days
And so the days go by, creep past. Sometimes I am struck with the distinct - horrifying, relieving - sense that I don't have what it takes - at all! - to get through, well, life. Yes, simply that. Yet I appear to have done singularly well, haven't I? (I laugh.)
Since I've been home there has been a sense of helplessness. It is as though some pathological languor has seeped into my veins, robbing me of the ability to occupy, populate, animate the trickling seconds of my life. Mine? Occasionally I feel that I am no more a part of "my life", "my existence" than I am of, say, the World Cup. My grasping, inept fingers can accomplish nothing.
I am really starting to see how - and why - older people sometimes say that life has passed them by. It never really happened. It never really started. The eager question of 'so what is it going to be like??' has no meaning for them.
You are so caught up in your work, in helping Ma do the dishes, in trying to make conversation with Pa (because you know that your relationship with them means infinitely more to them than to your callous self), in watching the occasional movie or play with friends, in paying bills, in a million other tiny but necessary things - most of which simply do not signify - that you don't look up and reclaim what is yours. Your life. (But I am supposed to believe it isn't mine at all. Newsflash: it isnt about you. If there is ONE thing you learn about life, let it be that.)
Maybe the sombre, mundane sameness that so gnaws at me - maybe that is life. No catastrophic grief, no paralysing fear, no all-consuming passion, no transcendent joy and ecstacy and awareness.
Is there a sort of simple, humble happiness in this prosaic stupor?
I look at my family. I look at their lives, maddening in their regularity. They live almost as if to tick days off the calendar. They wake, they work, they eat, they sleep - to live.
Sit back and watch the wrinkles trace their spidery way across your skin.
Maybe most of life is to be lived middle-agedly. Maybe I will come around to it. Is it relief I feel? Or is it fear?
I almost want to say that these days I feel like I am walking on the edge of a precipice, treading along a slender skein of borrowed time and sanity. I am aquiver, expectant. But what if nothing ever happens? Or changes? No, I will not say it. It is not so bad, no.
Instead I will repeat to myself: Do not believe in what you believe about Jesus. Believe in Him.
Since I've been home there has been a sense of helplessness. It is as though some pathological languor has seeped into my veins, robbing me of the ability to occupy, populate, animate the trickling seconds of my life. Mine? Occasionally I feel that I am no more a part of "my life", "my existence" than I am of, say, the World Cup. My grasping, inept fingers can accomplish nothing.
I am really starting to see how - and why - older people sometimes say that life has passed them by. It never really happened. It never really started. The eager question of 'so what is it going to be like??' has no meaning for them.
You are so caught up in your work, in helping Ma do the dishes, in trying to make conversation with Pa (because you know that your relationship with them means infinitely more to them than to your callous self), in watching the occasional movie or play with friends, in paying bills, in a million other tiny but necessary things - most of which simply do not signify - that you don't look up and reclaim what is yours. Your life. (But I am supposed to believe it isn't mine at all. Newsflash: it isnt about you. If there is ONE thing you learn about life, let it be that.)
Maybe the sombre, mundane sameness that so gnaws at me - maybe that is life. No catastrophic grief, no paralysing fear, no all-consuming passion, no transcendent joy and ecstacy and awareness.
Is there a sort of simple, humble happiness in this prosaic stupor?
I look at my family. I look at their lives, maddening in their regularity. They live almost as if to tick days off the calendar. They wake, they work, they eat, they sleep - to live.
Sit back and watch the wrinkles trace their spidery way across your skin.
Maybe most of life is to be lived middle-agedly. Maybe I will come around to it. Is it relief I feel? Or is it fear?
I almost want to say that these days I feel like I am walking on the edge of a precipice, treading along a slender skein of borrowed time and sanity. I am aquiver, expectant. But what if nothing ever happens? Or changes? No, I will not say it. It is not so bad, no.
Instead I will repeat to myself: Do not believe in what you believe about Jesus. Believe in Him.
posted by leah | 1:07 AM
1 Comments:
agreed, the problem's always been there, but the step-change of graduation brings much of it into view a lot more starkly (even if mundane)
the thing about university life, esp. overseas, is that we seem to be able to fashion a great deal of the things around us.. who we relate to, who we don't, what we eat, when we wake, etc.
And then there's the whole getting-away from the environment where we didn't have that individual freedom to decide, because it actually affects other people for once.
Right now, in your cohort, there is someone who's still running away from facing life-after-uni, there's another who's extremely worried about not getting a job while not knowing what he/she wants, and another who hates herself for living with her unloving boyfriend but has no friends or family to turn to.
There's one who's been cutting his/herself recently, there's another who can't find satisfaction for his/her desire for affection, and another who cannot accept 'God's will' when he/she asks for a sign but it doesn't go the way he/she wants...
i could go on... these are real people and these are their current situations (slightly disguised but with no exaggeration of severity).
The thing that scares me most is when either the solutions taken are akin to taking one credit card to pay for the debts of another, or when they really have no one to turn to.
I know you're alright cos you truly believe in Jesus, and haven't been choked by the weeds or eaten by the birds.
My advice: go help someone.
The people above are all people you know. It's not about putting things into perspective, but simply getting on with the real work of love once we get through the mundane chores as quickly as possible.
it is more challenging, but it often helps to think about individual souls rather than institutions
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