sharpen

I'm going through my stuff today and packing up some of it. I found some old notebooks- some academic and some other...both of which have made me incredibly sad. It's funny what time allows you to forget until you read about your personal hell in your own handwriting. My memories from that time are usually vague and generalized and difficult for me to describe. But reading those journals and letters...I remember how vivid everything was and how I saw the world.

I'm not sad that I found them though. I'm glad I wrote down my feelings. I'm glad it's documented. I'm just sad that so much of my life was wasted on inner torment and delirium. I mourn for that time when, for me, there was no sun, no hope, no joy, no love- because now I know that there is always sun, hope, joy, and love. It was always there, I just couldn't see it. I know that He never left me.

I've been working on forgiveness lately. And while it may seem strange to forgive a time in my life, I want to. I want to forgive myself for the way I handled things. I was honestly and genuinely doing my best- trying my hardest to keep my head above the water. Praise God that He had my hand in His, and guided me through the rapids. I ought to apologize to my friends too, for sticking with me. I said some horrible things and could not love them during that time. They had every reason to leave me, give up on me, disown me- but they didn't, even though I wasn't sorry.

I will keep these words. I will keep them to remind me how far down I was- to make me thankful and grateful to God for delivering me from it. I actually have a life now. I am actually LIVING my life now. I feel like I have been given a new life, a new start- a new way to be human (as Switchfoot would say). I will keep learning how to walk on these new legs and to breathe with these new lungs and see through these new eyes. But I don't want to forget what it was like to be enslaved by the thoughts I had then. I don't want to forget what it was like to suffer every moment of the day. Because time dulls the memories I have of my "previous life," I don't want to take for granted the much freer life I live now. I don't want to ever forget the pain. Now pain only sharpens my joy.

dirt

I haven't been writing as much. I miss it. I actually got up the guts to read through a story I had started working on a while ago. I had tried to continue writing it but I couldn't. Criticism is so stunting.

It's funny how much richer life seems when there is some mud and blood mixed in between the moving frames. The grit, the skinned knees...how strange that sometimes I miss that rawness.

Although I miss my depth and passion, I do not miss the irrationality and madness. What a strangely delicious hell it was back then. How everything swirled and dove and turned through me...what a horrible beauty. But now the blood on my hands (that was my own) is no longer there. Just lumpy scars and dream-like memories.

But oh, how the darkness made everything else sparkle. I miss the intensity and the way I knew myself so deeply.

Now stumbling over my ghosts and stalling at my shadows is frustrating and cold. I used to hide behind my hot blooded vision, but now I just stand there and stubbornly freeze. There is nothing inner to comfort me. Though, frankly, that is good.

Forgive me for the confusion I caused. Forgive me the mess I made.