The Safety in the Setting

There are certain events that still exist so close to the surface that to pull them out with words would be akin to itching a dangerous scab. Words work best on scars, not scabs; on the parts already cut and healed and marked, not on those so fresh that to prod them is to open up the bleeding. Scars are set and there is safety in the setting.

Much of 2010 is still scabs, those wounds where I’ve managed to stave off infection but haven't yet dealt with the long-term. All that is to say: I can't quite write about this year, because much too much of it is still too close. There has been progress and for those progressions I am thankful. I've built rich and meaningful friendships in places I didn't expect and have gotten better at my current job and my career. I found a fantastic church body and have relished getting to know it. I became more secure in my faith. But I make no bones: it's been an exhausting twelve months. The quaint, quivering little heartache that started the year seems so comical in light of the thunderous and lead-filled bombs of the summer. They simply can't compare.

I learned that there are as many ways to die as there are to live, and that death changes the core of those left behind. I know it's changed me. I learned that death takes bodies and leaves souls but depression takes the soul and leaves the body and no matter which robbing occurs there are those left to deal with the newly empty space. This year both of those losses found me.

I have a coworker who has been a sort of pen-pal these past few months (he works at another office) and lately we've been discussing the concept of community. He brought up the idea that communities are just like ecosystems: there are those who are consumers and those who are providers, and without a balance the community (and the individual) crumbles. I'm struck dumb by his use of ecological terms to describe one's place. 2010 has been a year where I've been a straight consumer. I haven't given anything to anyone this year, and I usually love to serve. I haven't had the energy to encourage or empathize or work at relationships or pursue friendships, haven't had the emotional capacity to look outside myself and I know that I—and those I love—have suffered from it. (To those who stuck with me this past year I offer my deepest gratitude and love. It didn't go unnoticed.) At the beginning of 2010 I predicted it'd be the year of sweetness. I just didn't know the sweetness wouldn't start to come until the very, very end.

2011: the year of renewal: of the mind, of the spirit, of the soul. Let the transformation begin.