Somewhere in the Past

With every step I take I sink farther back into the past; I remember what has been with a vague awareness. It's the same feeling as if I stepped into a novel and became someone I didn't really know. As if the story that has unfolded before my eyes is merely that: a story. And slowly I realize that the things I dream don't describe who I really am.

Llenora closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Her back ached from sitting in one place for so long and her eyes burned with lack of sleep. The sheets of paper lying on the desk were as bare as they had been hours ago and the pen was held limply between her fingers. The little mirror propped in her writing desk shone with the dying embers of the fire. Taking the mirror, Llenora looked at her tired face--the dark circles, the sallow complexion that had stolen away her bloom, and the lifeless hair that once had shone in the sunlight. Nothing was the same as it had been, and all at once, everything that she never thought would happen to her had come crashing down...leaving both her heart and her life in ruins.

She watched a sadness creep into her eyes, and then, slowly, the glass slipped from her cold hands to drop to the floor. Llenora picked up her aching bones and crawled up the stairs to her bed. The room was cold, the grate empty. There was frost on the glass and only cold water in the basin, but her mind had dulled and thought only of rest. Shivering in her nightgown, she pulled the old quilt over her head and for once, allowed herself to truly forget everything. Forget everything and sleep.

A Ghost with a Crusted Heart

I know that for the few who of you read my blog these words have gotten old, but when a soul is overwhelmed, it can only sing one song. The words and feelings have grown old to me, but every moment that I think the scars healed they burst open again into gushing, seeping wounds...the kind of wounds that everyone tries to ignore and forget. But they are still so real to me. So real that it seems surreal, as if I am the one who is a dream. As if everything around me is not quite real; I can touch it but that doesn't mean that it will last. Every feeling fades so fast and all that remains is a dull numbness that won't go away no matter what I do and no matter what I say. I have become a ghost with a crusted heart. I have had so many hopes and so many dreams; so many plans that have crumbled at my feet. So many things that I wish to be, so many things I want...and yet when my mind snaps back to reality what do I have but a crusted heart. Reality is so painful, and every day I hate it more. I feel that hate crusting my seeping heart more and more, and yet all it does is grow. A teacher once told me that "bitterness is the only poison that destroys its own container"...and I feel it slowly killing me, eating at my bones and my soul, but it hurts so much to have everything you loved and hoped for stripped away until all that is left of you is a naked body at the mercy of a harsh winter wind. My little crusted heart seeps and cries and tries to heal itself, and then it grows hard, but when it struggles to beat it breaks open its own wounds again. It's an ugly cycle that never seems to end. And who wants to care for a heart with so many cares...who wants to nurture a heart that can only struggle to beat one more pulse? I feel so selfish, as if all that I want is only for me...as if the things that I love and I want are wrong. I know it's not true, and I know I shouldn't feel this way...but it still eats me. I long and I long and I long for love and yet I am so afraid to love. Every eye seems to have that evil gleam, and I feel like a wounded bird in the sights of a vulture. I want to hide away...oh dear God, I don't know what to do.

After All

Sometimes I think I'm too sentimental...it's when I can't stop thinking about the giant oak in the front lawn that I'll be leaving. And I wonder if I'll ever have the blessing of living on .49 acres again. It saddens me to think that I'll never be able to sit up late in front of this fireplace that has known so many of my fears and dreams. Silently watched me cry and warmed me with its piping flame on many a winter night. I want to see again the Christmas tree in the front bay window of my home...I want to see the reflection of the Christmas lights and see the snow laid deep outside. But it shall never be, and it makes me ache inside like I've never ached before. Maybe it's the fact of all that's come before, and maybe it's the reality that I'm losing the one thing that I thought I'd never lose. And the culmination of events just makes the horror worse. I shrink from each passing day knowing that soon there will be a day when I have to say goodbye and never come back. And it breaks me so. And I don't know what to do.
I want to curl up and fall asleep and to wake up knowing that it was only the deepest of horror dreams, but I know better. I've made my life a dream and a dream my reality for so long that it's hard to wake up and realize which is actually the truth. It cuts me to the core, for how can I experience the joy of Christ Jesus when I make myself stay numb to all the pain and ugliness around me? How can you be joyful, and yet numb? How can you both sing, and have a lump in your throat? I don't understand. I don't understand at all, and it makes me cry and shudder and shake inside. Most of the time I conceal my emotions well and I hide them inside for no one to see, but other times it's all I can do to utter a word without choking. So I lock myself in the bathroom and cry out my pain and frustration to God, hoping He'll hear me, hoping He'll somehow turn all these bitter tears into something good after all.