Why am I so afraid that what I had in the past is the best of what I could have in the future?
Why am I so content with discontentment? Why do I settle for something that clearly doesn’t satisfy? Why is fantasy familiar?
I live in the dreams of the past, clinging to memories and molding them into concrete so they don’t disappear into the void of my future. One foot behind and one foot forward, confused by the balance it provides, yet impatient with the immobility. My present becomes stationary…a screen stuck on a scene. The scene appears to be a highlight reel, but upon closer inspection it’s really just a distorted reality. A story that wanted so badly to end in a happily ever after, but instead ended in tragic toxicity.
I hold onto that tragedy because it feels like the alternative fairytale doesn’t exist. My hallucination of a Hallmark love story turned into a wrecked romance. Yet, somehow, it feels like the peak. What if that experience is all I get to enjoy? What if the gift of that person’s love is the only time I am offered such a gift? What if the way I laughed with that person is the most joy I encounter? What if the way I felt when I was in their presence is the only time I feel the depths of those feelings? What if all of it cannot be replicated or constructed with another person?
How hard it is to let go of something in the past that you aren’t confident you will ever experience again in the future. If only I had the faith to believe there was better. Instead, I am trapped in the in-between – knowing the past cannot be my future, but missing the hope of a better tomorrow.
It all sounds so melodramatic which has never been me. However, this stagnant season demands honesty in order to generate movement. It demands trust in the fact that even if the pinnacle of my past is the summit of my story, the other chapters being written are still worth reading. I have to trust that the Author is still creative and has been known to throw in a good plot twist every now and then. How I pray the story has a crescendo, filled with redemption and restoration. I pray it ends with the main character realizing they were never the main character all along and that the hope they clung to so desperately for so long was worth every painful chapter in order to get to the signature ending of the Author – surrender and freedom.
“Hope delayed makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12
My Mind Vortex 