I am 25 years old. As young as that seems or sounds I cannot help but begin to look at my life over the last seven years and gasp and how fast that time has moved.
What's worse than considering how fast the time has moved is evaluating the quality of that time.
In those seven years I have found love and just as fast I have lost love. I have gained a sister, a nephew, and a niece. I have gained friends and lost friends. I have learned how to play various musical instruments, I have learned how to sing songs. I have created memories; beautiful memories I still dream of and haunting memories I wish I could take away. I have lost two grandfathers and one grandmother. I wrecked two cars and purchased a brand new car.
For some reason, and beyond my choice, I have begun to look back at my life. My focus has been on the relationships I once had. Friendships and romantic relationships.
Throughout these seven years I have had one consistent force operating in my life, my ability to disown people. I believe everyone I enter into a relationship with will hurt me. Some may take weeks, some years, but eventually I will be wounded. Without realizing what I've done, I have ended or ignored the relationship before I could be hurt. I've always justified why the relationship failed or faltered, and I've done a good job convincing myself and others why things happened the way they did. My reasoning has varied from each person. They were trying to control me, they were holding me back, there was something or someone better for me, they were lying to me, they really didn't like me, etc. Until now I always thought I was right, I thought I was making the right choices, that I was the one being hurt and had to abandon everything. What I am realizing is I was the person causing the hurt, I was the person doing the wounding. Now I find myself alone.
I can remember the first friendship I had that ended in hurt. I was in high school, I believe a freshman. Two of my friends and I had a fight over something and the friendship ended in ugly sorts. It hurt, it was my first friendship that had ended badly. A few sundays later I was in church and I went up front after the service for prayer. After I was prayed for I stayed there praying to God. My father walked up front, gave me a hug, and told me "don't keep this hurt, don't carry this pain through your life." I remember thinking at that moment that I was done with the pain, that I would never have to worry about the hurt again.
Well, here I am at 25 looking back on the relationships I've had since that moment and it's obvious to me that I never let that pain leave. From that situation when I was 13 I have been leaving relationships early for fear of being hurt. I've had this idea of what a perfect relationship looks and feels like. When I don't feel things progressing in a direction I feel they should go, I jump ship. unfortunately I poke a few holes in the boat on my way out. I have a gift for burning bridges when I cross them.
Recently I was tasked with writing out who I am and what I feel I am supposed to do with my life. When I think about writing I am filled with fear, Fear what the page will read when I am finished.
I've thought about what I would write down and for some reason those thoughts lead me to wondering how many people would be in attendance at my funeral if I were to die today. I know that probably sounds pompous, But what is life other than sharing, grasping, expressing, and living within love? It's not so much about feeling popular because of the amount of people I believe would attend my funeral, it's more about considering all the people I've hurt along the years. Low attendance to me would be a direct response to the question of how many people I've wounded throughout my life.
In some way I am glad to be discovering my pain at 25 and not when I'm 50. Still, the thought of everyone I've hurt in my past has broken me. I've spent these days crying, walking around and feeling nothing except pain. This is my black dog, my shadow of despair, my storm cloud hovering above. When will it pass? I'm not sure. I know it hurts like hell, like everything I loved has been taken away from me. I know God is involved. I know it's a process, an exposing, a healing. I know sometimes it's better to run towards the pain than retreat from it's grasp. And that's what I'm doing. I'm doing as best I can to embrace what is happening in my life, What I have caused to happen in my life.
I'm not saying God is a bully, I'm not saying this is some unjust thing that is happening to my life. Honestly, I don't want to assume I understand anything that is happening. I just want to believe God is doing a good work within me, even if it hurts like hell right now.
I heard it said once "no man is an island." It feels like I have created my own island. The island was once large and beautiful, it had a nice resort located near the ocean, something you'd see in a travel magazine. Now the island is sinking into the sea.
To those I have hurt, abandoned, divorced, left stranded, beat up, judged, lied to, and forgotten. I am, from the bottom of my heart, sorry. I hope that the hurt I lived through and carried these years has not transferred onto you. I pray you can forgive me.
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