Bleeding Through the Bandaid

I'm bleeding, profusely, from a lifeline artery, and I'm applying a bandaid. Why? Because that's how I've survived the many days of my past 10+ years. My former marriage was a bandaid for fear of lonliness. My divorce was a bandaid for fear of suicide. My disease of debt is layers and layers of bandaids pulling away at my hair folicles. A symptom of the fear of lack.

My best friend told me today that I'm not trying hard enough, that I need to stop making such bad decisions out of fear and do what I need to do. My question to her was the same as it has always been. "What can I do?" "What choice can I make?" I feel so burried under a sea of faulty, choices that I don't really see how making good ones now can really save me. But something's gotta give, right? There has to be a day coming in my life when it flows, when it's moving forward and not aimlessly wandering to and fro. She thinks I'm not trying hard enough. Hmmm...I think she's right. In fact, I know she's right. She is always my voice of reason, one of very few people who can alter the course of my thinking. And further, the singular person on this earth I rely on for sound advice. And today, she spoke to me with an authority I've rarely heard from her. She spoke belief into my calling to sing but slapped me into the reality of how I'm standing in my own way. "Faith without works is dead," she quoted. I didn't fully understand what she meant and I tried to argue, but knew she was speaking the absolute truth with pristine clarity. She wasn't just talking about practicing or even earning more money. Putting myself in a position to be blessed with a life full of what I am called to do. "Be completely you," she said.

And here's my next question, Who am I completely? For whatever reason, I thought I had this one in the bag long ago. But I was wrong. I can't answer that question for anything in this world. I mean, I know my flaws. I know my likes and dislikes. I know what brings me joy, pain. But I don't know WHO I am! Like my voice, I'm all fluff and no core. Bummer... and hence all of the bandaids, self-soothing my way through life. Assimilating to the point of compromising my identity, allowing intimidation to . But then, why am I strong? How have I pulled through abandonment, abuse, more abandonment, heart-break, and coerced independence? Have the bandaids just been holding up that well?

These are important questions that have no immediate answers. The most significant thing about them is that are now the pink elephant in the room. And how big and colorful they are. I'm baffled, but what's good is that I don't feel powerless. Doesn't it make things better to know that although you have a disease, that it's treatable, curable even?

I have a severed artery and have nearly bled out, but I'm not supposed to die on the operating table. I cannot go gently into that good night, nor can I slowly fade away. Then I think about the private rantings of others. Their lonliness, their near suffocation at not being able to get things right. Their tears and exasperation. I'm not alone in any of that. It's so dark, all of it, but I'll close tonight with these most fitting words, the most profound set of words I could ever quote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, `Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us. It's in everyone, and, as we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianna Wilson (not Nelson Mandela as it is often miscredited)

Question of the day: Are the symptoms of your fears severing your lifelines?