The Edge of Greatness

I've only got a few hours left of my 3-day weekend, and I am sad to see it go. Tomorrow I start back into the normal routine of the life I don't enjoy; the 8-5 daily grind of the job I ought to be grateful for, but have somehow lost the strength to be.

It's been a good weekend. I've just done normal weekend stuff, but with an extra day to rest and get my thoughts together. I took a walk this morning, and it snowed a little, and I just feel a sense of... I guess "peace" is too cliche... but I feel like I see life a little more clearly right now. For the first time in awhile I feel okay. And I wish, so much, that I felt this way more often.

I am on a search for a new life right now. I have grown deeply unsatisfied with what I have currently, and I am working to change it in healthy ways. As much as I don't typically like change, I would change almost everything right now if I could. I still like this city and I have great friends, but other than that... new job, new scenery, new attitude, new everything else would be awesome.

I am trying to do my part. I am making efforts to get in shape and go through all my stuff and only take what I really need into the new house. I am about to update my resume and try to find something more suited to me, and hopefully better pay as well. And even though I'm not really looking for someone, I wouldn't mind getting to the point where I at least felt date-able. Right now I feel like such a mess that I wouldn't dare getting someone else involved with me, unless they really knew what they were getting into. But maybe soon, with a little emotional construction work, I could be closer to ready for that relationship...

And God... I definitely do not feel close to God right now. I know all I need to know, but like I am constantly telling a close friend of mine: "It doesn't matter what you know, it's what you actually believe and live that makes the difference when it comes to eternity..." And I am a little mixed up about what I believe right now, if I am being honest with myself.

I told a girlfriend recently that I feel like a piece of artwork that didn't turn out right, and so got stuffed into the back of God's closet. I mean, at least He kept it. But it's not like He hung it on His wall, where it makes Him smile every day...

Of course I know this isn't truth, it is just my fragile attempt to explain my current emotional state and outlook.

I definitely feel stuck, and I definitely don't feel like I'm a valued member of God's kingdom at the moment. The financial strain and lack of creative necessity in my job has finally caught up with me. I am tired of being poor, tired of paying the minimum amount on my debts, tired of being unhappy, and tired of being, or at least feeling, like second place when it comes to God's daughters. I must find a way to change my perspective. I just wish I knew how already.

Someone I deeply respect told me just this weekend that I am not drowning, as I assumed I was, but that I am right on the edge of greatness. When she said it, it brought to memory my brief moments at the Grand Canyon, peering breathless into something infinitely bigger than I, that I wanted so much to be a part of. I picked up a few rocks, but couldn't grasp it all with just my hand, and I wanted the adventure, but knew I could not survive in the belly of it... in reality, I could only drink in with my eyes and lose myself in wonder...

Can it be? Can it really be that this isn't the end at all, that this isn't the part where I stumble, and fall, and never make it back up... but where I learn that there is something more than I have yet imagined? Am I simply staring at the wall in Plato's cave, wearily watching the same old shapes, with no knowledge of the world that is just beyond my sight? Am I about to turn around and discover light for the first time? Or is hope just another heartache waiting to happen...?

And now, another daylight is fading away, and on to another day that is so like so many before it, and yet different, and new. I do not know what to say, so I merely say a prayer, and go to bed, wishing deep down that I would wake up to another reality... and God knows this well. What he does with that desire, I suppose, is completely up to him.

Here's hoping that at what feels like the end of my rope, I find myself on the edge of greatness instead.