The last time I posted, I was in the middle of finals about three weeks ago. The last two entries were poems I wrote during a week that was hard on me mentally. I’ve made it plain that finals week was a mental war of attrition for me, one I don’t know if I won. It was a week I had much more on my mind than just the four tests and a paper I had to somehow find energy to complete that week. More than the anxiety of having a weekend afterward to go see my Grandpa, who’d been in the hospital for ten days. He’s still in assisted care, but doing much better. Days away from Christmas having never entered a store to shop for gifts. Battling thoughts that zoom through my head day and night that make sleep difficult at best. For about two months, I’ve jolted wide awake every morning at almost exactly 3, only to find that sleep doesn’t come before 4:30 and 6:30 comes after opening my eyes perhaps 3 more times between. Even on nights that I’m worn out and turn off my light at 9:30, sleep doesn’t come until midnight or later and then the cycle of restless sleep repeats. There was only one night in the past two months that I’ve slept 6 hours straight.
After finals week and the four days with my grandparents that followed, I tried to concentrate on writing my story, since that’s why I was looking forward to school being done in the first place. For the first time in my entire short life, I am having difficulty concentrating on something I enjoy very much. Whenever I have been able to concentrate on it, the story doesn’t flow out of me like it used to.
On Christmas Eve, I took a moment and was still, trying to listen. All I heard was my ears popping and my heart throbbing. In other times and places, I would be able to catch myself thinking things, if only for a second before some other thought stole through my mind. That day, though, nothing. I was too exhausted to think.
A new year, whatever does it mean? Years mean little when life is taken one slow day at a time. I feel like I’ve been grinding it out for much too long. Someone once asked, “Are you living life or is life living you?” To be painfully honest, in many aspects of the past few months, life has been living me. Often times, it’s thrown me away, to drag me back in when things slow down a very little.
It has been hard, harder than I could ever have imagined, and sometimes I wish these months of days would just end. Yet, many things have encouraged me in these times. With a grain of salt, it hasn’t been all thorns and daggers. December 31st, I read the last chapters of the Bible about the last wedding feast of the Lamb. We who’ve made the Lamb our Lord are all invited; It will be more amazing than anything yet seen. With the last amen I read, I accomplished my only resolution for 2008. Jason challenged me to read through the Bible in 2008 and i did. There were times that I made myself too busy or lost focus on the Lamb who was slain, but He was always there to remind me of His goodness and His perfect faithfulness. This last year, I’ve done many things that I’d never done before, good and bad, but the one thing I can say with absolute confidence is the hours I spent reading the Bible were the best spent hours of my entire life. The Word of God is the most addicting book you’ll ever read. I’m going to read it again, anyone care to take up the challenge?