Free Fall

((I wrote this blog a little over a month ago. Some things have changed but it's still relevant. I just know more now that the Lord's arms are always wrapped around me. Keep on keeping on, mes amis!))

Tonight my dad commented on how tired I seemed. He blamed it on my long day of work and I let him.

But if I'm honest, it's so much more than that. I'm so beyond exhausted.

I want to cry. I want to yell. I want to sky dive and feel the free fall.

I want to feel to the point of blacking out. I want and need the waves that are life to crash into me so hard that all of the air is knocked out of me so that I can take a deep breath in so that when I finally jump off the ledge into the water I’ll be able to swim without drowning.

Life has been so hard lately. No, not lately. It has been hard from day one. I mean, I was taken from the absolute most comfortable place in the world 24 years ago in a brutal and horrendous way (I'm talking about birth). Nothing could get to me there. I was safe and life hadn't touched me yet. Life has been nothing but uphill battles from there. From learning to walk to dealing boys, to driving and high school, to learning to “adult” and realizing it sucks.

Life keeps moving forward and it feels like I’m sprinting to catch up at every turn. Life slows down for a moment, then right before you come to a complete stop, the light turns green, and you take off quickly enough to cause whiplash to an unsuspecting passenger. It's impossible to catch up.

Now I'm an ADULT. And the hardship hasn't stopped. My first real year as an adult is over, but the only thing I’ve learned is that the free fall doesn’t ever really stop. Sometimes gravity takes hold again, but really that feeling of weightlessness that leaves you breathless and forces you to realize you have absolutely no control over anything never goes away. I mean, I've managed to move back home and start a new job so many times that once everyone finally stops asking about my new job they start asking me about my new job again. I never know what the next month will hold.

It's anxiety ridden. All of it. The new job that I'm so supposed to be obsessed with isn't what I thought it would be. It's fine. It's a job, though. I haven't felt creative in over a month.* Which is frustrating beyond all belief. And I’ve come to realize all I want to do is be a hipster wife (or just have what I consider a hipster life) where I stay at home and create amazing things all day!

The problem is that this life only exist in my imagination, where free fall doesn’t exist. There is an infinite amount of possibility my imagination, but less so than in the real world. Something you may or may not know about me, is I'm a very romantic thinker. Not in the flowers and chocolates sense, but in the sense that I like to romanticize life. I bought into the movies and the fairy tales as a child. I love to read (and write) and I love the happy endings. I love the sad endings too. But mostly, I love the in-betweens. Which is even more ironic because when you’re in free fall, you’re kind of in an in between state…..

I never considered life would be so damn painful and hard growing up. I never considered for a moment that I'd have to rely so fully on the love that God HAS shown me rather than the promises He's been making me. 

I never considered that the only real parts in the movies and books were the parts where people cried because life hurt. 

I don't know how people do this or why this feels like it was a secret, but I feel like I'm missing God in this. Like I'm just going through the motions right now. Like I’m free falling.

But even as I fall, I can see the mighty hands of God around me, but not holding me. I picture myself in the middle, turned at an odd angle like the wind is a turbulent sea that I’m being tossed about in. His calloused and strong hands remain around me, ready to catch me when my free fall is over.

When my suspended animation ends and I feel the rush of gravity again, He will gently close around me. His hands just out of my reach, but never so far to not save me, will close the gap that allows my free fall to continue.

He is near. Always near.

*Edit: since I wrote this, I've gotten a new camera and have been going out on the weekends to capture my creativity through a lens. It's been helpful.