Seasons

Settling back into an inkling of a routine back home has been extremely challenging. This is an odd metaphor but I would compare it to trying to sit down to dinner with somebody after having an argument with them a few days prior…and without any resolution since. Your hunger has abandoned you even though you were starving just before…the food doesn’t hold an flavor…or you’re just not able to taste anything…though it could have quite possibly been the best thing you’ve ever tasted prior to the disagreement. You can’t look your companion in the eyes, possibly because or anger, envy, dislike, shame or pride, it’s unsettling and you physically can’t sit still…there’s nothing that can be said that isn’t shadowed by a dark cloud of the arguments aftermath and actually the whole setting seems a little dimmer, awkwardly quite…melancholy at its finest. You sit there fumbling with a fork…poking at the meal before you and trying to find something to occupy your irritation. Anything that is actually discussed is out of pure social pleasantries and lacks depth…it all seems so fake, like poor acting during a colorless play. Eventually it becomes too burdensome and retreat is your only option…it’s too much to sit through and no one understands. I should just be alone, it’s better this way.

It’s hard for me to act like everything’s ok, to be “normal” and go through the motions when people ask how I am…looking down to my feet so that I can avoid the pity in their eyes. Everything’s shadowed by her passing and I don’t care much about anything at all. People’s obtuse reactions only make it worse sometimes, not the ones who truly care of course but even then it’s difficult to explain my exact situation and feelings…especially when they change from one moment to the next. I repeat the same rehearsed response dozens of times over like a fast food server welcoming the newest patron. I feel stuck in this limbo of existence where I can’t move forward and when I contemplate my next steps they seem selfish, disrespectful, unreasonable or just plain idiotic. Nothing makes sense, especially her passing. Why is she gone?

I found solace in a small beach town I stopped into recently…I felt eerily at peace in the desolate, ghost town like domicile. It was closed down for winter. Everything was so dismal and abandoned…as it should be during winter. The sand blew over onto the roads and the sounds of the waves crashing was the only noise that could be heard. The windows were boarded up, closed for the season signs everywhere and not a whisper of life could be felt. I could however, almost hear the echo of children’s laughter and feel the presence of the souls playing on the beach. This place should be busy, sunny, happy and alive…but it wasn’t…I was the lone individual meditating to the lake’s rhythm…welcoming in the grey and gloomy scene like an old friend at my doorstep during a winter’s storm…I finally wasn’t alone…at last something I could share my isolation with…something that understands my complete solitude. It was a blessing to taste God’s creation without the postcard snapshot, without the waterfalls, sunsets and picturesque mountain tops. I felt at home in the dreary, wet despair.

I know life is ever changing and my current season is one of solitude, despair and depression so as I walked through the sandy dunes back to civilization my heart warmed knowing that this place would once again welcome children’s laughter…that the sun would shine and joy, love and happiness would once again return.