A Piece

So yesterday around 3-ish I started feeling it. I'd been denying it, ignoring it for as long as possible, but I couldn't any longer. Ugh. The headache struck again. I'd been anxious all week about the next day, and it caught up with me. I took my medicine with minimal prompting, and found a nice cozy spot in my bed. Sleeping isn't what happens with me and headaches, sleep will come, but not at first. It has to be quiet, and cold, and my mind needs to unwind. THEN I fall asleep.

So I didn't die from this headache either. Who knew? Things started to come a bit into perspective though. And this is what I found: It seems my heart and soul (where God is) are at war with my head (my "thinker.") My mind honestly thinks that I will not make it to the next day because there is no way possible that I can manage the next day's events. No way. However- my heart keeps beating, and thus I am alive.

I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive.

Like Ariel when she gets her voice back. But it's me. I heard this this morning and it spoke to me. Or rather I spoke it and it had the effect of someone else telling me the moral of a story. My story. Or a piece of it anyways...

So here goes. I am scared to death of failure and heartache. But because of my "conditioning" so-to-speak as a child and young adult I became so deathly afraid of these that I retreated instead of facing them, moving on and growing. I don't mean like scared. I mean like panic-attack-deathly-afraid. I don't want to say that the way my life has played out so far has been so terrible or hard or worse or whatever compared to anyone else. I know I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. However- the ways that each thing happened and how and in what order has shaped who I am. Pretty picture or not, it's who I am and I own it.

I love people. I love kids. I love my job, my church, my family. I enjoy each of these groups because I care about each of them. I want to know how they are doing, see them grow and do well. I want to know how I can help them and support them. I want to know what makes them tick. I love them and yet I keep them at a distance. I want to know them, but I don't want them to know me. I pride myself on being accountable. But I stay clear of counting on them. I want to love them unconditionally and know what makes their hearts sing, but I don't want the same in return. Maybe I do. Maybe I do but I'm so scared that if I open up, I will be vulnerable. So I keep my guard up always.

Too many people have gone. One way or another, each person that I have opened up to has gone, or I fear is about to go. I fear that I will let my guard down cautiously and everything will be fine, and then when I least expect it, they too will be gone. I fear getting attached because I don't think I'll be who they thought I really was, and that they'll choose to leave. Or that I'll have to live through another death.

I don't want to stay, I don't want to fall,
I don't want to have to see you leave me
I don't want to stay, I don't want to fall in love
Maybe I'm a fake, maybe you're a lie
Maybe our last chance died with last night, I don't want to stay,
I don't want to fall in love with you again

These are tonight's lyrics. They sum up this point in my life. It's not a pretty picture and that makes me sad. I wonder if my missing piece that I've been hunting for is this? Maybe I need to let my guard down and trust. Is it too cliche to say "It's better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all?"

I'm not loving right now. I'm hiding. And I want to be ALIVE.




I found this tonight and it made me feel alive: