Tuesday, September 13, 2011

To Learn

I have been feeling the need to write for some time now.  To write second and first listen.  To have a conversation with someone.  Perhaps myself?  Or perhaps it's God?  I do not yet have a name for this experience but it's the feeling of someone wanting your attention, wanting to tell you something.  So I am listening. 
I have known this experience before; when I had left Bible College in order to redirect my life and ask some very big questions.  Now I am at home where I live with my boyfriend, who constantly sharpens and softens me, and asking some very big questions again.
 To provide some background, I was once a Conservative Fundamentalist Babtist.  I believed the Bible to be literally true and that my life was predestined and that if you didn't "accept Christ as your savior"  (whatever the fuck that meant) you would be going to a terrible place called Hell, where you would suffer for all Eternity.  
Now, I have asked a great deal of questions around this and ended up at a place called "I don't care anymore."
Because of all the pressure to succeed and the damnation if you didn't, I left this belief and decided to just seek out my own happiness, and essentially, that's what I did.  And I was happy.  I rode my bike everywhere, I was care-free, I treated people with love and I pursued my dreams.
Until one day I was hit by a car.  Now most of you already know about that and that I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury.  I stayed in Harborview for 15 days and lived with my mother until around October and then moved back into my house in the Central District.  I continued to go to work and school, up until the summer where I have just been working.
It has not been until recently that I feel I have been finally able to catch my breath, or rather understand what has happened to me over the last year.  I don't know what is different about now, then it was a couple of months ago, but it feels new.  
I have recently been having this conversation about  how fragile life really is.  A freak accident can happen at any moment.  Tornado, eartchquake, car accident, you name it, and you or your loved one could cease to exist.
After being hit by a car and almost dying I have come to question a lot of the purpose of living.  My purpose of living.  I am piecing it together still but it seems to happen in those nagging conversations every so often.  I can sum it up in the word, Love.  But what that looks like specifically to me, changes day to day.  And I am starting to feel that it is supposed to.
There is no way that one person can have their life figured out in a plan. I am finding for myself, life is a lot like the Sea.  It is easier to ride with the waves than to swim against them.  I'm not saying it's wrong to make plans, but that it's okay to loosen your grip on them. 
I recently today have come to the awareness that when bad things happen, we want to direct our anger at something or someone.  But what do you do when it's no ones fault?  I used to be angry at the driver that hit me.  After I accepted the fact that it was not intentional, I became angry at myself for choosing to ride my bike during that time.  Then today I realized that it's not my fault I wanted to ride my bike, I was doing nothing wrong. It is not the drivers fault that he did not happen to see me, for he did not intentionally hit me with his car.  Therefore it was simply an accident.  So where does that leave me to direct my anger? 

No where.  And instead I am left with the pain, suffering, and acceptance that this was a horrible thing that happened and that is it.

There is a sense of lightness when accepting this fact, but there is also a great deal of pain.  And I become overwhelmed with both.  I was reminded today about the stroy of Job.  Job went through a great deal of suffering and all that his friends had to say was that he must be doing something wrong in order to deserve all of this pain.  But Job's friends could not endure the pain with Job and that is why they said these things. 

It is better to endure the pain and accept it than it is to fight it.  I feel that I have been Job and treated myself the way Job's friends treated him.  It is a natural response, but not one that is helpful. 
I am finding that it is in these times of suffering that conversations become most apparent.  Where I feel someone wants to tell me something, and when I listen, I feel much better.  Maybe this is my adventure in finding God in a different light.  For the first time I feel like I can look at God with an understanding that it really doesn't matter what I call him or if I choose to believe that he's there.  It's my choice and that is it. I think this is the way it should be.

Life is full of births and deaths of their own kind.  It is our choice to distinguish which is which and to either grieve or celebrate. If we do not do either of these, then we sleep through life. 

-Holli



















































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