Witt's End

I know how hard it can be to be drowning in the open.  That's what a lot of mental and emotional struggles feel like.  There's an expression, "we may all be in the same storm, but we're not in the same boat." It comes to mind as I think about this.  We all have adversity in life. And we're rightfully self focused throughout most of it. To a fault. That's not a bad thing. If we can't make it through life how do we carry our loved ones or our families through these adversities. We just don't see what others are going through. Oh we make assumptions don't we, but we have no clue.  The only way to know what someone is truly experiencing, feeling, is not through observation. It's through communication.  We miss so much if we only look and watch. One, we can't watch 24/7. We will miss things. Two, we carry biases into our analysis of our observations.  Think about it. You may watch someone every day for 2 hours a day. See them do the same rou

 When I look at biblical stories and heroes there’s a few that always spring to my mind. Peter and the Apostles, Nicodemus, Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, and finally Jonathan son of Saul and his friendship with David. They should have been enemies. Yet they chose to be the best of friends. Jonathan was the son of the King of Israel, Saul. Before the anointing of David he was in line for the throne. He was the crown prince. Given everything most would want. Yet even with all of that privilege he set it aside. For a friend. See David wasn't in line for the throne. But he was prophetically chosen and anointed for the role. Saul didn't appreciate it. And it determined the relationship between Saul and David. It began with suicide mission, and ended in war.  Through it all Jonathan and David had a friendship that they made a covenant over. Now that's stood out to me lately. When we think of covenants and the actions and agreements they bind, certain things come to mind. One, ba

I've been writing more about my health lately. I feel driven too. Yet trepidation about it. I want to be open, honest. I want to reach out and share what this is like that I'm going through. Mental health, physical symptoms. I do it so people don't feel alone and so I can process what I'm going through. I'm not looking for sympathy or pity. I would despise that kind of attention. It's why so much of this has been staying on the blog and not making it to social media profiles. Tonight I find myself dealing with one of my oldest friends. The ceiling. I fell asleep for an hour tonight and boom. Awake all over again. Attempting to close my eyes all over again just makes my heart race, thoughts go crazy.  If I wake in the night, it's over. That's it. Sleep is done. There's a threshold I cross and I can't go back.  Since my teens this has been a problem. It got worse on my mission. Was essential to the Army. Now it drives me through graveyards.  Some s

Change is never easy. It's even harder alone when you think no one is watching. We want people to see us change. We want the difference to be measured. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves.  There's that cliché of wondering if what you've wrote even matters. That post twenties existential crisis about your worth and your contribution. It's real. I'm not going to say it's universal. But there is something about staring at the end of a decade and feeling left behind. Feeling like you may have fallen short.  There are plenty of pieces of art, literature, film that share this idea of running out of time. That the desire to do, become, or produce something of note in our time here. Health changes, disease, injury, close exposure to death of loved ones, sudden career changes or losses, the birth of children, changing or losing a relationship. All are events that can accelerate these feelings of not measuring up. Of missing opportunities. Now here is where

  I feel like things are just slipping through my fingers. I feel like I can’t focus. The meds help for an hour or two. Then the worry sets in. I’m falling further and farther behind. Every noise is happening in my head at once. Simultaneously I’m gathering information on five conversations, the TV, my water heater. My shirt is overwhelming against my skin. I don’t even feel like my body is in it’s normal proportions, the cotton feels like it’s ice on my skin. Sharp yet soft all at once. Breathing for a little while. It helps. For a moment. I scoff that I don’t have time to worry today. I’m struggling to get through the present. That’s a blessing in and of itself.  The exhaustion is gone today. The pain takes a back seat. Everything else is just overwhelming. I can’t process it. Going to the store. I hung on somehow. Yet everything was telling me to run. The whole time I was screaming inside. I’m sure my face looked pained, possibly deranged. I know I couldn’t manage a smile with the g

 Some people can confidently say that there is nothing that they wish they could do over. They proclaim that they have learned from each and every mistake, it's made them who they are, and they won't change any of it.  I'm not one of them.  I wish I could fix some mistakes. I wish I could do things differently. Truly. I think it's part of being human. Regret. A tinge of guilt. We have moments where we didn't measure up to who we were. Or what we knew we should of done. I feel that. I wish I could go back and change that. But more than that, I wish I could go back and do something else. I wish I could tell myself at different moments that I'll be ok. Because I have been there, in darker times without hope. I wish I could go back and give it. More than changing what happened, I wish I could influence how I handled the situations that were occurring around me.  I wish I could tell the kid getting picked on and messed with in 6th grade that the next year would be a

  For those of us who are avowed Christians. For those of us who believe that Christ is the savior and redeemer of us and of our sins, do we believe that? Now I ask this seemingly loaded question for a reason. It’s been my experience that purity has a hierarchy in the culture of the church. Someone who hasn’t made a sin is somehow more worthy than the person who has used the atonement of Christ to cleanse themselves of their sins. And that is bothering me. It bothers me because all of us are guilty of sins. None of us are clean and white as snow or as our savior. We all treat people wrongly. We are angry, we have lustful thoughts.  It bothers me because purity often seems to be a double standard in regards to women. We allow more grace for men who fall. We look for reasons for the fall. We hold women’s modesty responsible for men's actions, or at the very least a significant factor. I don’t see an equal paradigm for men in regards to women. Most importantly this others me because i

Time Fleeting Changing Confining All experience it’s effects But only man is bound By his own creation And volition 11/7/21   For the first time in awhile I can’t explain or define How I feel It’s out of focus It’s out of grasp But I’m reaching Yearning Learning Letting romance happen After a decade of time Like the first  Leaning Not on myself On a friend For the first in awhile I’m asking Is this happiness And can it be alongside sadness A little pain For the first time in awhile  I realize I couldn’t get here Alone For the first time in awhile  11/7/21