Bring Me To Life

So much has been happening around me lately… everyone around me is either heart-broken, having a lot on their minds, finally allowing the hurts they’ve held back to surface, or else just plain exhausted. Me? I’m a little of everything, and also pretty much none of the above.

Seeing someone go through the first break-up in her life was… I dunno, in a way… cathartic. Watching and hearing her go through the same set of questions I asked myself repeatedly during my own break-up, it was like going through an epiphany, realizing that these really were the kind of questions people asked… that I wasn’t over-doing things when I took it so hard. So I guess it was cathartic in that seeing her go through the same struggle that I was asking myself every night, I could finally detach myself from that experience, and perhaps in doing so, peel off yet another layer of what still remains of my emotions and reactions towards Grace.

I think I like being around hurting people… I’ve always had a problem opening up abt what’s going on inside myself. Everytime I wanted to, I find that I either find it so trivial that I’m embarrassed to confess how it stirred such a strong emotion inside of me… otherwise I’m still very confused abt what exactly I’m feeling apart from just the fact that I know I’m hurting inside. Its also like this blog, where there’s so much more inside that I wanted to put down… but to do so would be like pulling oxygen molecules out of the air. I know they’re there, but I dunno how to extract it, and materialize it in a tangible form.

So as an alternative, being around hurting people teaches me to channel my hurts into something more useful, as I attempt to transform the hurt into an ability to empathize with what they go through, and to be able to let them know they are in the presence of someone who also grieves deep inside. Its prob one of the only times when I feel like I'm any good to anyone at all. Being around them also helps me to sort out for myself why there’s so much going on inside of me that I don’t understand. As they share abt what the feel, and they share abt their own struggles, it sometimes helps me to put a finger on what it is that I’m bothered with.

Remember how Solomon asked for wisdom when asked what is the one wish he had? He asked for wisdom… and I guess for me the next best thing would be to ask that I know better what it is that I really want. I seem to always vacillate between the things I want… and then remain utterly clueless the rest of the time, unable to figure out why I don’t seem to want anything else. I used to be so sure abt everything… from the school I wanted to attend, to the opinions I had on issues and people, even the girl I loved and wanted to marry. Ten years later I find myself in such a mess inside, increasingly unable to answer any question at all, be it what I want to do with my life, with ministry, and with my heart.

Sp I resort to letting life drift on day by day…

I tell myself somehow my job opportunities will surface and I will be employed. I end up doing very little, always unable to decide to do something since I can never be sure that such a job is something I’d want to do.

I tell myself my studies will eventually be over and done with, and get my degree. I then sit back and refuse to allow myself to think abt the path ahead of me, waiting for things to sort itself out eventually.

I tell myself I need to go easy on myself and not keep pandering so hard after a relationship… “if the right one comes along, then God-willing something will happen”, I tell myself. I therefore keep putting brakes on myself, in order to ensure that I don’t try to play God in picking a girl… and I end up just waiting and waiting, running away from any possibilities that might show up in front of me.

I tell myself my spiritual life is just going through a dry spell and that God has a reason for letting so much go on to, around and inside of me… So I sit back and will myself to bullishly refuse to think if its really a spiritual dryness I’m going through, or the result of the walls I’ve built that effectively shut God out of my life.

I tell myself that with all the troubles I’m going through, I will come out a better person if I but keep it together and not lose faith in God… not till lately have I started to question what that faith ought to look like, and how it should look so different from any misconceptions or pressumptions I might have had.

Its very tiring to face up to questions I’ve become conditioned to avoid, and even harder to even find back the questions I should be asking myself. In the meantime, the past few nights I’ve had reason to stay up in the dead of the night, and just take stock of things that’s going on inside of me… and sorting out the things I should learn to tell people instead of bottling it up, and the things that I think should remain unsaid. Nights like these are the things I missed the most when I was working… how it forced me to switch off a part of my life that takes place between 12 and 6 in the morning, where I try to get in touch or stay in touch with myself.

Ah well. I’m now taking a break after my intensive study period… but I need to break out of my shell and again face up to the world.

Its moments like these where I suddenly appreciate why death would be such a sweet release… and why it would be the highest form of cowardice.