It’s funny how we live our days, we trudge through adversity, we laugh through the silly, we look at those around us and yet we don’t see the hurt that many carry.
We converse, we tell stories, we work side-by-side, but do we really know? Do we really know what’s going on inside those around us? Those closest to us, possibly standing right beside?
It’s hard to know someone’s heart. It’s hard to know the things that drive them and the things that are tearing them apart inside. Often times we never know until it’s too late. What if we could show them that in the struggle with death, the struggle with the dark that there is light? There is hope. That there is life!
I went on a 20 year journey. And in that 20 years I produced a lot of hurt, made a lot of mistakes, and every day I had this terrible feeling that I wasn’t enough. Shame and bitterness were tearing me apart. Every day I wanted to not be here.
And then one day I did. In one radical moment I was asked a simple question, and I responded with words I had never heard from inside my spirit or inside my head.
“I want to live.
I just don’t know how.”
A 20 year journey that led to life.
And on the precipice of another anniversary, I hope that anyone who’s listening might realize that you’re not alone. I shared parts of my story with someone tonight, parts I haven’t shared before with them. