face, let it sting my eyes, let it enter my lungs. I’ve cried and prayed and written thousands upon thousands of words. But after a while, my eyes dried up and my pen dried out and though I didn’t give up, exactly, I didn’t know how to sustain such desperate hope. Especially when I couldn’t hear anything certain coming back to me across the gap except my own voice, thinner on the return.
All I know to do in times like these is shut my eyes when everything else is dark, and open them again when light returns. I find ways to stay warm and I look for that which nourishes me. And I try not to spend too much or too little time with only myself for company.
How quickly light can turn to shadow. How sudden seems the unraveling.