February 14, 2016

Things have been so mixed up for me lately ... scariest of all, I've been wearing my heart on my sleeve, showing it to people I never dreamed I would; and I feel like I'm walking a tightrope, going to make a wrong step and fall, with a big crowd watching for the splat at the end of the descent.

I've lost my grip on my heart and watched it fall through my fingers for a man I never dreamed it could, but I still don't know if there will be gentle hands outstretched to catch it, or if it's going to hit the pavement again. I've peeked over the fence at the greener grass of another program of study, but don't know if that backward-tugging hand on my coat sleeve is a whisper of truth or a goblin of guilt. I've dared the disapproval of my elders to slip into the back row of a church I never dreamed I'd visit, and tried to hide the squirming of my little Baptist heart at serenely pronounced sentences that rub against every doctrine I've ever embraced.

Am I feeling too much, or too little? I've been walking on eggshells around myself, afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and watching myself explode. I remember God's promise and a sigh of relief bursts from my lips, but seconds later another worry crashes onto the scene and I hastily bind up my emotions again before someone sees the mess.

I'm sure the Holy Spirit is sitting quietly alongside me, watching me blubber and gesticulate and self-flagellate, putting out a gentle hand when I'm in danger of harming myself, and waiting patiently for the storm to be over and for me to meekly reach out for His embrace once again. With all my heart, I want to go back - back before this year, back before the despair of last semester and the anxiety of this one. I want to hunt around in Amish farmland and little country churches, in Civil War museums and textile stores ... and somehow find the parts of myself that I've lost somewhere in the last seven months.

If they're still there. Maybe they're gone forever ...