Little Miss Random

Let me tell you a little bit about soul pain.

It starts out with just a few cracks on the surface. You wake up the next morning and you realise that you've survived - heck, you have more than survived, you're doing mighty fine. Sure, it's not the most pleasant of experiences, but there it is, right there in front of you, cracked, but intact. You turn it over in your hands, checking it carefully. After all, it is the most valuable, most precious and most fragile thing you possess.

So you turn it over in your hands, running your fingers along the hairline cracks you can see. You breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that in time the cracks will fade and it will be whole again.

Life goes on.

Your mind starts to process what has happened. It wasn't exactly how you thought. Sure, you've survived, but at what cost? You take it out again and look at it. There's a couple of cracks there that you didn't notice before. Or did the other ones just get bigger? You take a deep breath and suck it up, because after all, you've done the hard part right? From now on it's onwards and upwards.

Then you really start to think about it. You think about what you gave, and what you've lost. It starts to fall apart in your hands, and no matter how much you try to hold it together, somehow bits are falling through your fingers, down around your feet. You find yourself on your knees, crying, desperately gathering up the pieces, trying to fit them together, but you're left with a million pieces on the ground and a few jagged edges in your hand, which will cut you if you move just so.

And that's when you really feel it. What it means to have your soul damaged.

And that's when you realise that it's your own fault, and you could have avoided it by one decision. If you'd just gone in the other direction, none of this would be happening. So maybe it still wouldn't have been easy, but it's likely that you would have saved yourself this desperate, aching pain that now dwells deep inside you.

It was my choice. I made the decision knowing that if it didn't work out, I would have to live with the consequences. At the time, I felt it was worth it. Maybe it was justification, or maybe it was truth. I don't know now. In this moment, I'm not sure that it was worth it.

I gave a part of myself away. And now it looks like I gave it to someone who didn't value it. How can that be worth it?

How can I trust myself again?

Because that's what this is about. I started to trust myself, started to believe in my own abilities to care for people and allow people to care for me. I began to trust that I am capable of judging who is worthy of what I'm able to give.

Not to say that only people who return it are worthy, but in this case, it was a pretty important part of the equation. I thought it was mutual. I thought we were in the same headspace.

Maybe we were at the time and since then things have changed. Who knows? There hasn't exactly been a whole lot of clarity about it. I couldn't bring myself to ask the questions that I wanted to ask, because I was hurt. My psyche was turning in on itself, wave upon wave shrivelling inwards in the hope that if it could tighten up fast enough, it wouldn't hurt so much.

But now that I'm starting to explore it, I'm beginning to wonder.

I can't explain what part of me it is that hurts. But there is a physical pain associated with the pain in my heart/soul right now. There's a reason why people believe that the heart is in the centre of the chest - it's because when we're in emotional pain, that's where we feel it physically. Of course with me, I also feel it as a tingling up my arms which is a call for the scissors to make it real. But I think it's safe to say that most people do actually feel that 'right there' feeling.

And it's there. There's nothing I can do about it. I feel as though it is slipping lower and lower the lower I feel.

I believe that giving that part of you away is actually giving a part of your soul to someone else. I believed it before, and now I have the experience to prove it to myself. Going through it now, I see why it is recommended that we wait to give that to someone we know is going to want it and cherish it forever.

Will that change the way I act in the future? I'd like to say that it will, but I'm just not sure that I can say that for sure. I think I still have too much emotional baggage to be strong enough to withold that part of myself from someone that I love. Maybe that's a cop-out, maybe that's an excuse. Or maybe that's a real and valid thing that I need to think about and deal with.

I don't regret it. Without the promise or now even the hope of a future, I can honestly say still say that I love him. Not in a romantic way. But in the way that my soul recognises that he is someone sent by God to be an important part of my journey. An ongoing part of my journey. While it was all happening, I thought it was all just a season. That once that part of the journey was over, we would go our separate ways and remember each other fondly, but that there would be no onging interaction.

But he didn't see it that way. And after a while, neither did I. And maybe some of that was because I thought there was some kind of 'romantic' future possible for us, but mostly it was because of that soul recognition, where I now cannot imagine my life without him in it.

He is still possibly the most interesting person I have ever met. He is still all the things that I have come to love him for - funny and sweet and kind and generous and affectionate and intelligent and passionate and rebellious.

But he is also human. He is also flawed. I once said that I, of all people, knew that he was no angel. But when I said that, it was in the lofty knowledge of one who is in love, that 'he would never do anything to hurt me'. Even though right then, at that moment, he was going off with another girl ... or so the rumour goes.

I see his humanity. I see his flaws. I see his own selfish desires and needs that were being met in that moment. I choose to believe that he would not deliberately hurt me or betray me. But in his imperfection he did hurt me, he may have betrayed me, he probably used me.

Oh God. I have to forgive him.

