Holding On

Some months or weeks I catch myself.

I suppose I would call it holding on and holding off.

If you've ever experienced losing someone close to you, perhaps you do this yourself, I don't really know.

It's like, I'm so afraid of losing someone close to me, that I hold them off, but yet attempt to hold onto them. I make sure I keep emotional distance from them, but keep them as close to me as possible, and, in the meantime, worry like heck about them.

There's really no balance possible. I've been thinking a lot about death lately and the meaning of life. The line of my thinking often goes, what's the point of living if we're all going to die anyways? I know it's morose and negative. There's a book in the Bible about how everything is meaningless. That's how I've been feeling lately in regards to most things.

I'm sure a lot of it is due to not having my mom around for yet another Christmas season. Maybe it's something to do with turning 25 and wondering if my life is about lived up. Maybe it's just worry that I WILL lose someone close to me....

because, sometimes that's how life turns out.

It's hard to find a place of peace and rest from all of these questions. I've tried church, but, that even sometimes feels meaningless too. Obviously you can go to church your whole life, but you still will die. Once recently I sat in church and just wrote all my questions leading to what is the meaning of life if only to die?

I guess sometimes I don't want to hear about miracles when sometimes a miracle is all you need and all you don't get. I don't want someone telling me how God got them through this season or that without admitting the amount of pain and suffering and weariness that comes with loss or heartache. That, the pain sometimes outshines the hope. Sometimes all I want is an answer to why? and it's all I never get.

The questions go and come with different waves of my life, they will never leave me until I leave this earth. It doesn't mean I'm sad or depressed. It just means that sometimes the questions roar back into my ears and I have a hard time figuring out what to do about it.

Sometimes I ignore it. Sometimes I fight it. Sometimes I get lost in it.

Perhaps it's the acknowledgment that I am not the only one to feel pain over my mom's death, but that others suffer greatly in regards to her absence. Perhaps it's this burden of pain which leads to hold off and hold on. I know.

I know I don't have to carry this burden. But it's hard to set it down. I almost feel like it's my job to always be stubborn about this. To always ask why. To always feel the waves of pain as thought they are fresh.

I mean, come on. So many people are going to go visit their moms this season. So many young mothers or wives can call up their moms for advice.

I must admit, I do get to call up my Dad. And he's been great.

But perhaps even he would admit, the hardness of missing someone held dear.

Sometimes it's a burden. Just the missing part. The I wish I could see you part. The memory of our last conversation part.

I suppose it's simply just another desert. And like most deserts, there is always hope, even in the darkness.