Romy

I haven't been able to write for months. The harder I try the uglier it gets. I'm agonised by the sense of having nothing to offer, I am aware of how little life I've lived lately. I am overly conscious of writing anything in fear of it being hypocritical. Nothing I've written recently, reads authentically. Everything I have written in the past now feels obtuse. 

I've reached a season in my life where, every other day feels like the day my head might actually melt off. Just diffuse. I'll simply disappear into self-loathesomeness. 

You see, there isn't anything I can do to change the past or go back and make better decisions or more use of the time I once had. Thus, I am living with the struggle of lost and wasted years, which has built up into enormous regret, even anger. I have an ever protruding knot inside my chest. If I appear cold, quiet or distant it is merely to control any slight emotional nudge that may press my tears button in a most untimely event. 

There are few instances more depleting than feeling like your whole life has led up to nothing, just one big drop into naught. You started off with such zeal and passion. But somewhere at a crossroad, you hitched a ride with fear, discouragement and doubt. They became your comfortable-corrupt associates, always stealing away the days you needed confidence and joy. In essence you were in the right place at the right time but with the wrong crowd. Listening to the voices that held you underground. A whisper inside your heart always said, "One day I'll change. I won't always be this way". And you'd have visuals of the future you that gave you hope to last. Future you was brave and bold, she was confident in speech, generous with her smile, intellectual and challenging, she believed in the impossible and wasn't afraid of taking risks. It was like she wasn't you at all. But you believed in her, you believed that she could become. You just missed the part where she could only evolve through you, from all the small, seemingly insignificant, daily choices. You had the ability to grow into her and that's where you went wrong. Now you wonder whether she has become a distant mirage of someone you once thought you'd meet. But in reality, she never even came into existence. Future you was never allowed to be. 

Does this mean that you're stuck? Cause it certainly feels that way. Is it ever too late to dream again or hope for something more meaningful? 

There is nothing worse than a life without meaning. But meaning is all around us. Everyday is filled with it! Everyday we encounter people, which means everyday is an opportunity to love somebody, to smile at somebody, to help somebody, to pay for somebody, to encourage somebody... The thing is, these little good-kind-caring things aren't usually considered meaningful or worth living for. We pretend like we believe they are, but they never quite seem enough. Until we keep doing them habitually. Until they become who we are. Givers. That's when we'll know what truly is everything. 

As per usual, I was looking at life all wrong. I was starting to feel like Romy in Romy and Michelle's Highschool Reunion. I needed something to prove I was somebody, that I had excelled, that I was successful, that I was really heading somewhere in life. So instead of being loving I was bitter. Instead of being thankful for what I have, I was living with a sense of lack. Instead of embracing the revelation that God is the one who brings worth to our lives, I let society decide what was worthwhile in life. Sometimes hopelessness hits you like a life threatening illness. But if there is one more day left in you, there is always a reason to be thankful and another opportunity to take responsibility. Life becomes more valuable, when you concede that you are full of value and embody a devotion of bringing value to others. 

The Christian life is one of having reoccurring amnesia about what God has already done and begging for daily proof of His proximity and faithfulness. But He does not forget that you exist and His knowledge of your timeline is more indepth, broad and in context than your experience of it in the present. 

I can be so good at making such a big deal about nothing, complicating simplicity. You know, it's scary admitting to feeling like I failed God. If it came to the end, I'm not sure He'd say "well done". 

That's what kills me the most. 

But don't let regret eat your potential or spit out your faith. Stab it in the head like it's the walking dead. 

I predict that in the coming years, I will look back with greater understanding. Right now, I'm only writing with whatever optimism I have left in the reappearance of future me. Thankfully she's just me, I'm here now and God is too. So are you.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

Matthew 25:35-36, 40 NIV