Some chocolate covered delicacies and some unclear philosophy

I’ve felt for a long time that I’ve been on the brink of something big. Something important… like a serious change or some random event like winning the lottery. I don’t know what this something is or if there even is a something…. But I feel a something. Whatever that means.

I’ve expressed before how I feel like two people. Like I’m one person on the outside and totally different on the inside. Like a chocolate covered cherry… except I don’t think I’m that delicious. Maybe more like… a chocolate covered bug. Because they seem pretty normal from the outside but only people with a select palate actually like eating them.  And I’m perfectly ok with being a bug because I would totally eat a chocolate covered bug. Heck, I’ve eaten several non-chocolate bugs largely due to my tendency to never back down on a challenge or my willingness to weird things for a small sum of money. No prostitute jokes please.

Anyway, this two person thing is like I’m this chocolate covered bug on a plate of chocolate covered cherries. I’m just pretending to be a cherry and for all intents and purposes I am a cherry: I look like a chocolate covered cherry, I’m with chocolate covered cherries, I act like a chocolate covered cherry, and sometimes I actually believe I’m a chocolate covered cherry. That is, until someone tries to eat me, then, unless they like tasting bug guts instead of the cherry they were expecting, the game is up. And suddenly I’m confronted with the gap between what I wanted be and what I actually am. A big, terrifying gap that really shouldn’t be there.

Once in a while, when I’m feeling brave, I’ll acknowledge the gap. I’ll consider building a bridge over it or sewing it together or go exploring down it. But I only go as far as I don’t get hurt. At the first sign of the acknowledgement being difficult or unsure in anyway I abandon the project and continue pretending to be a chocolate covered cherry.

But this time, I don’t think I’m going to abandon it. For the first time in literally years I’ve really felt what I feel. I’ve been afraid of it, frustrated by it, hurt by it. This whole process is like stepping into the dark and all I have to hold onto is faith that this will end up ok. That by stepping into the gap, even though I can’t see the bottom, I won’t literally die. I might figuratively die but I think that would be ok. 

I can’t really explain how lost I feel and yet how utterly found I am. Lost because I’ve abandoned control (which I endlessly covet) and found because whether this is good or not, it’s where I need to be. Found because as I’ve stepped into the void, all I’ve had is faith to keep from turning around. Faith that I’m doing what I’ve been asked to do.

It’s so much easier to deny the existence of something that hurts you than to acknowledge it and accept it and welcome it. It’s easy to avoid feeling pain in order to save oneself. But in the process we deny the experience of it and we deny the meaning of it and we deny ourselves the possibility to feel anything other than an emptiness. I don’t think we can ever really understand the meaning of anything good in the world without accepting and even embracing its contrast.

I think for the first time, I’m actually understanding what I’ve known in my mind is true, because I’m coming to know it in my heart. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. Like when your hands have gone numb from the cold for a really long time and they start to thaw. Sometimes it’s really tempting to stay outside because you know how bad it will hurt to come back in. But I don’t think I can be outside any longer. Just like I can’t pretend to be a chocolate covered cherry any longer.

....

I’m really tempted to abandon this chocolate covered cherry analogy because it assumes people can’t change who they are and I whole-heartedly don’t agree with that idea. And I’m disappointed I don’t have any chocolate covered cherries to eat right now because they always sound delicious. That's all I have to say.