It was my open letter to God; like I said in that post (The Day I Tried To Live), I never really expected an answer. You can imagine my surprise when I actually did get an answer. It wasn't the one that I wanted, but it was an answer, nonetheless.
I'm not sure if I have written about this here before, I know that I have written about this a lot both by hand and on a keyboard but it's hard to say where exactly. I do not envy the children who will have to sort through my papers and computers after I die.
I hope all my stories don't die with me.
When I was a teenager I was extremely sad for no reason and could just not figure it out. It went on for what seemed like an agonizingly long time. I know now that this was probably the beginning of PMDD--but, at the time, I just had the sads. I would pray to God all the time to just deliver me from the misery. Every night for a while I would pray not to wake in the morning. And each and every morning--or early afternoon, as one might expect of a teen on the weekend--warm sunlight would spill through the windows and, upon waking, I would deride god for not having given me overnight what I had asked of him in my prayers the night before--and then one day, I was mad about it and was like allllrighty then. So much for praying. And it is so interesting to me that this is the memory that is stuck fast in my brain. I can remember where I was when I had the thought, not really the outfit I was wearing, but I can see the room--my bedroom as a teenager, painted a very pale lavender--I had just stepped into the room onto the berber carpet and was hovering in the doorway for a moment when the thought came to me. Maybe the lack of an answer is the answer; God doesn't want me to die. Or to suffer. And if he's not going to personally come down here and fix me being sad all the time, then I've got to do it for myself. I will make myself happy.
This one thought changed everything, and this moment in time--that is the memory that I turn to when I might be excessively sad and trying to think my way back out of the sads. Sometimes, when you're really upset it is easy to forget that it is the endless well inside that we must tap, rather than looking outside of ourselves--everything we need to seek about God and life--it's all inside that bottomless well. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Maybe you don't. I'm not sure that it matters if you quite understand, but, maybe someday you will have your own epiphany and these words will make so much sense. It kinda goes back to the Ram Dass quote about being on the path--don't worry, you don't really have to do anything, you're already on the path.
I had a very weird dream the other night. I don't want to share the exact details because I don't know that they matter as much as conveying the feelings that I was having during the dream. Sometimes I am sure that when I'm dreaming I am actually slipping from my own body and joining that place we all go when we die--and, from there, I was in another's body and that person was hopeless. But they didn't know that I was inside them now. (Freaky, I know, but I beg of you please read the Remember Me series by Christopher Pike--yes it's YA, and I have loved these books all my life and reread them every few years). But the people around this person knew she was hopeless and they were trying to break her, to get her to take her own life. Which I couldn't let happen. So I took over. Whatever it was that she would have done if I hadn't been in her body didn't matter anymore, because I was going to show her and everyone else that you don't have to be hopeless and you don't have to break and suicide yourself. So I started being me instead of her in the interactions she was having during this day. She was scared to death, hopeless that things wouldn't ever change or get better, and it's a feeling that took me back to the scene in my lavender bedroom as a teen. I knew the answer and it was inside me. I laughed in the faces of the people who were telling dream-me horrible things, trying to provoke me, that wanted to hurt me--and when I laughed, their looks of evil hatred turned to shock and amazement for a moment before they switched immediately to anger and they doubled down. But I had already found the well inside that I knew was there and I was already dismissing all that hopelessness and replacing it with the faith, hope and love of that endless well. The dream was over, at least that part of it was, when I found that well and tapped into it.
The best way that I can describe the feeling of the well is--every happy loving moment that you've ever experienced or hoped to experience is inside it and it feels like your whole body will burst with love. There's a word for it, I suppose more than one, depending on how you view language and semantics. Sublime. The most incredible feeling. Like being safe, loved, and whole.
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