What hurts most is this restrospective reaction; I read and I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I missed your cues.
I feel like this entry should have come a few days before because in the past twenty-four hours (on and off), I have seen redemption ahead and made peace with some things. And I wish we were in a state where we could share. Instead, I feel like there's this gulf filled with so many things unsaid.
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i think one of the most difficult things about this year has been learning how to change; or rather, being forced to. part of the breaking down process - something that i didn't know before - requires a shattering (literally) of your world. and because our worlds are shaped by our perspectives, by our minds, that shattering entails a shattering of the things we hold to be true.
you had (and have) me pegged. you call it stubbornness; i call it an obstinate nature but only because the latter includes more self-indicting nuances of the word: inflexible, resolute, self-willed, characterised by inflexibility or stubbornness. all carry pejorative connotations.
i found it difficult to share last night for several reasons. partly, (and you were right) it was because i was 'all cried out' (though i wouldn't be surprised if the well springs were full again and thus make it a 'sixth' straight day of as you appropriately termed - weeping; it's not just crying but it's an expression of your body and something inside). i also found it difficult because of what i said in the last email - that i wanted you to know how important this 'time' was; it wasn't just about a paper - it was so much more than that. i wanted you to know what that weeping sounded like, yet i couldn't evoke the images or conjure up the emotions to relate them to you; and even if i could, it would've been artificial and a less than accurate representation of what i had been feeling/going through these past five days - it would have been however many steps far from the truth.
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the difference between this time and all the other times is the same difference between 'feeling like you're a waste of space' and someone telling you (and others confirming that you) are a 'waste of space'. we order our world by the way that we think. we change by the way that we think. when something is wrong, we can restructure it by using the way we think. but what was 'attacked' was the very way that i think. it was a philosophy on life, which we all have and live by, on whatever scale; it was the core of who i am. your world really does shatter when you are told that your perception of reality is false, that everything you believe and live by is structured wrong.
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We both wanted something from each other that night.
Ironic how the very feelings, the very monsters, that have connected us for the better part of our friendship, drove us both to places where we just couldn't give.
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I don't want to end it here though. Because doing so would be a false representation of the lessons learned from only one who can extend sufficient grace. I don't believe that we're defeated when we're broken, when pieces of ourselves are lying on the floor. I believe, I have learned, that being truly broken means to be fully alive, alive in a way that is free from the pride that binds us to ourselves.
They say God gives us 'dark horse' moments. They hurt; they are painful. But while you cannot imagine what that greater plan is, you can imagine that there is one.
I don't profess to have all the answers. In many ways, I feel like I've only started this journey. But I do know this:
There is so much more to God than we will ever know.
Bit by bit, we grow closer to understanding the paradox of life through death.
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