LackLuster Faith and Keeping On

I know it's been a while, but geez, what a month. Sometimes it feels like this horrid month will never be over (I mean, it only just passed the two week mark), but then I realize that after next week it's December, and I think:

Well, Fuck.

This month has been such a challenge thus far, which is a nice change from all the boring months I've been having lately. Really. I mean, life is beautiful and breath-taking and brilliant and all sorts of other fantastic b-words, but it is also just plain hard. It is so unbelievably hard sometimes that it makes my breath almost hurt, and let's face it, there aren't any nerves for sensing pain in breath- it's just air after all, so life must be REALLY hard to be giving my breath pain receptors.

I mean, whose idea was it for me to take an ice-pic to my heart and split it into bits for scattering across the country? It's as though I'm a bit of saint that's been distributed to different churches for safe-keeping. This whole tri-coastal thing (if we're counting West Michigan, "the Other West Coast", and how can this royal we not?) sucks. I don't think there's a better or more eloquent way of expressing how much I dislike being separated from people and places I love by this much space. It sucks.

Then there's the murkiness. I've had a residual sort of gross, murkity-murk clinging to the insides of my pockets and hanging about my scarf lately. I can't seem to shake it. I stop and I breathe and I think about all the things I'm grateful for (which, by the way, is a whole helluva lot, like apple cider. . . I'm really grateful for apple cider) and I try to hold on to the feeling of gratitude, but the feeling never really takes hold in the first place.

I'm not depressed, I'm not downtrodden, and I'm not stuck in ennui, but sometimes I feel a little hopeless. Now I know right now you may be thinking all sorts of encouraging bits of advice. You may even already be pre-composing your comment for the bottom of this blog. Yes, that is what that giant white box at the bottom of this entry is for, so use it. It lets me know that someone reads this. Y'know, someone besides me and my teddy bear, who doesn't exactly count as I read it to hir, so it's not as though ze is a separate reader. At any rate, what I meant to say is that I'm not exactly looking for hope, or rather not from my faithful readers. I'm not completely devoid of hope, I just have been feeling a murkiness lately. This is not an attempt to trawl for pity or hallmark cards. I will ask for those more directly when they are called for (though if you'd like to send me a card feel free to do so at any time).

An example of what I'm trying to express:

I was walking home from school the other day. As I walked past one of the dingier deli/coffee shops in town I overheard a very loud exchange between two men. This particular shop always seems to have a small group of men hanging out outside, either smoking with the aura of AA break-time or chewing the fat between beers (pending on the time of day). Though this shop advertises coffee for fifty cents cheaper than my deli one block away, I have never even entertained the idea of going in to buy their coffee. So I'm walking by and this man starts yelling at this other guy. What he's saying doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. It goes something like, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Why did you have to say so? I was gonna fix the wheels. I was gonna fix the God Damn Wheels. Why the fuck couldn't you wait?" Somehow it seemed like the second guy had asked about the wheels on his laundry cart.

But the particulars of the situation really are pointless, as it so often it seems they are. What matters is how the first man's voice sounded. He was So Angry. Anger tainted with deep shame. Like he was angry because something the other guy said touched deep down to some old sense of inadequacy or worthlessness. Like this guy complaining about his wheels being broken reminded the first guy of being a little kid and getting yelled at for not being enough or not finishing his chores on time. Getting yelled at and being terrified that forgetting to take the trash out meant he wasn't lovable anymore.

Maybe I'm reading too much into a passing conversation, and maybe I'm imagining things too much, but I almost started to cry as I continued down the street. Because, I thought, when will the hurt stop?

When will we have learned that we are enough? When will we believe it and teach our children that they, too, are enough? That they are lovable for being children. Sometimes I wish I could take every person in the world and hold them in my giant, grandmother lap and sing them a song and hold them so close and just love them. And they would know that they are enough. And they would quit yelling at their bus driver and their check-out clerk and their server. And they would hold their children close, too. Sometimes I fantasize about this, imagining what kind of room such things would take place in and how long a person would need to sit and be loved to actually believe it. I imagine it in depth, mostly because I want this so desperately for myself.

I want someone, some gigantic bunny-rabbit great-aunt or something (I think it's a bunny rabbit because of a childrens book I read once), to swoop in and lift me out of the murkiness, to pick me up and cuddle me until I fall asleep knowing that I'm ok. That I'm more than ok, and that it's not because of something witty I said or which music I listen to or what social beliefs I hold dear, but because I am a child of God. A child of the Universe. Another beautiful, splendid conduit of truth.

I believe about 10% of this on good days, and this pittance of belief is slowly killing me. I also absolutely think this is what's basically wrong with the world. I think the root of all war and poverty and greed and hatred and violence is some gaping wound deep within us that compels us to go forth in the world with fear and shame and an everlasting ache. In saying this I'm probably being overly simplistic and incredibly self-absorbed, but I don't care. I think it's the truth.

And this just about breaks my heart some days. This is when the hopelessness subtly creeps in and sets up shop in the interior lining of my jacket. And I feel very tired and walking home seems like an endless endeavor.

But times like these, too, are times of faith. It's funny, because even when I am crying from lonesomeness or old wounds that seem never to dissipate, even when I feel hopeless, I feel certain that things are getting better. I walk down my street at 2 am and though I can't see the stars I can feel a stillness in the sky. I trust the chill on my nose as I breathe in and I know, I just know deep down that it's going to get better. Even though I don't see how. Even though I can't feel it. Even the the murkiness is enough to just about choke a girl.

The thing is, it doesn't choke me. I am still breathing, it is another day, and it is different today than it was yesterday. Somehow, it's all moving right along. It makes so little sense to cling to the belief that it won't always hurt this much or be this bad, but I cling anyways. It is a gift. And trust me, I'm grateful.

Currently Reading: (recently finished, finally) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius now reading Operating Instructions