Life Lessons

As I'm getting ready to leave (packing belongings, acquiring more junk I don't need, transitioning my decorating style from 12-year-old-hyper-enthusiast to quiet-artsy-reliable-18-year-old), I've started to reminisce on the past year and everything I've learned. Not things just about myself, but about the world, others, and how to make complicated relationships work. I've learned a lot about letting go, and it hasn't been easy. I'd have to say the majority of days I've felt like an abandoned puppy in the store-front window, watching all of its friends be taken home to a place where they're loved and accepted. There have been a lot of things I've had to deal with besides just loneliness, though. I've had to endure the waxing and waning of friendships, the uncertainty of where I would end up this Autumn, and, worst of all, I've had to confront my nightmares and accept their reality.

I'm sure everyone has had to come to grips at some point with the one thing that they would rather see locked up in a closet and forgotten for eternity. But the truth is, locking something up, pretending it doesn't exist, only makes everything worse. No matter how hard you try, the anger, the guilt, and the shame all come seeping through the cracks. At first it's easy to shrug off. It's easy to say, "I'm fine." It's easy to lie. But the hurt keeps building, and the pressure becomes too much to bear. The only answer is to deal with the issue, and to forgive. Whether it's yourself, or someone else that created the darkness inside, it has to be confronted. No one has ever healed by letting splinters fester, and pretending that the pain isn't real. I couldn't forgive on my own, though. The hurt went too deep. The shame, the self-loathing, the fear that no one would ever see me as I want to be was too much for me to deal with. I prayed for months, asking God to take the nightmares away. They didn't stop. I pleaded, bargained, and tried to cope on my own. But God never meant for us to carry our burdens alone. Sometimes, He wants us to share them. First with Him, and then with someone we trust. God created us to support each other. He knew at the beginning that it wasn't good for man to be alone. It's why He gives us family and friends who care about us.

I thank God every day that He has blessed me with such a loving family, and wonderful friends who I know I can count on, day or night. Sometimes, I really take all of it for granted. Worse, sometimes I feel like I deserve this blessing. So I keep praying, keep failing, and only by the grace of God I keep remembering how fortunate I am to have a life so full of blessings.