These days I cry at the drop of a hat.
Now, I’ve always been a crier, but in the last 8-10 months I think I’ve cried more tears than I’ve cried in my entire life. But as the hard guy that I am (and knowing that I can cry for Africa), I’ve adopted 2 very important rules:
1. Never cry before the reason for your tears, and
2. Cry until there are no tears left, and then deal with it, whatever it might be.
These rules were given to me by a friend who’s living his best life globetrotting, but at the time when he told me this we were just two clueless youths trying to graduate uni with our minds intact. But I’ve held on to them ever since. With every rejection email, every relationship disappointment, every health and life/death scare, I’ve held on to them. Even when the tears are burning behind shut eyelids, I force them back with every shred of control until I can let them go. Alone. In recent times though, I’ve come to value my life differently. To value the people around me differently too, because in recent times I’ve come to truly appreciate how easily someone can be here today and gone tomorrow. And it doesn’t make sense. It really doesn’t make sense. But yeah, the clock never stops. So we live, we learn, we love. But it never seems to get any easier.
So what do we do when nothing seems to work? When we try and try and try again, and still fall short? What do we do when we work as hard as we can, and still do not succeed? What on earth can we do when failure seems to dog our steps, despite all our effort? You want the honest answer? I don’t know.
I know you were hoping for something profound and enlightening, but I truly do not know. If you do, if you have any ideas at all, please tell me because I’m dealing with them too, and I genuinely don’t know how to exist like this. I’m not this girl. I’m the girl who always, always has a backup plan for her backup plan. The one who always knows alternative paths to the same destination. I’m that girl. But I’ve barely been able to recognise myself these days, and that’s the hardest part. Plus, I know I’m not alone.
Things work out sometimes, and although we would like for that to happen all the time, it doesn’t. Sometimes, they just don’t work out. It’s a huge bummer, and it does throw a wrench in our plans for our lives, but it happens. And we try to rationalize things, tell ourselves things like, “God’s time is the best”, or “delay isn’t denial”, and to be honest, most days it’s true. But then sometimes it isn’t, and we don’t know when God’s time is, or if the denial is a precursor to something better, or if it’s just that. Denial. Because that’s exactly what it feels like. And make no mistake, it stings like an angry, lifesize queen bee.
Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in the Word of God more than ever because it’s literally the only ground beneath my feet. I’m just exhausted. Literally. I’m all out of plans, fresh out of ideas. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. But it’s hard, painfully hard to be here and still function. To feel like this, and still show up to be a hundred different things to a hundred different people. But… c’est la vie. Time, tide and relative biology wait for no man or woman. So the real question now is, what next? What happens when you’re juggling life and health and mind and will? Well, again I don’t know. So I’m just going to do what I do everyday these days. Take every single thing to God, go to bed and prayyyyy I receive blessed strength to get up tomorrow and do it all again.
You might not always get what you want. Lol, you might hardly ever get it, no matter how much you want it. And when you’ve faced disappointment after disappointment, it’s easier to just let things come and go without being bothered enough to try. I get that. Tbh, I’ve been there, I’m still there, and I might be there again. There’s no way you can catch a breath when life is doing, ” pick 2, pick another 2, go to market, last card, check up” with your mental health, but you need to.
So if you’re doing good, thank the Lord for you. I love it, and I pray that you always do good. But if you’re not, and you understand what I’m talking about, and the tears are burning behind your eyes too… If you’re here, and it’s hard to be when you can’t even breathe, I get it. I do. And it’s okay, or at least I think it is. Because I’m not alone, and neither are you. As cliche as it sounds, it’s true. God is here, and He remains good. That’s the one truth that’ll get you through this. He is good. He was, and He always will be. But today, right now, He is. He also lives in us, so even if you want to be all alone to throw yourself the biggest pity party, it doesn’t work that way. And guess what else? We have each other, we always will.
I hope something about knowing this helps you. I know it sure helps me.
All the love I have to give,
Gabrielle…
