Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 June 2009 14:43:11
It is a curious thing, my life. I recently got back from a whirlwind visit to my hometown. Walking those streets and talking to friends from the past is an experience hard to describe. It's almost as if I am inhabiting another person's body. I see through their eyes and feel their memories and emotions from decades ago and yet I am somehow removed from it all. I don't know if it is a personal defense mechanism or if it is simply a shared experience for those who have moved away from home for a great length of time.
My childhood was a confusing one to be sure. Yes, there were the innocent halcyon days of adventure and ice cream and swimming holes and such, but there is a dark thread throughout it all as well. Experiences with the supernatural, studies and practices and experimenting with the "hidden" things. Self deprecation and harm, drugs, drinking, bisexuality... so much not fondly remembered.
I tried distancing myself from it all. A new town, new friends, new music and clothing. But it remained. I am washed in the blood of the Lamb, yes, but though I am forgiven my mind cannot forget. I am, after all, a creature full of emotion and memory and sensory impulses. There are times when the most innocent odor - a freshly cut lawn perhaps - can send my mind to a troubled point of my past. I thank God that prayer can save me from dwelling on the thing but I am not as self-disciplined as I like to think I am and therefore sometimes give myself over to despair and depression and let it linger in my spirit.
It is hard going back home because home isn't what it used to be for me. It is now a place of humiliation and regret... a place full of small-minded people and the loss of innocence. When I go home I am reminded that I am just a sojourner; a pilgrim through this barren land. One day I will go home and it will be where I have belonged all along. I desperately long for that home. I want to go where Love can send me... I want to live the life I was meant to live...