How was your Christmas break? The question I dread. I don't have an answer. It was good. And awful. I hadn't really laughed that belly laugh you can't control. I hadn't felt that sense of belonging, the unity of thought and impulse that can only come from family. I hadn't wept that weeping where you forget hope.
And now I'm back, frantic to pack up the Christmas decorations, to exercise before the sun rises, to drink one cup of coffee at exactly 8 o'clock, to get back to my routine. I'm ready to box Christmas up and put it behind me.
The mix of joy and hopelessness confuses me. Not the inner turmoil of not knowing myself. I know when I was happy and when I wept, but how am I to answer the questions of others? How are you? Did you enjoy your time at home? To give the true yes is incomplete. Yet, how can I also say no?
I am learning to guard those tender places in my heart; to not spew them all over anyone who will ask; to share them with the right people in the fitting time. But for me, keeping those things hidden feels dishonest. I feel so unknown and so isolated, and the only way I know to cope is escape.
Oh, Father! You reveal to me again and again that my response is always escape, and yet you have lead me here. I look for the way out of the very place you have lead me.
And now I'm back, frantic to pack up the Christmas decorations, to exercise before the sun rises, to drink one cup of coffee at exactly 8 o'clock, to get back to my routine. I'm ready to box Christmas up and put it behind me.
The mix of joy and hopelessness confuses me. Not the inner turmoil of not knowing myself. I know when I was happy and when I wept, but how am I to answer the questions of others? How are you? Did you enjoy your time at home? To give the true yes is incomplete. Yet, how can I also say no?
I am learning to guard those tender places in my heart; to not spew them all over anyone who will ask; to share them with the right people in the fitting time. But for me, keeping those things hidden feels dishonest. I feel so unknown and so isolated, and the only way I know to cope is escape.
Oh, Father! You reveal to me again and again that my response is always escape, and yet you have lead me here. I look for the way out of the very place you have lead me.
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