Still reading the L'Engle book. It's entrancing. Truth be told, it's very..."God-questioning" which is a place that I find myself in from time to time. Not that I don't believe, more that I just don't understand.
This theme was explored in the chapter I was reading last night, and as I was reading I felt myself drift away the way I do when I'm immersed in a new idea, one that is taking me somewhere I don't often go, am afraid to go, or is simply somewhere I've never gone.
It was after midnight, all was quiet on a deep Saturday night, really, early Easter Sunday, this most holy day, when I realized, for the first time in my life, with all my consciousness, that I will one day die. No exaggeration. I intellectually have known this, as we all do, since a certain point in late childhood. But never had I psychologically digested it, and allowed it to flower inside my brain, the thoughts popping up like little blossoms:
I will one day, (I have no idea when) die, no longer exist, cease to be.
No more me, worrying about tomorrow or the next day, or will I ever get married, or get some insane stroke of genius luck, write a book, create a new idea, have a thought that no one else has ever had.
Before this thought set in, I was reading about L'Engle's questions for God, ones that we've all asked ourselves, if we're inclined to think theologically--why is there suffering if there is God, why is there evil, disease, untimely death, war, poverty, all those unpleasant things that take the lustre of off life? Because, the answer inevitably is, we have our own free will here in this life, this life that was created for us, given to us, we steer the ship, even if the ocean was already there first.
I guess that's the simple way of thinking about it.
I've spent an inordinate amount of time lately thinking about life, death, life after death, life right before death, and I've also spent, aside from my workdays in a busy office, a huge amount of time alone. When I'm alone I try to put some order to things. My thoughts, my feelings, my perceptions. Where am I in this phase of my life?
I managed to name the feeling a couple of days ago, maybe on Good Friday, a day I once again had free, and spent totally alone (by choice).
Derailment. That's what I came up with. I'm derailed right now. I like to have a mental picture association for all words, especially ones that are not part of general conversation. For derailment my mental picture is a bit literal, but it doesn't define the word.
A train, slogging along a set of tracks, not surrounded by a city, but rather tangles of trees, all leafless, it's before spring, or late autumn, and the colours are smoke grey and dun brown. Off to one side of the picture, a child walks alongside the tracks and looks straight ahead. Maybe that child is me. The derailment I'm experiencing makes me feel removed and remote from my adult life with its demands of emotional repression, or of trying to create a life that looks like it 'should'. My life doesn't really resemble the shoulds of others' lives. And surrounding circumstances make me feel this keenly right now.
Still reading, writing, running, organizing, but really, treading water.
Waiting, for the inevitable, the next phase.
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