Reflecting on Recollection Having Gone Wild for some Odd Five Years Plus

Today.

Five years ago.

Give or take a few days.

Was my first attempt at working on my masters, doing seminary work up in Birmingham.

God that was such a miserable experience.
Anxiety.
Depression.
A lot of freaking strangers.
Quite a number of panic attacks.
Which was absolutely freaking pathetic.
Sitting in the parking lot of the church and trying not to throw up while shaking violently.

Years later I am still not even remotely sure what all of my triggers for that are...and I think I might have worked some of the self hate off...but really...

In ways I still struggle with not freaking out anytime I must be around large groups of strangers.

Or feeling I'm being watched.

Or judged.

It has to do with large groups of strangers and/or Christians.

I still can't believe all the pain I have caused because of my indecision, my fears and the need I have to run around and run away every time things seem too much.

I could just beat myself mercilessly.

Dance over my own pain.

But what good is just self destruction?

So strange.
I've had God whispering me to my whole life about how I am loved, I am wanted, I am beautiful, I am desired, I am wanted and that there is a place for me...but my selfish need for control...to beat myself bloody and scream at the top of my lungs until I am hoarse...until I am exhausted and in tears...how much I hate me, how much I hate you...how much I hate You for forgiving me.

Some heavy, dark, sometimes silly, sometimes nonsense and so often just a reminder that I am a tired, broken and weak child who is playing at living a life.

A quarter of a century old and I am still chasing after some of these same old ghosts.

Funny thing, how missing something...or never having had something can make a gap, this hole in you...that everything falls through...and is just pitch as night.

It's...so weird to talk to the few people I can't lie to.
If anything I would rather just run than ever tell them how bad things can be.
It's not that I do not trust them.
The weakness...and the fear...the...

All of those words.
Painful.
Unpleasant.
So much unseen.
Unknown.
I wish it could be easier.
And watch your smile,
see you across this distance
and know,
just know the dawn would come.
Baptized in love,
carried by these wings of grace.
Hope.
Hope.
Bursting from within,
pulsing inside my chest
and burning within my veins,
Love never letting me go
and carrying me
through the pain.