... To The Death

I can't find my phone.

It's been missing since Sunday, and I can't find it. It's not at Genie's house, it's not in between the cushions of the couch, it's not in my room. WHERE IS IT?

What could I have done to deserve this? I think I know.

I don't have time to deal with this right now. I have to make phone calls for work, and today is Deborah's birthday. I've got to call her, and tell her happy birthday, and that I love her, or she's gonna kill me!

That doesn't sound like her.

I went into  my car to see if my phone was in there. I got a parking ticket. I know already what I did to deserve that.

I feel this pressure inside of me all the time. I don't even know if it's real or not, but... I'm just tired of this constant fight. I'm tired of desperately searching for work, so that I can pay the bills I have racked up because I wanted to sleep in a bed and eat food. I'm tired of turning my apartment upside down to find something I'm just going to lose again. Today it was my phone, tomorrow it will be my keys, or my wallet. And the worst part is that in all this fighting , and searching, and hustling that I've been doing, I don't ever stop to ask myself if the fight I'm putting up is really worth the life that I live. I have to work THIS hard to barely make it. I mean, I'm so unbelievably poor, and alone, and inefficient. I can't be the things that people want me to be. I have friends that I haven't called because I'm afraid they don't want to be my friends anymore. I'm worried that my roommates hate me, that my father is disappointed with me, that my pastor talks about me behind my back, and that to everyone else, I'm a joke. Entertaining, short lived, fictional. My guilt keeps piling up, like a sink full of dirty dishes, and I can't do anything to make it feel better.

Shit. I forgot to do the dishes.

God doesn't make mistakes, they say. Secretly, I wish he did. If I were a mistake, that would explain how I manage to destroy everything I touch, or how I can't even manage to do a simple thing, like remember where I put my phone, or call my friends, or find a full time job after my parents paid for me to go to college, and I graduated with a degree. If I was a mistake, I could be fixed.

I've been fighting my whole life, so that I can maintain a mediocre existence. No one asked me if I wanted to fight either. We are born, we are slapped around, cleaned up, and then turned loose on the world, so that we can prove that we deserve to be here.

But what if I don't?

A January Exhale

Okay.

Christmas is over.

At long last, this season of frivolous consumption and unabashed consumerism is at a close.I am breathing once more. I can celebrate now. I can say it.

"For unto us a child is born. To us, a Son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulders. And his name shall be called 'Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.' And of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end."

(Isaiah 9: 6-7)

This is not a statement of the current condition of the world, but a promise of what is to come. I will have to wait.

It will be worth it.

P.S.: I've been keeping this blog for a year now. I thought it would make me seem deep and introspective. All it's ever done for me is let me know how well I've been taken care of. So, to all who have read my crazy ramblings this past year, I thank you. And to the One upon whose shoulders the government rests, I thank you for still finding room to carry me.