Confessions

I’ve had a lot on my mind these recent weeks. These thoughts swirl through my mind, back and forth. They circle my brain as a predator does to its prey. I want to run from them. I wish to be free from their grasp. I tell myself to “let go” but the truth is, I never wanted to let you go in the first place.

Stubborn pride, I suppose. I fought to find you and I fought to keep you despite the hurdles put in front of us. I was determined and destined to see my plan come to fruition. I wanted it. I needed it. I longed for it.

I spent days, nights, weeks, months, trying to convince myself that it was working; that we were working. For all of my efforts, the still-small voice kept whispering “it isn’t worth it.”

I knew that you and I weren’t going to last. I justified staying with you. I pleaded with myself to find any excuse to pin the problem on me. I wanted to believe that my anxiety was unfounded. I wanted to know that my doubts were based off of an imagination that thrived on fear. So I fought.

I blamed my anxiety on my “flight” tendency. I was afraid of what I knew so I wanted to run. I didn’t want to face this challenge. It was easier for me to give it all up than it was to stay. The problem was with me, not you. At least, that’s what I told myself.

It turns out that my anxiety wasn’t unfounded. My doubts weren’t really doubts after all. The truth was sitting at the forefront of my brain but I didn’t want to believe it. I had finally found something good. As far as I could tell, there was no logical, explanative reason to end our relationship. I was blind.

The truth has a funny way of clearing the muck away from our eyes. I reached my breaking point. I realized that while I was the farthest thing from perfect, the issue wasn’t with me. It all came down to the fact that you weren’t looking for the life that I was. Blinded by my desperation to latch on to the one good thing that had come my way, I couldn’t accept the fact that you never wanted it in the first place.

This shouldn’t come as “new” to you, we’ve discussed this before. What may surprise you is that I have yet to grieve over any of this.

Not once, since we went our separate ways, have I cried over losing you. Not once have I looked back and truly longed to have you back. I’ve had moments of loneliness but logic quickly pushed my emotion out of the way. 

The overarching emotion that I’ve experienced is apathy. I suppose that all of my effort, emotion, and energy was exhausted on fighting to keep something that wasn’t ready to be kept. 

I sit here now with very little motivation in maintaining any semblance of contact with you. It’s the winter, as you know. I’m too busy fending off a lingering depression while I watch you from a distance. Tears or not, it’s time to let you go.

I thought I had done so before but I realize that all of my emotion towards you was another way of saying goodbye. It’s with that that I burn this bridge, settle into the ashes, and mourn what once was and what can never be. 

When I am finished, I will stand up, brush off the dust, and move forward.

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I have found that expressing your deepest thoughts, dreams, and fears can be one of the most liberating practices you can do. I hope that you enjoyed what you read and that it even inspires you to move on in your own way.

As you can probably tell, my depression is lingering ever closer these days. It’s hard to wake up. It’s hard to write. It’s hard to stay motivated. I’m trying to maintain a level of joy and cheer but the fight is becoming increasingly difficult as we dive deeper into the winter months. I know that I am not the only one.

With that said, don’t forget to join us this Wednesday for our next entry into Finding Who We Are. My Dad is actually our guest author this week. I’m incredibly excited to share with you what he has written. I have the utmost respect for him and I hope that you will make an effort to read his post.

Let me know how you are doing in the comments below or if there are ways that I could be praying for you.

You are loved.

You are valued.