Sometimes I just need a day. Just one. A day when I can stay in my pajamas, lay on the couch, eat popcorn and snickers bars, and cry while watching a lame lifetime movie until i get over my stupid, selfish, melancholy disposition. But these days it’s not just one day. It’s “these days.”
I hear the words of my aunt, “are we having a pity party? Everyone needs those once and a while…”. But it’s not a pity party, or maybe it is. Is that what you call the moment when you start questioning your purpose. Do you need a purpose to get out of bed?
So as I lie in bed, I’d rather imagine the voice of my other aunt, the one who would crawl into bed with me and hold me saying “Pumpkin, it’s time to rinse those puffy eyes, and get up (when you’re ready). But just remember nothing’s going to change if you just lay here.” I can hear her voice, she said those words to me once before, when i was 13 and my mom almost died in a car accident. And on that day I asked her to lay with me for a little longer, just a few more minutes and then I’d be ready, then I’d be strong for my parents. Today, having her here with me is not an option, and today, I’m not ready to get out of bed and I’m definitely not ready to be strong for anyone else, least of all myself.
I’d rather toss and turn. And with each trash of the covers I think I’m less and less desirable. I feel more and more ugliness as another tear streams down my face. I ask myself the question, what’s next and for God to please give me a purpose. Because when I search for my beauty within, I see it in the smile that came from a life that lived with purpose for Him, for His Kingdom, and even that’s gone.
I’m going to be honest and tell you I haven’t showered in four days. The only reason my bed got made today is because my mom snuck in to do it while I was eating breakfast. She spent the night last night. And bless her for not saying a word about my kitchen that has more dishes in the sink than I want to deal with, and the tv that has hardly turned off because in the quiet hours of night, I hope that God will choose to speak, or that even better that my heart will choose to listen. But instead, when she did speak, I shut her down, I yelled at her asking her what point she was trying to make.
So a pity party? Sure, maybe that’s what this is. Maybe I’m wishing for someone to just fast forward my life to another smile with a squeaky laugh. And maybe, I’m just being the ugliest person I know how to be.
I exchanged emails with a few high school friends this week. It took me back to the days when I couldn’t wait to grow up. I imagined my life full of those laughs. In my dreams I was happy. I’m my dreams I was secure. And in my dreams, I was living a perfect future. That’s the thing though, it was all in my dreams. And while yes, there has always been laughter, yes there has been happiness, security, and love, perfection has only laid in the center of God’s will.
Do you have any idea, ANY whatsoever of how crappy that perfection feels right now? It feels lonely and much like failure. It feels like a mistake, and very far from Truth. It feels trivial in comparison to the “real” problems of those around me. And it definitely does not feel like God’s will. But it is. And these days, I hate it. I just downright hate faking a smile; telling people I’m doing ok because I know they care and want to know.
The truth is my friends, I’m not okay. And I don’t know when I’ll be okay again. But I do know that I’m thankful for you, for your prayers, and your support, even if part of me wants to refuse it right now. Maybe, right now, if i continue with the brutal honesty i can say that I’m just not so much thankful for the questions that I can’t even answer myself. And I’m sorry, but these days, that’s all I have to offer.
Theses days, I just hate life.
