Alone.
He leaves Monday morning, and I descend once again. Into the dark and quiet.
In between seasons, I feel like a leaf that's fallen from the tree, but hasn't reached the ground yet. Suspended; like I'm supposed to see something from here, but I keep closing my eyes.
A leaf isn't supposed to be on the ground, it's meant for the tree!
But it has a purpose on the ground, too. It feeds the soil.
It doesn't do it alone, it can't.
*************************
I'm clinging to my crutches for dear life. Maybe because I know something new is around the corner. The anticipation is killing me. I light another cigarette. Frustration sets in, because I can't see it. Light another cigarette. It tastes like shit, and turns my stomach. Whatever it is that's around the corner is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen. My head spins, either from what this "new" means, or the rush of tobacco.
Never seen before.
Never existed before.
Never imagined before.
What the hell does that even mean?
*************************
Stupid cigarettes.
I glance at the lit cigarette between my fingers. I've been smoking for half of my life now, the original intent so far in my past it doesn't even seem possible to recall, yet I do.
I was a kid, just emerging from under the protective proximity of my childhood. Bound and determined to do something new, something productive. In the perfect mix of arrogance and ignorance that we call fearlessness, I was gonna make something of myself.
Sitting in a park at my training base in Texas, with my new best friend, and the guys we're trying to impress.
I still feel the dry heat of that Texas sun beating down on us at that concrete table, sitting on that concrete bench.
I don't remember anyone's face but hers. I remember the path of the sidewalk through the park, I remember the sprawling trees strategically placed in that park.
She smoked, why didn't I smoke? It seemed like everyone around us smoked, so why not then? I choked.
At least, that's what I remember.
I've never been a non-smoking adult. I don't even know what that looks like. That would be something new, wouldn't it.
Never in my adult life have I been free from the grip of these damn things.
I've gone through what seemed like transitions to different lives, but never free from these.
I stare at the wooden cross on my wall, and the smoke tendrils that curl in front of it.
Transitions from base to base, job to job, relationship to relationship. All requiring discipline on my part, if I could muster up the can-do, fearless attitude. My trusty cardboard pack and lighter never leaving my sight.
*************************
I focus on the church, I focus on community, I focus on learning, but all seem like sustained distractions; just a grander version of me sticking my head in the sand.
God's talking to me; afraid of what He might say, I keep covering my ears. With Pinterest. With games. With books. With social media. With my own striving.
I keep running, I keep hiding; timidly crying out for purpose and clarity, but afraid of what that might look like. Frustrated because others see what I don't. Getting more and more pissed at myself for using my crutches to put up a smokescreen, so I can slink back into my descent.
My discipline absolutely sucks. I'm rebelling against it for some reason. Is it for the sake of rebellion, or am I rebelling out of fear?
I don't even know anymore.
*************************
My hometown is getting hammered by lake effect snow right now. The pictures flooding social media and the national news are making me nostalgic.
I remember building forts and tunnels in the snowdrifts at the end of our driveway as a kid, I remember sledding at the golf course, snowball fights and snowmen.
The innocence of winter, not yet realizing that the white blanket covered real life.
Snow days and hot chocolate, rosy noses and wind chapped cheeks thawing, gloves and boots and hats and snowsuits all dripping their melting accumulations onto the basement floor. Strategically shoveling the driveway into one gigantic pile in the yard to play on, dreaming of a pile so large we could reach the roof of the garage, then we could slide down the entire thing.
The days before responsibility, (other than not getting frostbite,) would rob us of these hours of imaginative and fearless play. Before high school, before extracurricular sports and clubs, before driving, before jobs.
Before we grew up.
We can't ever go back, can we.
It wouldn't be the same. The experiences, the lessons, the maturity gained along the way cannot be forgotten. The perspective of "before" is forever altered. We can long for it again, but we know, deep down, that the process of coming out of that was painful. Lessons and mistakes I'd rather not repeat.
I can appreciate the innocence of those days, the blissful ignorance of life yet to come.
I can also recognize that every stage of my life has been marked by "I just didn't know any better."
I'd be a fool if I didn't acknowledge the same could be said of me right now, as well.
What is the "any better" that I'm afraid of?
And why am I so aware of it?
*************************
'Tis the season for me to be writing.
I can't get out of my head long enough to transfer thoughts to paper, let alone put together sentences that mean anything.
There are general ideas floating around in there, like spots you can't focus on when you look too long at the sun, like helium balloons in the sky.
Beautiful, remarkable in that they're lighter than air, and yet they escape me forever when I inevitably let go of the string.
Glimpses of ancient and eternal realities, brilliantly shimmering before being encapsulated by the thin membrane that distinguishes the difference.
The more I learn, the more balloons float away; drifting higher and higher on an unseen current.
I watch them disappear all the time, unable to hold firm to the strings connecting them to me.
I want to hold on, I really do. But I keep running from the one thing I know I need the most.
The awareness of my rebellion physically pains me, shaming me back into the descent.
But the light never stops shining through the window, surprising me, blinding me, reminding me.
Always there.
