June 28, 2019
Too much tonight. Too much. Everything must be done a specific way. It’s just too much.
I took the garbage out. My purse was still in the car, and the keys were in my hand. I left. Messaged I was going for a drive.
I drove way out on Cook’s Hill Road, west towards the ocean. I drove through twisted roads, bordered by open valleys lined with hills and hills behind and hills even beyond. Deep dark mossy rain forests formed dense canopies over the road. The day was partly cloudy, and the clouds, even the clouds, were beautiful. I hate clouds. I hate rain. I hate grey. But it was truly spectacular.
I drove so far west, I got lost. I had to set Google maps to take me home and the app was in “recalculating” mode for nearly an hour. Finally I came out on a road with a sign that pointed to Centralia. I headed east. I reluctantly followed the call of responsibility. I did right.
It was dusk. I turned a corner and saw a young doe dipping it’s slender neck to the ground. I slowed, reached out hard with my hand and grasped the vision for a permanent memory. I thought perhaps God sent an angel, to help me know there is still good in the world. Still good to come.
For so so long, I’ve been trying to get above the depression, to get ahead of the illness. I felt I was having breakthroughs. So slow, so painstaking, but in the lookback, I’d come so far. And now I’m back at the place I started. The place I left three years ago to start anew in Louisville.
Louisville was not Zanadu. Louisville was a mixed experience of the deepest pain and the most intense growth. But Louisville was a miracle. My miracle. I’ve no regrets. Louisville was my home.
And here I am. Back in Centralia. I remind myself that wherever you go, there you are. This won’t be permanent. It will be for a season, not necessarily for all time. But for now, it is my house of pain.
Watching my mother, it is difficult to cling to any belief there is better to come for me, as I travel blindly, fearfully, into that unknown future for which I am destined. It isn’t a hopeful picture.
Loss. Loss is the word that hovers over my image of what my future may hold. Loss, defeat, resignation and untidy unsatisfying endings. Reconciliations never achieved. Loss.
Are better days ahead? I fear not. But fear is the imagination taking a detour from hope. And I don’t want to follow fear. I want to follow Hope.
God help me.
