lead me to the Rock that is higher than I

When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I...~The Bible~

Figures I would run to Thought Catalog. It makes sense, I read it like some sort of religion. Just as with forums open to public contribution, I am oftentimes disappointed, but every so often, every so often someone comes up with something genius, something brilliant and something just right for me, and that’s what keeps me going back for more fixes.

Today, I run to the arms of Meredith Gray, that girl with all the soulful monologues that make you want to sit back and narrate your life along with her. I figure I could come up with a soulful monologue or ten of my own. But Meredith’s are way cooler. Like this one:

People have scars in all sorts of unexpected places. Like secret road maps of their personal histories, diagrams of all of their old wounds. Most of our old wounds heal, leaving nothing behind but a scar. But some of them don’t. Some wounds, we carry with us everywhere… and though the cut is long gone, the pain still lingers. What’s worse? New wounds, which are so horribly painful, or old wounds, which should have healed years ago, and never did? Maybe our old wounds teach us something. They remind us where we’ve been, and what we’ve overcome. They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future. That’s what we like to think. But that’s not the way it is, is it? Some things we just have to learn over and over and over… again.

Life has got its own way of shaping you, sometimes by throwing crap all over you, tying you down the back of a truck and driving around with you there at full speed. It’s amazing what people go through… I used to sit in a mat on my way to see dad every day, and I’d look around at people. I’d imagine asking the person next to me, “So, what’s your story?” Because at that time I too had ‘a story’. I guess until then I never saw life like that, i just thought about the surface of things. But people contend with so much crap every day, you’d be shocked.

But while one still stands there’s much to be grateful for. Because it means that until now, your survival rate for bad days remains 100%. Maybe that’s what they mean when they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Only I wonder at the wisdom of that. Michael Jordan says that you miss 100% of the chances you don’t take. He’s got a bagful of quotes about shots he took and shots he missed, and we must all believe him, he did take some pretty great shots after all. But just like Colin, who is actually a pretty great guy and amazing brother with a nice girlfriend who sends us nice things ;), I wonder, when you have just one shot to take, and you take it and miss, what’s the difference?

All logic will tell you it’s not worth that much sadness. It’s really not worth that much crying. It’s not that big of a deal. But sometimes, it isn’t mourning over the what was, sometimes, the greater loss is for what could have been. For the picture in your head that wouldn’t half match the reality once it got here. The finding out that all the things you thought were crap were real things. And while it shouldn’t, it still causes pain. Pain that emo-music and ice-cream can’t quite reach. I discovered that doesn’t work by the way.

Pain. You just have to ride it out. Hope it goes away on its own. Hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions. No easy answers. You just breathe deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time, pain can be managed. But sometimes, the pain gets you when you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn’t let up. Pain. You just have to fight through. Because the truth is, you can’t outrun it. And life always makes more.

It’s the end of June. June wasn’t the greatest of months this year. It started with the loss of a friend. And now it ends with the loss of a friend. That much more frustrating because there’s no one to take the fall, no one to be angry at, and even if I were, what good would that do?

But every so often, the tears come uninvited. Once in a while, I let them get the better of me. Once in a while, I forget the wisdom of knowing that all things are working together for good. That no good thing shall He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Once in a while, I just want to be human and ask why. And shut the door and let the pain seep through my being. Do that, by all means. And then get up and keep living life. Because life must go on. And no matter how far you run from it, there’s always another rough patch waiting for you a little ways down the road.

You just have to live through this one.