The Lord keeps giving me phoenixes--phoenixes on billboards, notepads, book covers, tattoos, t-shirts, dry erase boards...phoenixes in letters from new friends spilling over with affirmation. I understand.
In approximately 26 hours it will be a new year. Every "Decanuary" when Dick's ball drops, I weep. Auld Lang Syne has kept me sneaking off to the bathroom, weeping softly into the crook of my arm since I was 16. Between sips of wine, toasts, and cheering (that I always separate myself from at the last moment) I can hear my own thoughts. I am the most honest at beginnings and endings.
"I know I seem resolute. But I am not! I hate change, Kacy!"
I exclaimed over the phone (tone dripping with sarcasm).
"You? Hate change? Never!"
This, coming from the girl I dedicated a short mini-novel to after graduation (in grief) before she moved back to Kentucky. I have to be weened into--and out of--things. Sometimes "the drop off" is a slow process. There is so much sorrow in "The Slow". And when considering a slow death it (for some reason) always seems as though it is the better option. Coasting is always our first choice. I suppose we are cowards that way. If we were smart we would beg for abrupt endings--abrupt endings with full explanations. It seems we never get the absolute truth.
I struggle with this too.
Yesterday, I was sitting in my car brooding over a particular situation in which I could not understand another party's intention. Had they hurt me on purpose? Was it ill intentioned? Was it a misunderstanding? So much conflict and miscommunication in life is based on misunderstanding. I wonder how much sin, destruction, and despair we fall into due to miscommunication, misunderstanding and the assumptions that inherently ensue. I wish we could all just be honest. I wish we could be clear. But we are not always brave. And we are not always willing to take an honest look in the mirror and admit we are broken.
I considered what it would be like if we could tap into each other's memories, thoughts and experiences. How would that change us? I theorized to my friend Joel: "I think we would clean up our minds; we would be challenged to consider our intentions...and I believe the world would inherently be a healthier, happier place."
He disagreed:
"No. Numbness would overcome us. As a guy I've seen too many things I would never want someone to know. I've thought too many things. I think it would desensitize us even more than we already are."
Would it be one or the other? Could we come into balance?
I read this book as a psychology major about perspective. In every circumstance, there is the way Subject A perceives a situation. Alternatively, there is the way other parties involved see a situation (that may or may not counter Subject A's experience). Then, there is the absolute truth of the situation itself. I wish our muddy human brains could conceptualize "The Whole". Unfortunately, the bulk of our lives is spent dissecting, reframing, and trying to piece together fragmented pieces of a fraying puzzle that we can never finish.
So what then?
Well, I am finding...then, there is Christ.
Yesterday, I found myself in my favorite place to think and weep: The last bathroom stall on the right at work. I am currently reading a book about a boy who struggles with depression. He says something in the vein of: "Bathrooms are made for people like me..." I understand this boy. Public restrooms have been my solace since I was 13. Sometimes I just need a stall to compartmentalize my thoughts, lock them away, or send them into the city gutter. The latter of which I am struggling with significantly. My thoughts are shit these days.
All of this to say, I do not believe in New Year's resolutions. I do not believe in them...because all the "cool kids" have decided resolution lists are uncool. It is not that I care what the cool kids think...it is simply that I think they are onto something this time. Change does not happen over night. Change is in the baby steps.
As Elizabeth Wurtzel would say: Change happens "gradually...then suddenly."
I had a September Suddenly. I name him that because even though it has only been two weeks since I've seen or spoke to him, I am starting to forget the shape of his face. He is what Lemony Snicket would call a "foggy fog". He came into my life gradually then suddenly, and he exited in the same fashion. I see my eyes again. They disappeared while he was visiting. But when I woke up from a deep autumnal sleep I found...phoenixes.
I hate change. I am not resolute. I believe the picture of growth is a slow-mo domino effect. Healing takes time. Closure isn't always instant.
However,
The concept of rising from the ashes into something new keeps me praying that in the next 26 hours, God will do something magnificent in my spirit. Maybe I will wake up with amnesia and forget the past three months. Or better, maybe I will no longer be angry about knowing now what I wish I had known then. Maybe September Suddenly and I will never cross paths in the new year. Or perhaps it will be the way people portray Heaven: Where we won't know each other anymore. I never really knew September to begin with. So, as January embarks...I am confident fall will fade away into a distant never-was.
Maybe I will sprout wings in 3...2...1...
Happy New Year.
