When life is about living again

Friday July 30, 2004 at 12:05 am

I've spent my life trying to find a way to satisfy some hunger within me. I, like all those around me, found myself caught in the constant pursuit of things, possessions. Life becomes work — the constant drive to obtain and own and do. I was living to work instead of working to live.

With a home full of stuff and pockets full of money, my life was empty, the wasteland of consumerism, a heart so dry.

I wanted to be recognized as one to take the lead, but somewhere in the crowd I lost the road. I was running around in circles and never getting anywhere. I always found myself alone, empty heart, empty life.

I've wasted hours searching with no true understanding of what I was searching for.

I couldn't see where I should go or what I should do.

I spent too much time tending to those things which I and others thought I should tend to, ultimately with no regard for myself, my own satisfaction, my own life. I spent my time pursuing rather than doing, obtaining rather than experiencing, working rather than living.

Now I've run out of control. I'm small. I'm spent. I'm lost in indecision. I feel as though I'm spinning out of control.

Chaos dances with me in the light of tomorrow's promise, yet I remain empty-handed, for anything declared for days to come is a promise unfulfilled. Living has been that promise for me.

Yet deep within me, as in some ancient heart, I hear the war drums beating, heralding the coming peace long waited for.

Desperately I grab the last crumbs from destiny's three-legged table, hopeful that it will be enough to sustain me, enough to get me through, enough to keep me on my feet while I attempt to once again find my path, a new path, a new life, a new beginning.

The strangers that I meet and pass in the city's broken roar leave me with hellos and welcome me with goodbyes, yet I do not hear their words because they fall on ears too hungry with longing, hungry with longing to hear just one "I love you" from a deep voice flowing from lips wet with knowing me, longing to hear life call out to me, longing to hear that beauty waits within.

But shadows are lurking around the room. They call out to me, calling me back to where I've been, calling me back. I want to scream but am scared to. Scared to scream, scared to move, scared to breathe.

But who is this shadow cast who comes to me now in darker times?

I see the boy dejected because he could not be what others wanted, the friend who always helps and therefore cannot ask for help, the lover who hides his guilt, the man nearly crippled by anger raging too deep, the person abused through his willingness to help, the soldier who keeps marching despite the sacrifices. Then there's the shame and the fear and the resentment and the sorrow. They're all me.

Yet now I realize how many years I've wasted here in this place.

My life is to be lived.

So I begin the process of stripping away the old, and it feels good, it feels right, like heading home — not where I came from or where I am, but where I'm going. That's where I need to be.

I step slowly but deliberately. Very soon there will be a time when life is about living again. I can feel change in the air, hear it on the wind like a lover's gentle whisper, calling to me, urging me forward, telling me that deep inside I'm still good.

When days are one by one full of life, full of living, then I will be home.

jason

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