Leaving the Familiar

I have left the familiar.

I am wandering free in a wide open meadow. Fields and fields of new experiences roll out in front of me for as far as my eyes can see, endless opportunities awaiting me. Light illuminates everything my eyes touch. This place is radiant with light, with hope. The ground is soft beneath my naked feet, welcoming thoughts of forward motion. The air is crisp, light, fresh. Each inhale yields overwhelming peace and abundant life as my lungs are filled with pure oxygen. The stillness of this place is like beautiful music, stirring within me powerful, raw emotion and awakening in me a sense of purpose.

My eyes are open. My mind is waking. My heart is coming alive again.

I have left the familiar.

No longer am I trapped in the confines of my past. No longer am I caged by exhausted emotions, exhausted experiences, exhausted options. No longer am I locked in chains of bad habits and closed-minded ways of thinking. The possibilities are endless outside the familiar. The freedom found outside the familiar is exhilirating. Each step I take away from the familiar is met with more life. I am finally breathing again.

I have left the familiar.

It is not, however, only freedom and life that I encounter outside the familiar. Dark forces are at work in this new world filled with wonder and light. Daily I wrestle with demons of doubt and fear. Daily guilt wraps its long, sneaky fingers around my neck and attempts to strangle me. I constantly hear voices that tell me I am wrong, that I’ve made a mistake, that I’ll never make it. These voices tell me to give up, to return to the familiar… and they have a very convincing argument. Some days I almost listen to them, but then I hear a whisper in my ear. It reminds me that I was made for this. It reminds me that the freedom and light found outside the familiar is worth the fight.

So I do not go back.

I have left the familiar.

But the familiar is not a place. Nor is the unfamiliar. They are merely states of mind, ways of living. Regardless of where I am, I can be in one place or I can be in the other. It is a choice I make. I decide. I decide to sulk in the familiar or rejoice in the unfamiliar. I decide to stumble in darkness or dance in light. I decide to suffocate in exhaustion or breathe in new life.

And I choose light. I choose freedom. I choose life.

I will walk in the unfamiliar and daily fight the voices, and I will stay in the light.

Why Does My Pen Betray Me

Why does my pen betray me?

Why does it never allow me to write?

Inspiration lately is all locked up, I have no key.

Inspiration lately is always just out of sight.

I want to be a writer, to bleed from my soul,

I want to use words to bring things to light.

But how can I accomplish this goal,

When my mind goes blank every fucking time I try to write?

Am I the one to blame?

Is all of this my fault?

Has it all been a game?

Is that why inspiration has come to a halt?

Why do my dreams feel so empty, so hollow?

Why do my passions feel so dead, so distant?

My dreams and passions I know I want to follow,

But opposing forces are always so persistent.

These opposing forces always attack me,

Leaving me beaten and bruised.

They rob me of eyesight; I can no longer see

My dreams or passions; I grow confused.

Is this what I’m here for?

To daily enter into battle against my own mind?

Or am I made for something more?

Was it for a bigger purpose I was designed?

Perhaps the daily struggle is just part of it,

Part of the call to write, to cultivate change.

One thing I know is I’ll never be able to quit,

This life was not given to me to exchange.

So yes, my pen betrays me,

The ink inside always dry.

The pen it must be,

For if not the pen, then it is I.

Writer’s Block

I sit with a mind of no thoughts,

A mind void of inspiration,

A mind in which things are all tied up in knots,

A mind unable to produce any great creation.

Some moments my mind feels incredibly awake,

Full of thoughts, emotions, inspiration, dreams.

But more often than not, I experience a deep ache,

The emptiness makes me want to burst at the seems.

Thirty days have passed me by,

Yielding nothing but blank pages.

The ink in my pen long ago grew dry,

My mind trapped in the largest of all cages.

It’s as if the ideas, too, are there,

Locked in the cage, inaccessible though existing.

They look me in the eye, an intimidating stare.

