take what's left of me..

"i waste my time on things that don't matter, forgetting that people matter more than those things. and you wonder why we start to believe that people don't matter... sure, it may seem easy to replace a person with something else, but until that other thing loves you, it isn't worth much. people will hurt us, but people will also love us, and if we give up on something because it hurts, then we will never learn and we will constantly be stuck in a rut. we hate the rut and we want to get out of the rut, but we dig it deeper because that's how we cope. the razor blades and the alcohol and cigarettes... they're like little shovels, digging our ruts deeper. we want to get out but we want to go deeper because going deeper feels good in the moment, and getting out hurts so much.

so maybe people are our way out. maybe people can help us out. which is to say, maybe you can help somebody out. maybe you can save somebody's life. and maybe it's as easy as saying something to them. and if it's that easy... imagine how much more we can do if we do more than just say something."

- eric [www.myspace.com/ericschripsema]

eric posted this as a comment on the to write love blog yesterday about world suicide prevention day.

it made my eyes fill with tears, wrenched my sould a little bit.
not just his comment, but his comment in relation to the twloha blog.
people are important. people are important.

i know this, i know this so well. but in an attempt to protect myself i've lost some of the value of human relationship. i've had maybe two in-depth honest conversations in the past year. i can remember each of them specifically. and in both i didn't even spill my heart out, only let a little piece seep through. we are called to love in broken places, but how am i supposed to love if i'm the broken place?

the past few days have been hard. i've laid in bed under my covers in the middle of the day and wished i could fall asleep and never wake up, because at least it would make everything go away. i've struggled before, but not like this. not where it feels like my sould is wrenching out and feeling perfectly numb at the same time. not where i know that this God loves me, but i can't make the true choice to love Him back. not where i can see where i need to be, but can't there through my own shroud of lonliness and selfishness.

i know i need to make the choice, the choice to let people in - to know me, to love me, to walk alongside me. as jamie says "call it 'community' or call it the way things are supposed to be." but how do you make a choice that you can't? how do you start when you've tried so many times before? everyone around me has their own lives, their own problems. and they probally don't have the slightest idea that i've been struggling, and they probally don't care. and if there are those out there who do, how do i know who they are?

i can hardly breathe anymore.

all i really am is self-centered and alone.
no matter what anyone says.


p.s. completely unrelated note, but i'm doing a class this semester called 'writing from the heart'. it's writing paragraphs about silly subjects that i don't really care about. i've written one a day for the past five weeks, and not once written 'from the heart', but this blog post on the internet is from my heart. deep down in my heart. ironic? i'm thinking yes..