The value of a gypsy

As usual, it is almost 4 in the morning, and the inspirational bug is just now hitting. 

There have been a few thoughts that have been floating around the recesses of my infinitely insane mind lately, that have just now become a congealed thought. 

What do the these three things have in common:

1. Value

2. Individualism

3. Passion

Well, if you are as astute as I am (you probably wouldn't be reading this), but otherwise, you would have realized, they are all things necessary for life.

For the last few months, these three words have tormented me incessantly. Not in any known relation to each other, but for different reasons, in different circumstances, in untied ways... like a dripping faucet, they have eaten away at the last bit of sanity that had hung of for longer than expected.

But finally, in the infinite ways of the Holy Spirit, formlessness became a solid mass and I had a rationale thought: I long to be valued in what I have a passion for as an individual. 

I was sitting around a table with three other women I treasure. Two are new additions to my world, one an eternally stable structure in my life, and my desire was to merge two worlds with and bring the beauty of the new to the strength of the past. 

We were all talking about our futures, presents, passions... changes that were happening, and were coming. I listened to the interchange so excited by the way that the old was engaging the new and the way the new was appreciating the old, only to find that when I would interject with thoughts I assumed were relevant, blank stares and stumbling awkward moments of half phrases amounting to "That was almost what I was talking about" were my responses. All of the sudden I realized I was the awkward cousin at family reunion that accidentally received an invitation. And in that moment, the word that had been nagging reappeared and made more sense than I wanted it to: value. I wondered "Now that the two worlds I have known have combined, am I needed any longer?" My value had been super-ceded by the more erudite communication of the parties present. I was somewhere in between the great creativity of one side, the authenticity of one, and the intelligence of another. What I had to offer, had been lost its luster. 

I sat back and pondered for a moment. A moment of hurt washed over me as I realized that maybe my value had come to its end. A match had been made that was far more perfect than either I had known before, and my comparative advantage was overridden, but a certain peace found its way in knowing a greater purpose had been served. The transient gypsy I felt I was, had once again struck: my job was done, on to the next.

What that job is, is yet to be known, but for the moment, the first word made sense. I longed for value. A place of belonging. The heart I had known was in need of people that recognized its value. A position unthreatened because it was too true to its gifts. 

There will be better hearts, minds, spirits... people than I. My father used to say, "There will always be someone better than you out there." Hurtful as a child, can be freeing as an adult. It's not about how great you are, it's about finding the match that recognizes the inherent value in the uniqueness that is me... or someone else, or anyone at all. The knowledge that I am irreplaceable not because I am perfect, but because I have value. 

Where that is, I have yet to find. I guess that's the gypsy in me... 

  

24,000 Miles

24,000 miles in a year, one for every sin you have known.

A change in gears for the reversal of wrongs.

Enough for one life you had thought, 

but that corner hadn't been turned yet,

Followed unaware, haunted.

Counted days and wasted ways

More than your share, so you thought.

The sun is there, just beyond the horizon, 

Hidden by another night, longer than before.

Breathe in the present, expel the future,

Today is enough.

A kiss for the road once again,

A plane for goodbye.

Time counted by days and letters never written.

Nights by moons across the windowpane in rain drop form.

Jumping at shadows in the form of yesteryears all to known.

Counted days and wasted ways,

More than your share, so you thought.

The sun is there, just beyond the horizon.

Hidden by another night, longer than before.

Breathe in the present, expel the future,

Today is enough.

Someone else's sin is has taken a piece of your soul,

And you aren't asking for it back.

Forgiveness hasn't found it's way,

And freedom keeps waiting in the wings.

Seconds tick as time waits to take you away,

Announcing the end of the future.

Breathe in the present, expel the future,

Today is enough.

Full View

In the night fog the Washington Monuments lights reflect with the sharp tip blurring into the low hanging clouds heavy with moisture. It peeks out over the Federal Reserve building blocking the full view I would have, but it still stands as a direct reminder that I am far, far from home. For the first time in a long time, a shiver of trepidation sweeps through, followed by the feeling of being swallowed in the power capital of the world. 

I started volunteering a few weeks ago. It's interesting working with the group. I still haven't really found my niche, or a way to relate, and it seems to be getting harder. And while my dreams keep getting dimmer, skimming the water as the float down a river towards another day lost, the old wounds I thought I had left 3,000 miles away knocked on my front door and waltzed in unannounced and undesired. 

The baggage fees are getting larger and my plane to the future keeps getting delayed, so instead I sit in the terminal watching rushing teenagers enter their first class seats on a plane ride to destinations of choice. I moving in slow motion as the world turns at an alarming rate seeming to change the horizons at a irrational pace, all the while, I feel chained to a process I just don't want to start.

I keep wondering if there is a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for those that have paid penance for more than their fair share. When is it enough keeps bouncing off the cortex of my brain. I thought I paid the entrance fee to the party already.

I hate that more than just me pays for the sins of others. Like whirling dervish the ones I love get sucked in. Guilt mixes nicely with excruciating pain. It's like walking in a room full of fun house mirrors, more than just I are distorted. 

I know these times are purposed and I know they have a point, but it's as though there is a tug of war between my future and my past, and I am the rope. I am pretty sure I am the only one who is going to get screwed here. In fact I know I am the only one that has gotten screwed here. 

