Human Crossroads

I’ve often struggled with faith in

The Creator of All Space and Time

But here, today,

               I find myself more struggling with faith in

               His most precious creation – Mankind

Maybe my heart is somehow defunct

Maybe I seek my own worth through

               Other’s validation

Maybe I’m needy or lonely

Maybe I’m just a Broken Creation

Maybe I’m mis-focused or say the wrong things

Maybe I try just way too hard to be seen

Maybe I come across as entirely too tough

Maybe I’m too honest or too kind

or then again, maybe I’m not kind enough

                              [I don’t know]

I do know that I’m disappointed

I see that through love and kindness and grace

               We could all of us be absolutely amazing

We could show this world His Amazing Face.

I’m not talking about buying an overpriced $6 caramel latte for the next affluent stranger in line

I’m talking about making a difference, an impact,

               I’m talking about loving to the point of Divine.

But instead we choose ridiculous choices

               We choose to be hateful and full of spite

               We choose to not see the other side of a story

               We choose to not extend grace, we’d rather be right.

               And we choose not to accept grace when it is extended

               Because it would grossly alter our pride.

               We choose not to enrich our relationships

We choose to walk away and set them aside

rather than engage in a Very Worthy Battle

In the past 168 hours,

I’ll admit my world has been thoroughly rattled.

I don’t understand why we choose our choices we choose

But I see that in the end, I do see we lose.

We choose brokenness

               Time after time after time.

               And then we go

   And we choose it AGAIN.

I can’t even exclude myself from my own rhyme.

In my life there have been moments I came to a crossroads

Where I realized I’d been burned, betrayed and despised -

I had to choose right then between giving or stopping.

I could see (to my surprise) that my demise might well be the Great Booby Prize.

I had to choose between trusting and believing,

Or being suspicious, selfish and self-serving.

I have always chosen to be naïve.

I’ve always chosen to decide to believe that it must be worth the effort,

But oh, Lord, right now I could use a reprieve.

A Brief Visit with My 21 Year Old Self

I have an admission to make. My mind drifts during church. Badly. So yesterday during Sunday school, my brain is just boinging along, as it generally does, interweaving occasionally with the lesson and then boinging about again. And a tendril wrapped around something I wrote just almost exactly 20 years ago. Today I went diving in the Grand Disorganization of All My Writings I’ve Ever Written (Almost) Pile and came up triumphantly holding the old beat up purple spiral I journaled in when my marriage fell apart way back then. Yes, gasp away, I've been married twice.

I’m going to publish what I wrote. Apparently, I had a special place in my heart for the F word back then, so I apologize in advance. I probably still have a special place in my heart for the F word, now that I think about it. It’s just a more secret, private place now than it used to be. My 21 year old self didn’t care - about that, anyway. She had plenty of other things to worry about at the time.

I will also warn you, it was a very dark time in my life. I found myself doing something I swore I would never EVER do – getting divorced - and I hated myself for doing it. I wanted to die at the time. I had even tried to, unsuccessfully (obviously). I was cutting myself. Burning myself. I was questioning what had always been my core belief system, and I was in the process of rejecting it. But in this exact moment in time, I captured myself deciding to stand up and fight instead of letting it crush me. I can’t help but picture the first time I watched Edith pull herself up into the standing position on the living room window sill. It was a moment of triumph in the middle of a very dark world.

So I will share, and maybe later, I’ll tell you more of why I was thinking about this. And maybe I won’t.

June 28, 1996

I exist

               “and why” i ask

               as i hold a knife down to my arm

i watch the blood flow to the floor –

               i don’t know why i do this anymore

i rinse myself in the dirty sink

               And curse

                              And cry

                                             And sink onto my knees

“Pray, God, let me go

               i can’t do this anymore”

And i can’t do this anymore.

WAIT. Have I become a victim of this life? If I am, it was my CHOICE. Who is in control of how I feel? Am I not? And if I’m not, then I have lost, or at least am losing, this game. I don’t have to sink – I don’t have to let Her (Fate) have her way. What’s been in my mind? Why have I allowed myself to sink this far? I am in control. *I* left. I made that decision, for I didn’t know what else to do. Desperacy – you can’t repent of that. I left. I left. I left. And that’s all there is to it – if I was wrong, I’ve repented. Why do I insist on torturing myself when I’ve already been through hell? Was that not enough? It’s been ENOUGH. I now must turn to analyze my heart and soul – that’s all I can do. That’s all that’s left. Matthew was right – come to understand my actions and my feelings. But I needn’t purposely punish myself for these things I don’t understand – I must learn what they are and try to hold them in my hands. I am in control. If it hurts, let it hurt – I shouldn’t try to ignore it or intensify it. Just let it hurt – can I allow myself to do that? Not to tamper with natural feelings? So honestly, how do I feel without any lies?

I feel angry. I feel guilty. I feel repentant. I feel free. I feel lonely. I feel confused. I feel sad. I feel ugly (inside). I feel stupid (for my arm). I’ve felt pitiful. I feel distracted. I feel frustrated at times. I feel awake. NO more beer. No more knives. No more blind nights.

And it’s okay to feel these things. It is all right. BUT it is okay to feel happy, too, sometimes. It is okay to fly and it’s okay to crash. These things are part of Life’s recipe. If you leave them out – well, then, where’s the spice? Life will fall flat in the oven.

Wake up, Ami. Fucking wake up. I will not play the victim. I’ve made choices – I’ve walked down paths. And here I stand as I am and I cannot regret that. HERE I AM – THIS IS ME – FUCK YOU ALL – I AM ME. I won’t apologize anymore for who I am. I stand alone in my own right – maybe that’s what I lost in marriage. I leaned too far and forgot how to stand up. You shouldn’t do that – you should grow tall together.

I stand alone and feel the wind blow through my hair. I hug my arms about myself and close my eyes. I feel beautiful and strong. I am going to the top of the mountain, where the wind blows the hardest and where I am the highest. That is my right – that is my desire – that is my choice.

To live, and to live better for my experiences. To live above them – to know all about them – not to let them sit as a strange dark mass that crushes my being. I am alive. And free. And there is NOTHING wrong with that – there is no need to feel guilty for that

I’m done apologizing for who I am – to Mike, to my friends, to myself, even to my family. There’s no need to – no one wants to hear it. No one else is sorry that I’m me. Well, at least no one who matters. They all chose me – chose to love me – it’s not an obligation. And love me for all of me – they have to – it’s not just my ambition, or my jokes, or certainly not my money. People aren’t as stupid as I think. They sense me – my heart and soul. They enjoy me and if they don’t, OH WELL, others will. I will. I will enjoy myself. I can do that – I can despite everything. I know myself best and there is plenty to love.

So……

HERE I STAND.

i exist in my own right.

i need no one else to make me feel

strong, adequate, beautiful, happy or alive.

i can feel these things alone, within myself.

I thought Mike could make me feel these things and that I could make him feel these things. But we should have felt these things on our own and then shared them with each other.

***

Editor’s note: I didn’t capitalize the word “I” back then, and I feel like I should make all the “I’s” into “i’s” for the sake of posterity, but the struggle with autocorrect is very real and is far greater than my current abilities or desire. And yes, I have indeed heard of search and replace functions. Thank you.

Not sure I necessarily agree with all of that anymore, but it’s rich to think about, now, isn’t it?