I don't know if I can do that right now. The mere thought of that nearly had me hyperventilating just now. Because that's admitting that he did something wrong. That's admitting that yes, he did hurt me. That's admitting that yes, he did betray me. That's admitting that yes, he did use me.

And saying that's okay. I love you anyway.

Oh God. I can't do it.

How does God do this, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year? Because surely every hurt that we cause him cuts as deeply as this does me. The Bible tells us that no sin is greater than another, so then the deepest pain that we can inflict can be inflicted by what we might perceive to be the most trivial of misdemeanours.

I can sit here and say that I love him, but only if I'm allowed to hold on to this pain, these things he's done and said and not done and not said. Only if I can hold it against him at a later date to guilt him into loving me a little longer. 'What? You said you don't want to see me next weekend? Remember when you broke my heart and didn't value the precious gift I gave you? Yeah, I thought that might change your mind.'

If I can't hold onto it anymore, that just leaves me as vulnerable as I was before. And I don't want to be vulnerable anymore.

And even though five minutes ago I admitted his humanity, his imperfection and declared I loved him anyway, the thought of having to forgive him for the hurt caused by his humanity, his imperfection has my heart retreating in on itself again, my breath coming in shuddering gasps and the tears once again springing to my eyes.

And that's not about him. That's about me. That's about me castigating myself for opening myself up and trusting myself to someone who wasn't perfect. That's about me finding that very not okay. That's about me truly having to admit that I gave part of myself to someone who wasn't perfect. Which means that I think that people have to be perfect to be worthy of me truly being vulnerable with them.

Is that truly what I think? Do I really think that if I only give my love to people who are perfect, it will all be okay?

This is really about that. Halfway through this post I called him to ask him all the questions I thought I needed answers to, but he wasn't there. I asked him to call me back. He called back just now and I realised that I didn't really need the answers I thought I did after all.

Yes, it does hurt that there's a possibility that I gave something precious to someone who doesn't value it. But that doesn't make it any less valuable a gift. Ultimately it's the value that the giver places on a gift that makes it valuable, not the receiver. That's why it doesn't matter how much a gift costs, as long as it is from the heart.

And it is how much the giver values the recipient too, that is important.

Would it be nice if he valued it highly, that he realised it was a precious gift and treasured it, even if he didn't return those feelings? Of course. It would make me feel hugely better about it, and help me realise that I can trust myself.

But does it make it any less valuable if he doesn't? No. The gift I gave was valuable to me. It was precious to me, and it was something I wanted to give. The person I gave it to was, still is, valuable to me, precious to me, and I still want him to have that gift.

Can souls regrow? If I believe that I have given a part of my soul to him, and I want him to keep it, does that make me any less for the person who I share my soul with for the rest of my life? Does it mean that there will be a part of me missing for someone else down the track? Do I need to take it back, either right now or later on?

Ahhh stream of consciousness, you never let me down. So maybe I haven't done exactly what I need to do tonight to get over it, but I've certainly figured out what it is.

And I feel better.

I wish that I could just go and live in a little hut in Woodford, or maybe somewhere in Kenya. Grow my own crops and barter for whatever else I needed - simple things like chocolate and meat. Where the only contact I had with people was when I needed something tangible and real from them, or they needed something tangible and real from me.

Where God and I could spend the days chatting and thinking up ways by which I could make a difference in the world from the safety of my little hut. Maybe now and again I would make forays into the world to undertake projects, like setting up a foundation to fund orphanages in Kenya, or a big high profile public interest case that would change the face of human rights in the world, or to deliver a message to Christians that I believe God wants them to hear, but that is not available to them through traditional means.

But where I could go back to my little hut and just be.

Where I didn't have to rely on people. Where I didn't have to love people, and be afraid of having them hurt me. Where I didn't have to constantly evaluate my relationships and realise that my expectations are unreasonable and that I need to be more independent. Or that I'm being too independent and need to allow people in more. Where I wasn't terrified to see one of the most amazing people I've ever met in my life because I am so afraid of the hurt that he is capable of dealing to me, holding my heart in his hand.

I wish that I wasn't so relational. I wish that I didn't need to have constant reassurance that I am loved and cherished and desired and appreciated. Where I didn't need physical touch to assure me that I am still real. Where I didn't have to wonder whether what I'm saying or doing or how I'm acting is 'appropriate' because of the specific circumstances of the time, place and relationship.

I wish the approval of my family didn't matter. I wish the fact that the people that I thought I could count on the most for support haven't been able to provide that didn't matter. I wish the fact that the people I feel closest to happen to live not so close didn't matter. I wish my faith didn't matter. I wish the changes that were wrought in me in Kenya didn't matter. I wish that my heart for God didn't matter. I wish the direction of my life didn't matter. I wish that being loved didn't matter. I wish the fact that I send stupid text messages when I'm drunk didn't matter.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I wasn't me, that all this matters so much.