Come this time next year.

Just finished finals. Procrastination was a consistent theme over the past couple of weeks but I didn't let it get the best of me, for the most part anyways. After staying up intermittently writing a paper and drifting off to good tunes, I finished my paper and let my eyes give into the temptation of sleep, rest, rejuvenation. It wasn't enough. I laid there thinking of what awaiting me in mere hours. The dawn came early than expected. I wandered through the day dazed yet focused. Only to come home and collapse from exhaustion. My twin bed in the corner welcomes me with open arms. And considering all this craziness of the last couple weeks, I'd do it over again a million times rather than be where I was this time last year.

I can't really describe what happened other than the house of cards I had built in my head collapsed. The lights just went out. I just lost it. My days soon became a nightmare to go through. Fear gripped my body like a plague. I dropped out of life. Day became night and night became day to me. The only time I could calm down was in the quiet of the middle of the night, when the whole world was asleep. I would just sit and enjoy the fact that my mind had slowed down and that I could just breath. I went home for Christmas but I was a wreck. I couldn't enjoy anything about the holiday season. I was broken. A scratched record on repeat. I died for a little while. Whatever good was in my life had disappeared and I turned into a ghost. An aimless, starving, searching, worrying, lamenting ghost.

Every day sounded like this...

At this time last year I was certain that this misery was here to stay. This was the hand I was dealt. Some people having the blessing of living a happy and blessed life. Others are given the trial to suffer and have faith that there is some purpose in it. I was certain I was the latter. It was just my lot. Happiness wasn't was God had in mind for me, He had something else and I had no say in the matter.

You know it's weird some of the peculiar things you remember during certain times in your life. Last December I specifically remember just standing in the shower and staring at the tile wall for what seemed like hours. I would just sit there and think of every possible terrible thing that could happen in life. I would obsess over disaster all day. I woke up exhausted and went to bed exhausted from a mental obstacle course that I would run through over and over again during the day. I also remember the glimpse moments of relief, when the surge of darkness would subside and I could be in the moment. Like going to a trailblazers game with my family, doing a puzzle of Christmas eve, or just knowing that even if everything were to collapse all around me, my family would still be there.

The process was long one, it took months. Those months felt like decades. I had to learn to cope with pain. Not physical pain, but mental, emotional, and spiritual pain. I had to learn to accept it. I had lessons that I needed to learn, truth I needed to experience. Most of all, I had to learn to be grateful for that pain. I needed refinement.

And I learned some important things about God in the process. Some very personal things about me and Him and our relationship. I learned where I stood with Him. I learned what He is really like. All the false ideas I had were erased by His voice. And I started to realize that the grass still grows in the spring, the sun rises even when it's cloudy, and that whatever happens, things work out.

I sit here and am grateful for the fact that this Christmas, I can actually enjoy Christmas. I can laugh without having to worry about it. And that is the best present I can have this year. It's a good Christmas already.

Because every day sounds like this...

And come this time next year, I am gonna appreciate where I'm at. I am not going to put expectations on the future. I'm just gonna let it be.

Letting go,

Little Lion Man