Holding On & Letting Go

It occurred to me the other day that no one writes their story while livingtheir story. We don’t write our story while living it because we don’t know the ending. It’s too scary to write a story you don’t know the ending to. We want to ensure that the story ends well…or at least that we learn great lessons and know where the beauty lies before you tell others your story.

I have a friend that always said, “we never live the story we want to tell.” Our expectations change or go unmet and then must change. Life happens, dreams die or are altered to fit reality. Other dreams must emerge and take flight. Either way…beauty and destruction, destruction or beauty…our stories rarely match up with the story we think we’ll live to tell.

So in this strange part of the internet land…I have the unusual circumstance of writing while in the middle of my story. Happy endings in sight? …I have no idea. And honestly part of my current story is shattered dreams.

What if I told you that you can’t have what you dreamed? Would you punch me? Maybe you should. I’m not sure…I think it probably depends on the situation. Sometimes people just deserved to be punched (but don’t go telling people I think that or they’ll think I’m a violent, scary person.)

Well…someone said to me today, and I quote,

Emily…“You can’t have what you dreamed.”

Period. That’s it. You can’t. Not right now and maybe not ever. There was a…not without “x” clause tailored to the end of the statement, but it came only after the period. The period that seemed to symbolize the determination of that very statement.

I didn’t want to punch this person. Not only because I know he loves me dearly, but because he’s wise and is holding truth up to my face…and truth is an angry, raging rattlesnake pissed off at me at the moment. (I hate snakes.) But that is what truth feels like right now. When I look in the mirror I see not Emily, but a fun-house type version of me that resembles me enough to know I’m still there, but to the untrained eye, I would be unrecognizable. When I look in the mirror my face is broken, my eyes have turned black, only showing the fear that consumes them. My face is disfigured, deformed, and scary looking. It’s the face of one whose “truth” is a blooming angry rattlesnake.

Somehow in all of this mess I must stare into the eyes of the raging rattlesnake, moments away from consuming me whole, and know…I am safe.

“WTF, world? God? Heck no. That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever? How can this be the reality and I’m supposed to assume I’m safe!!?Right. You’re not fooling me. I won’t buy it this time. You want me to do what!? THAT’S the reality you want me to face? I think not. I’d rather go it on my own. I’ve got this. No rattlesnake stare down for this chick,” I scream.

But I must. I know it’s true. Because he’s right. I can’t have what I dreamed. It’s simply an impossibility right now. So I’m forced. Those I love surround me with mirrors forcing my eyes to face the indisputable truth…that my reality is a raging rattlesnake that hisses at me: “you cannot have your dreams”

…and so I turn to face truth because I must. What other choice is there?

But when I do…when I face him. When the contortion of mirrors bring me face to face with the truth I despise the most…suddenly, for a moment, the rattlesnake becomes tame and my eyes allow color to flow back through them.

You see…it is only when we face ourselves and our fears that we are truly able to take the power away from them. My reality is still one I detest. What I am being asked to do continues to be something that I do not like and even disagree with….but faith calls me to more.

Could I believe that God doesn’t see me as a girl who is disfigured, ugly, discarded, ruined, and unlovable? Could I believe that the raging rattlesnake can be tamed, not by my feeble fighting and flailing about, but by surrendering to the Creator of both my broken heart and the snake(read: truth)? Could I believe that in facing the truth and the mirrors I may find no answers but a simple calling to keep looking, keep holding on? Could I be satisfied with knowing that whatever may be holds reward at the end?

…Maybe.

Eddie Kirkland has a song on his latest album that’s one of my go-tos right now. It says:

“The love that fires the furnace of the stars

The love that turns the fury of the storm

The love that lays itself down on our behalf, is the very love that whispers in the dark

…keep holding on”

The same fierce love that turns the storm and lights the sky is the same love that gently whispers in the dark. I don’t understand it and many times I simply scream out,

“I do not understand!!!

And that’s infuriating and terrifying

…but…

…but I choose to trust.”

Because when your world seems to fall out from under your feet and it feels like you’re free falling without any hope of a parachute…what else do you do?