The Wholeness of Remembrance

It wasn't that I had forgotten. If anything, it was the unexpected wholeness of the remembrance. It was placing my present into the context of my past. It was the way nothing had changed, except myself, suddenly unrecognizable in juxtaposition with this old familiar setting. I was overcome. I felt my eyes fill and my throat clench. Under the pressing awareness of time, I felt my heart literally throb, aching like the sore muscle it is, tender from the inconsistency of it's use. Driving down the roads that once held my entire history between their intersecting limits, I suddenly found myself sad and incomplete and defeated in a way I had never allowed myself to feel. I felt tired of treading so furiously simply to stay afloat.

I hadn't realized how cynical I have become until that moment. I hadn't realized how deeply bruised I am, how I have allowed each pain to add to the one before it without permitting myself the time and attention I need to heal, how the anguish has spread, how it consumes me. I hadn't realized how hurt I have become. I have been broken in so many ways.

Something about being back there sparked that recognition within me. It wasn't a longing for the good old days, but rather, a longing for the good old me - that genuinely happy person I once was. I miss her. I miss her innocence and I miss her certainty. I miss the way she looked at the world and saw possibility and faith and love. I miss her ability to draw distinct lines between right and wrong, and I miss the unwavering belief in goodness that attribute brought her. I miss the way her optimism protected her. I miss the safety she felt. I miss, more than anything, her hope for her life.

And it is not that I am now hopeless. It is just that there never seems to be enough time or money or freedom to maintain such inherent joy. I used to think that my happiness was indestructible, that I was one of those lucky few who got to spend their life intoxicated with contentment, but lately I've found myself despairingly vulnerable to reality. It's been difficult to accept. It's been difficult to feel that lighthearted girl slipping away. It's been difficult to remember that she used to be me, that I used to be her. Driving through the setting of her history that night only reminded me of who I once was, and who I am now, and who I could have and should have become instead. And even if just for a moment, I was the saddest I have ever been.

I have spent the entire week feeling the heaviness of that sadness. I've been stressed out and unable to sleep and wanting desperately to crawl beneath the surface of the earth and hide away until it becomes safe to emerge. But I know from personal experience that hiding doesn't solve anything. Running away doesn't work either. Nor does denial or bargaining or any other means of evading life. All I can do is keep fighting - fighting for happiness and for hopefulness and for the chance to wake up tomorrow and do it all again. Maybe I won't ever regain all that I've lost. Maybe I won't ever move forward. Maybe I'll spend my life fighting just to stay afloat, but it's impossible to accomplish anything if I don't try. I am trying. Truly, I am.

I sat down today to blog simply because I haven't written for myself in so long, not even so much as a journal entry, and I've missed it terribly, as I always do. Apparently I've needed it more than I realized. In this old familiar setting, I am writing to recognize myself. I am writing to remember her. I am writing to rekindle her hope. I am writing to keep us afloat.