The sky keeps getting lower, like a picture of walls closing in. I just wish they were padded. The rose petals have begun to fall, and new green is growing but the weather is holding on to winter refusing to let go of the last cold breezes and stormy days. The seasons seem to be echoing my schizophrenia. 

Mixed messages are coming from the Source and for some reason I feel like I can't read the fine print. An incredibly large sum of unexpected money here, an emotional breakdown there; hey, just another day right?

For someone so in control, I feel as subject to life as I do to the weather. 

Well, the night just keeps getting darker, but if I stay up any longer the sleeping pill I just took to control my insomnia will wear off and the sun will come up again reminding me I have one less day to pretend I don't have to make decisions.

I still can't see the top of the monument, and actually the lights are starting to be hidden by the clouds as well as the peak. Well at least I know it's there. Just as I know He is there... Just beyond my full view. 

 

 

Tidal Wave

I know I have spoken of grief before, but for the first time, as I speak of it, the familiarity I thought that brought understanding has left me. I am in unchartered waters.

As it is a truth I am not unfamiliar with, a tenet of life that I have known well, I think the hardest part of grief is the way it morphs. Loss or the prospect of loss one day, the next anger, the next feeling as though grief has now become an appendage that is apart of you.

Some of the greatest trauma I have ever incurred in my life, I have spent the last years speaking of with ease. Off the cuff I have mentioned this emotional atrocity as though I were speaking of the weather. At times it was even spoken of it with the desire to justify the weight of pain I should be allowed to bear, even if I had yet to wade into the waters of that pain. I know that may not make sense, but the fact is, I never dealt with it. Instead, every once in a while I would point it out to someone, or more aptly myself, as though it were this strange anomaly to marvel at. Another link in the chain of what was a life to be survived. 

Tonight, that appendage, that anomaly became real. So real and so tangible and so deep and so scary and so big, it felt as though it had the power to drown me. These waters that I had stared at every once in a while, and analyzed from a distance became a tidal wave that swept me away, and I was powerless to it. 

And as the tidal wave of crashed, what had been a comfortable reality that I lived with at a distance, all of the sudden was so horribly apart of my present. And all that had accompanied it, that I had left in the safe place of deeply, solidly away from the chnscienceness of my heart, the ugliness of the side effects can no longer be ignored. 

Never more have I needed a Savior and never more have I been scared of His reality invading mine. More than ever grace is needed and never more has it been harder to receive. And the only thing I can ask, and the only thing that brings a moment of peace long enough to take me from panic and the wracking sobs that come in succession more rapidly than my longs can take is "Tell me I will be okay. Tell me at the end of this, I will be okay."  In the lieu of audible words, I hear the ticking clock, and for the moment, it is enough and the ticking lulls me to sleep. Tomorrow, tomorrow is enough.

The Demons Past

To know where you want to go, at times means, you have to know where you have been.

I used to think that facing your demons meant facing all that made you a victim. Those incidents that forced you to overcome. A perpetual place of martyrdom. As the theme song of triumph plays in the background as you turn to face that which is necessary for me to overcome. My personal sound track would play as I learned in a three minute sound bite what it meant to be a survivor verses a thriver. Not that any of us really know.

In reality, facing your demons may mean something completely different.  What if, just for laughs, what if, facing your demons didn’t mean facing all that made you a victim, but all the ways that you had victimized others?

What if your demons where not that which you had to overcome, but what others have to overcome because of you? What if you were someone’s tragic story?

 It’s ten times harder for me to conceive of myself as the villain than the victim, but in the recesses of my mind, in the soul of whom I am, in the Spirit that has been born through someone else, there is a skin that has to be shed. An outer layer that looks much like a snakeskin of one who was condemned to the ground; a layer of insecurity that had breached the line of authenticity and maliciousness.

As I have prayed for an ever-increasing love, fountains of my misdemeanors and felony’s have poured in. Memories of ghosts past have circles in a non-Hollywood sense of security. Sleepless nights of guilt and condemnation have meant exhausted days of ever increasing raw emotion. Like nerves having been grated by the dullest instrument, security cannot be found in sanctuary of routine and cocoons of comfort. 

Only facing that which I have ran from for too long can bring the peace that a broken soul needs. The humility of admittance has never been more necessary.

Surrender comes in the moments of understanding that He who calls for the fall of pride promises to heal instead.

As soon as the soul of the evil confronts itself grace is received. Only in the surrender of the fear is compassion possible.

Why is it so hard to cross that line? Why is it so hard to cross the line from denial to admittance?

Just that. Admittance of what I am is not easy. The battle between the spirit and the soul is strong, and somewhere in the middle my mind lands. Like a crossroads between wanting to believe in the betterment of my soul, and the purity of my spirit, the only choice I can make is the purity of my spirit.

The soul will leave me, but the spirit, it is the only thing that is true. The only thing that will exist past tomorrow, it is the only thing that expresses the truest form of what and who I am.

Ironically enough, accepting the demons of my past brings me to the realist part and the most beautiful part of me. The humanness that meets the supernatural and truth occurs. The phenomenon of truth is just what He said it was: it will set me free. The hard part is, the choice is mine. As I face the step of acknowledgement is in front with the opposing voice of denial and circumspection just as attractive.

My spirit moves and a breath of fresh air enters. I have chosen acceptance. What that means I don’t know, but peace is what I breathe, and so for a moment, chains of demons release and I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. An exhale of released tension I didn’t know I had been holding falls from my lips.

Be still and know.

Okay. Enough… enough.