surfacing
slowly slipping from an all-encompassing, two month long fog of work-around-the-clock, feeling completely disoriented and clueless as to how i'll ever find my place in the real world again. or maybe i just left it. maybe this is the dream, the space in between, moments when i step back from it all. ever want to simply dream forever?
sometimes it seems i've reinvented myself so many more times in the past few years, months, weeks than should be allowed one person in one lifetime. not one life, but a collection of lives; a recurring theme in my thoughts, a theme that defines me. and looking back, i can't see one as worse than another...just different. and that's ok. there are both things i miss so achingly, things i'm just as glad to be free of.
and who am i now? i'm not sure i know. have i ever known? i see myself reflected in the eyes of the people i see everyday---real people with real needs---people who look to me for answers i'm often not at all sure i have---and i wonder, what do they see? do they see my uncertainty? my exhaustion? my frustration or the way that i sometimes step right to the ledge, tottering on the edge of my patience? because it's there, and i do. sometimes it's all so close to the surface i feel it clawing just under my skin, tearing at my insides to break free. and yet they don't seem to notice. they come timid or ashamed, angry and slighted, bitter and hollow...desperate...and somehow i see them change, just a little, just for the flash of an instant. and i find myself amazed at how much a simple human connection can change a life. shame fades into relief in the face of an effort to understand, hard lines of bitterness soften, just a bit, just for a moment. but in that moment---in that moment these people come alive and it seems i can see all that they used to be or could be, somewhere underneath it all, still are, just waiting---waiting to be. but what of who they are right now, in this moment...?
and suddenly it is my work that defines me.
it drags me in, drains me, leaves me raw and uncertain, constantly pushed to the wall and tempted to walk away from it all. and yet it's beautiful...challenging and engrossing, wholly addictive and randomly studded with the most amazing truths about life and love, about the grace that gets us through it all. in moments like this it occurs to me that this is exactly where i'm supposed to be, where i need to be, where i am needed, here and right now.
and i wonder, is this what it's like?
sometimes it seems i've reinvented myself so many more times in the past few years, months, weeks than should be allowed one person in one lifetime. not one life, but a collection of lives; a recurring theme in my thoughts, a theme that defines me. and looking back, i can't see one as worse than another...just different. and that's ok. there are both things i miss so achingly, things i'm just as glad to be free of.
and who am i now? i'm not sure i know. have i ever known? i see myself reflected in the eyes of the people i see everyday---real people with real needs---people who look to me for answers i'm often not at all sure i have---and i wonder, what do they see? do they see my uncertainty? my exhaustion? my frustration or the way that i sometimes step right to the ledge, tottering on the edge of my patience? because it's there, and i do. sometimes it's all so close to the surface i feel it clawing just under my skin, tearing at my insides to break free. and yet they don't seem to notice. they come timid or ashamed, angry and slighted, bitter and hollow...desperate...and somehow i see them change, just a little, just for the flash of an instant. and i find myself amazed at how much a simple human connection can change a life. shame fades into relief in the face of an effort to understand, hard lines of bitterness soften, just a bit, just for a moment. but in that moment---in that moment these people come alive and it seems i can see all that they used to be or could be, somewhere underneath it all, still are, just waiting---waiting to be. but what of who they are right now, in this moment...?
and suddenly it is my work that defines me.
it drags me in, drains me, leaves me raw and uncertain, constantly pushed to the wall and tempted to walk away from it all. and yet it's beautiful...challenging and engrossing, wholly addictive and randomly studded with the most amazing truths about life and love, about the grace that gets us through it all. in moments like this it occurs to me that this is exactly where i'm supposed to be, where i need to be, where i am needed, here and right now.
and i wonder, is this what it's like?