Release from the cage they are persistently resisting.

I feel them occasionally rising within me,

But they refuse to make themselves known,

I am never able to fully see,

These ideas, though within me, are never to me shown.

I sit with a mind full of thoughts,

A mind full of inspiration,

But these thoughts are tied up in knots,

And I am defeated by frustration.

Made for the Light

I walk down a narrow path through a dark forest.

Overgrown branches reach their sharp, strong arms out from the brush and into my path, wrapping their thorny fingers around me. The farther I walk into the forest, the meaner the branches become. They grab at me with each step I take, scraping all sides of me. My skin breaks and blood spills out from the tears and scratches. I grow weak as I lose blood, and it gets harder and harder to keep walking as my pain grows alongside my weakness.

But walk on I must.

I trudge into the dark forest, for I cannot stay in the darkness. I was made for the light.

I walk down a narrow path through a dark forest.

The thick covering of trees above me blocks out all signs of light as the ghosts of the night come alive. I am haunted by the voices of the wildlife, the thought of hiding in the darkness becoming more appealing with each hungry battlecry I hear. There are great hunters out on this dark night, and I am their prey. As I walk through the darkness I am stalked by great cats named anxiety, followed by strong bears called depression and swarmed by relentless bats known as insecurity.

Everything in this dark forest seems to be plotting against me, working together to bring me to my ruin. They all seem so much stronger than me, their eerie voices so much louder than the thoughts of hope in my mind. But I cannot give in. I cannot believe their shouts. I cannot surrender to their relentless attacks.

I cannot stay in the darkness. I was made for the light.

I walk down a narrow path through a dark forest.

The stagnant pools of water that I walk past combine with my own rotting flesh to create a smell so horrendous that it floods all of my senses. The overall smell of emptiness, lifelessness, and even death are inescapable. I desperately gasp, everything within me yearning for fresh air. If I could only smell something that hints at life – the smell of pine or the smell of rain or the smell of blooming flowers in spring – that would give me the energy to keep walking through this dying forest. But my gasps yield no oxygen, no life. I am suffocating in the darkness. I am drowning on dry ground. I am dying in this dead, dark forest. Why am I dying?

Because I was made for light.

I walk down a narrow path through a dark forest.

The feelings, sounds, smells, and sights of this dark forest beat me down and make me feel worthless. I cannot find my strength; I cannot hear my hope; I cannot catch my breath. I feel lost in a world that is full of evil, darkness, death.

Is it all meaningless?

No. All of this struggle disproves the idea that everything is meaningless. The reality that I am dying in darkness reveals that I am made for the light. If I were created to live in darkness, my soul would be at rest walking through this dark forest. Instead, my soul is in a constant state of turmoil. If I were created to live in darkness, I would thrive in this dark forest. Instead, I feel like each day spent in the darkness results in a small piece of me dying.

I do not belong in darkness.

I was made for the light.

Each one of us is made for the light. We are created to walk in it, dance in it, live in it. This is why our souls become so weary as we walk through this dark world. Each day we spend in darkness takes a bigger toll on our already weary hearts, and we grow to believe that the darkness is all that exists. We feel discouraged, defeated, and dead inside. But the truth is that the darkness makes us delusional. It confuses us into thinking that the darkness and death is all we were made for and convinces us that everything is meaningless. We must push back against these lies. For all is not meaningless.

The darkness surrounding this dying earth is depressing and discouraging, but it is not all there is. On this dying earth there exists also light and life. Each day we walk through the darkness, we have the opportunity to look for the light and life amidst the darkness and death. We have the choice to see the beautiful among the ugly, the good in the bad, the healing through the pain, the glimpses of light breaking through the darkness. And as we discover these small glimpses of glory in a dull and dying world, we find joy for the present and hope for the future. For there are better days ahead. A day is coming when all the lies and illusions and doubts will be erased from our minds, and we will know with complete confidence that we are indeed made for the light. As we step fully into that light, our memories of darkness will disappear. Our experiences with death will be replaced by experiences with true life.

