Glorious

I was a very embodied little girl. Or at least, that's how I remember it. I was always looking for worms in the dirt, apple tree limbs to dangle my feet from, and cold streams to kick up spray with my feet in. Then somehow along the way, I began doing everything in my power to try and get OUT of my body. Or at least feel less IN it. This has manifested in a lot of heavy stuff that I won't start airing out for you right here and now (more for your sake than for mine - if you know me at all, then you'd know I'm an open book. However, some are more comfortable if I keep my pages to myself, I am realizing). But to put it concisely, plainly, and perhaps not delicately, but at least in a more digestible form, I've been seeking relief from my uncomfortableness in my own skin for about 13 years now, toying on and off with the idea of just cutting life lived in it short, kind of like a tenant turning the keys in to their rental prior to the lease being up. I just no longer have an interest in occupying this place.

Obviously, I am still a tenant of my body, as I am presently using it to write this post. And I do intend to continue my occupation of it for as long as God grants. However, I want more than what I just described. I want to be at peace with myself and my humanity in the same way I was when I was young. Not just living, but seeking out the moments that REMIND me I am alive. Wind in my face, sun on my shoulders, scraped knees...

I know that's not most people's experience either. Not necessarily because of conversations I've had with individuals about how embodied or alive they feel, but more from just looking at their faces. The person parking their car, the guy scanning his pack of AAA batteries at the self check out at ingles, the woman standing on the sidewalk with sunglasses, a purse, clear effort and thought put into her appearance, with no satisfaction to speak of. They all look dead. Dead in the eyes, dead in the face, and I bet if I said, "Hello, how are you?" they'd just look at me funny or perhaps even kindly, but then just say, "Fine. How are you?" Because they presume I don't really want to know the answer to that question. And because they don't really know the answer either.

Feeling aliveness and awareness of our own selves can be exhilarating and fun, which is why we seek out adventure and ways to experience it when we are kids. But it can also be intensely painful and terrifying which is also why we eventually stop seeking it out, thanks to all the shame we receive, as if it were a coming of age gift from the world, right around the same time as puberty.

I received my package of shame, unwrapped it, smiled brightly, said "Thank you, I love it!" put it on, and have worn it every day since.

Last night I decided to go for a late run. I used to do this ALL the time in high school. Especially on summer evenings. However, it had been about 11 years since the last time I'd stuffed my feet into my shoes past 9pm and clipped off for an unplanned jaunt. I ran from my home up to the campus of Montreat College. A decent 2 mile start at a barely noticeable but nevertheless steady upward climb. When I reached Lake Susan (a tiny body of water surrounded by a stone pathway, pretty lights, and in late July after 9pm, LOTS of adolescent conferees), the song Pompeii by Bastille began to play in my ears. The song doesn't really hold that much nostalgia for me, but that moment, lived out and felt in that particular way, did. The lyrics beat into my ears, "And if you close your eyes, do you almost feel like you've been here before? And if you close your eyes, do you almost feel like nothing's changed at all?" And I truly didn't feel an iota of a difference from those vivid memories of being in that same place in that seemingly same moment from the past. The orange reflection of the street lamps off the water, the stickiness of the humidity in the air mingling with my own sweat that made me feel accomplished and alive, and the random shrieks of laughter from some enthusiastic preteens who still somehow felt like my peers, were all so familiar. The memories from then paralleled with now, showed no apparent difference, even in me. It sucked me into a reduction of who I was and who I guess I've always been: not enough.

I move past it, unfazed by the reminder of something I guess I've always known (or at least known for the past 13 years). And yet I am sad. I thought I had changed. I had hoped I could and would. And yet I found myself, practically, from what it felt like, in the exact same place. Literally. If I just closed my eyes it seemed like nothing had changed at all.

I circle around and start on my return run home while promising my parasympathetic nervous system that I am not, all of a sudden,16 again, and that I do not need to fight, take flight, or freeze. But I run anyway, my head and heart pounding, feeling the residue of trauma from my own shame of being alive. Because indeed, those late night runs did and do bring me alive in a way that little things are able to these days. Perhaps its because of the dim lighting on the path that requires my senses to be heightened in order to avoid getting a mouthful of asphalt in the middle of my stride. Or the fact that I have to remind myself to periodically clap my hands together and make weird, loud bird calls into the darker parts of my path prior to sprinting into them so I don't rear end a black bear (and no, this habit was not borne out of paranoia but from an actual near collision with a bear's furry rump one night while out on a run). But the aliveness, though tinged with remorse and shame from the past, still feels warm and healing, like blood being allowed back into extremities that have been restricted for a long time.

As I draw close to the end of my journey, another song opens and I experience an entirely different wave of emotions. Glorious by Macklemore comes parading through my ear buds and I get all dancy but also fierce. I mean the general beat and jive of the song is practically the equivalent to a suave punch dancer asking your adrenaline if it could please have the honor, but the lyrics got me, as lyrics often do.

They opened here:

"You know I'm back like I never left Another sprint, another step Another day, another breath."

And these words came to me after just having felt that I'd been pounding pavement in vain, striving toward a finish line that was shrinking on the horizon.

"I feel glorious, glorious Got a chance to start again I was born for this, born for this It's who I am, how could I forget? I made it through the darkest part of the night And now I see the sunrise Now I feel glorious, glorious"

In truth, I've never felt glorious. And I have not felt like I was born for any purpose. In fact, the likelihood that my materialization on earth was a nonevent to the One who I also, with these same lips, say designed and loves me, seems high, though I rarely confess it since it contradicts my beliefs so greatly. But this song seemed to not just be a hype man on my physical run in that moment, but in my metaphorical race of life. A reminder that hey, you are designed with Glory, your identity is rooted in something that will not deteriorate, and that there IS a sunrise to look forward to, though I did and do still feel very much deep within the dark folds of night time.

I sprinted so hard up that last steep hill to my home, keeping my cadence with the beat of Macklemore's spit, but I am pretty sure if it hadn't been for all that adrenaline that had been asked to dance, I would have just dropped to my knees in the middle of the deserted road, and cried.

I asked Hunter, my husband, in the middle of my writing this, if I overshare in my blog posts. He ended up asking me why I write and share them in the first place, and to be honest....I don't really know. I've had a couple people tell me I shouldn't and that it's too much, too heavy, too personal. And yeah, it probably is. I also imagine that for some people it could be "cringey". You know, that feeling you get when you see someone doing or saying something so painful that you actually feel their shame for them? But something I've learned about shame is that you greatly diminish, if not disarm its power altogether, when you speak out loud about it. My own shame and the parts of me that I share through blog posts are not very nice to read all the time, and I confess I've looked back on former posts and cringed on more than one occasion. However, I also believe that when I choose to be vulnerable, I open a space for others to share their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Like dropping a note to friend to let them know they aren't alone. Or crazy. Or perhaps an invitation to take the tightly tied strings off and let some blood flow back into the places of your life that you have been trying to stop being Alive in. This is my imperfectly phrased note to you: You were not made to be dead. You were made to be alive. You're glorious.