I can’t imagine submitting myself to the yoke of not-thinking, of obedience to an external authority.
It wasn’t always so.
For years, hurt and depression led me on a quest for a yoke to take away the pain. Take this burden from me — that was the constant cry of my heart.
I wanted to believe in God, but couldn’t. Jesus would take this burden from me, I was told, and oh how I wanted to believe. God would shoulder the burden, I was told. Yes, I wanted to cry, yes!
But I couldn’t believe. In my desperate, awkward attempts at prayer, there was only the silence of my tormented, lonely heart.
So I would find my God, my lifter of burdens, in other people. The result: a string of friends and lovers that I pushed away with needy clinging. I used them, made them the idols that would take away the pain. All I got was hurt compounded on hurt, theirs and mine, and the dull ache of bitter regret. I got stupid relationships, that I never should have been in, that left deep scars.
From the dark times, that is my greatest regret, the thing I most wish I could undo — all the pain I caused, all the people I pushed away with my neediness.
What changed? Maybe nothing, or not as much as I sometimes think. I’ve always had an independent streak, always walked to the beat of my own drummer, if only a little. It was a process of several years that culminated in a sudden rush last year, when, after months of torment and long night walks in emotional agony, I dragged myself to a public mental health clinic and said, “I need help.”
I took responsibility. I took steps to change my life. I depended on no one, though I got help and support from many. I stopped looking for someone to lift the burden from me, and set to work.
But I get the need. I get the desire for someone bigger to turn it all over to. But I learned something, something I’d like to be able to tell every wayward traveler lost in their own dark wood — I didn’t believe in the most important thing, which was my own strength. It was there all along, and when I finally believed in it, that’s when things changed.
There are no gods, and no masters, to turn yourself over to. There is, however, your own amazing strength, and the help of friends. Life is like an Amish barn — set out to build it, and you’re like to find the whole community come out to help you. Wait for someone else to build it, and the cows will get mighty wet the next time it rains.
3 Comments
18 August 2008 at 5:25 pm
I’m quite proud of you for having had the courage to walk through those doors.
18 August 2008 at 6:41 pm
Thank you. I’m very proud of myself. Which is, you know, still such a new feeling that it catches me by surprise all the time.
It’s also weird thinking it’s been over a year now. This last year has been so overwhelming crazy transformative. Boom!
18 August 2008 at 11:45 pm
[...] ***edit: Gregory has just put up a post on the same topic (see comments section below) – here’s the link!*** [...]
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