And we will walk in the light.

We will dance in it.

We will live in it.

Forever.

We are made for the light.

The Search & The Ache

A thick curtain of overgrown ivy stands green and dense as it hides something from me. I pull on my gloves and try to pull the curtains back, only to find layer after layer of tangled up vines and leaves. I begin frantically pulling, desperately trying to rip the ivy away to see what hides behind it, but all I find are more leaves, more vines. My breath gets shorter and my arms grow weak as I continue trying to find what’s hidden from me. I begin to ask myself, “do I know there’s really something behind these curtains? If it’s something that I’ve never seen, how can I believe I’ll find anything at all? Is whatever lies behind the curtain, if anything, worth all this pain, struggle, and effort?”

Doubt pollutes my mind. Thoughts of giving up begin to entangle my brain much like the ivy entangles everything within its reach. My frantic searching through the ivy becomes a rhythm. It feels like second nature. How long have I been searching? Has it been minutes, days, years?

The doubt that once only creeped into my mind now cripples me. Doubt is all I know. It’s a familiar friend, though the way it eats away at me is more an act of an enemy.

I find myself settling for the constant search through the ivy. There must not be an end to the layers of green. There must not be anything hidden behind. The curtains of overgrown ivy must be all there is, and my purpose in life must be to continue living the way I have, since there’s nothing better hidden from me.

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Yet there must be something behind the ivy. Why do I feel so empty and dissatisfied if this continous searching and doubting is my only purpose in life? Why do I feel this longing, yearning, burning for something more, something deeper, something bigger, something better? There must be something behind the ivy.

What is it that lies behind the ivy? What is it that I’m longing for?

I long for purpose. I long for love, real love. I long for joy, peace, answers, clarity. I long for justice and for freedom. I long for truth.

What is truth? Where do I find it? How do I define it?

In a world that is full of myths and misconceptions, how do I discern when something is real and true? How do I know when I’m lying to myself or faking myself out?

Is truth subjective? Is there even such a thing as truth?

These questions add to the doubt that cripples me. What is the point of it all? There is so much uncertainty but, though my pondering and constant digression of thought often bring more questions, they also bring clarity on something once uncertain.

There is something behind the curtain of ivy. There is something more, something deeper. If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t have this longing inside of me. I am searching because, deep down, I know the things I long for are out there. I’m searching for the truth because my soul is left unsatisfied by the lies. I’m searching for joy because there is joy to be found. I am searching for authentic love because the fake, surface-level, betraying love of the world is not what I was designed for. I’m searching for freedom because I was made to be free.

We experience this strong sense of longing because we were designed for something more. Our souls ache for what they were made for. The ache drives us to search, and the search often takes us directions that disappoint with dead-end streets. Our hearts break when we think we’ve found love, purpose, freedom, or truth only to discover it wasn’t the real thing. After we break, we feel empty. We doubt. But then we are overcome with longing once again. And we ache. We ache because there is something behind the curtain of ivy.

There is something breathtakingly beautiful and unimaginably fulfilling behind the curtain of ivy. There is something behind the curtain of ivy that is so glorious and real and wonderful that, when we finally encounter it, it will make everything we’ve experienced up until that point seem like a distant dream. Upon encountering what lies behind the curtain of ivy, we will understand what is real and true all at once. The myths and misconceptions of the world will disappear as our souls are finally satisfied with truth. The ache will be gone, and we will dance with joy in peace for eternity.

We were made for more. We were made for more than the constant search. We were made for what lies behind the dense vines and green leaves. We were made for discovery.

But until that glorious discovery comes, we ache. We search. We break. We doubt. We ache again.

Embrace the search and embrace the ache, because we know that the searching and aching proves that there is something deeper, bigger, better. Don’t lose sight of that truth. Keep searching, keep aching.

There is something behind the curtain of ivy.