Ecclesiastes 3 teaches about how God has made a time for all of man’s purposes, it’s a beautiful chapter in its entirety, however there’s a verse that speaks of where I’m at now, it’s in the third verse; a time to break down and a time to build up.
I write about ideas, some I come up with, some are about how I’m feeling right there and then, others are influenced by what I observe in other people’s lives. But ideas are ideas nonetheless and they are subject to corrective criticism. Writing for me has always been my greatest tool for communication, speaking not so much, I tend to lie more actually. Having an outlet to share my honest truth, well, that has been an incredible opportunity for me, it’s also been very therapeutic for me and hoping that I have helped one or two people along the way hasn’t hurt too.
The question to ask now would be, if I felt this way then why did I stop? In truth, real life wasn’t going as well as writing, what I had thought was cut and dried wasn’t anymore, the more I looked at obstacles, the bigger they got till I started to feel like an ant in front of Goliath. I started to do a lot of things that normally were against my personal principles just so I could distract myself, I started to look at other people’s lives relative to mine and down the hill I went. I tried as much as I could to hide it, going as far as avoiding people who were once close to me, I felt alone, I had succeeded in isolating myself so much so that there was no one I felt I could talk to. Also I didn’t want to be pitied nor did I want to be looked at as a failure. In the process, I hurt people close to me without actually realizing that that was what I was doing. Everyone will have tough times no doubt, but not everyone recovers from those times at the same rate, knowing that didn’t stop me from thinking that the world continued spinning and I just wasn’t getting with the program. I felt like a fraud for writing things I knew to be true but failed to apply to myself, how could I lend advice that I wasn’t heeding to?
How did I get out of the hole of self pity and subsequent depression I had plunged into? In truth, I really don’t know if I’ve crawled out of it but a huge slap in my face woke me up. I had to see what I had become through another’s eyes, to measure how true the picture painted of me was, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t believe that I was the person they’d described, I sought to prove them wrong, not for them but for me, so I would be able to live with myself, to do that I had to start from the beginning. I can’t be the judge of me but I believe that the path to discovery of one’s self is a meandering one, some things you’ll get wrong, others you’ll get right, the only thing you can be sure of is motion, if I keep moving, then I’ll get to my destination no matter how long it takes, I have decided not to feel ashamed anymore, I’m going to write honestly and be true to me, it’s the only way I can truly document my own recovery. I think the time to tear down is over, it’s high time some reconstruction was done.
Gloria.
