One Of Those Days

I'm having one of those days when my mind (and maybe more) is not working like I want it to... I feel like something inside has shut down, given up, taken the ball and gone home. And the rest of me wouldn't mind following.

I had a lot of years of living that way - living more internally than externally - and it would be easy to slide back into it. It's easy, it's safe, and it's predictable. But it's a funny thing... since getting a good taste of what truth is like, the comfort that can come from living in even a well-meant fantasy has lost its sheen. I remember how good it felt when I was lost in the middle of it, but I can see now that it's like the numbness that sets in on a cold, cold day... it's not a sign that I'm getting warmer and better. It's a sign that I just don't feel the cold anymore, and if I stay there for too long it will kill me.

It's a funny thing about hypothermia - eventually, you just don't care. You let it kill you because you don't have the strength or will left to do otherwise. I've heard stories of people taking off their clothes and walking naked into a blizzard to their death. By the end, the lie has such a hold on them that they don't even know what the truth is.

But I know better, now.

So I'm choosing to face the cold head-on. To feel it and let it buffet me and mark me, to chill me to the bone but not to numb me. The storms that I've lived through have not made me weak or sad or frightened to carry on; they've given me muscle where I had fat, sight where I had nothing but confusion, and faith and hope where I could not see any reason for hope. And this one won't be any different. So bring on the wind, the cold, the pain and the confusion. I'm ready.