Redemption

Every once in a while, out of the blue, something happens that make you confront your own demons again. How many they were. How deep they wounded you. How unfathomable they seemed. How it brought the age old ache that rips just about all your nerve endings. How you never think you'd reach a point of no return. How blatantly stupid one can choose to be. How absurd, impossible, unbelievable. But real, frighteningly real, it scares the whole life out of you. The questions. Ask them, face them, confront them even if the winds cut your face. Because there is really no getting out of this place. No other way but through. One unforgiving truth comes out-- you have never been merciful to yourself. Not even a single bit. I mean do you really have to? You buried it deep enough under mounds of earth the same earth you thought you'd already be buried in. Is there no redemption from this place? This place that you hoped would be your home. Where you would feel the most safe. But then even safety is a mere paradox of your life. Because there is no such thing as certainty, security, assurances. There is only risk. Question is and has always been, "Are you willing to take the risk and is it any worth it?" And you decide. More than a decade ago. You decided. And your heart is out there for all the world to see. And it bled. Naked in all its glory. Just when you thought it would stop beating. You wished it would stop beating. It doesn't stop beating. It furiously fights for its own survival and the little ones who depend on your light, on your life. So now here you are. And guess what, unknowingly your heart is beating outside of your body. Yet again. Vulnerable. Naked. Visible. For all to see, feel, hear, hurt. And why? you ask yourself. Because it is the only way to feel life down to its very core. To feel alive, once, twice, three times, forever. To overwhelm your entire system with the blood pulsing through your veins. There is no bandage, antidote to all this. The irony of all ironies. The truth staring at you in the face, everything clears. Close your eyes, feel it, every bit of sting, every slap of scorching, breathe it all in. Then with one force of a million universes, let it go. Your salvation is your pain. Your pain, your redemption.

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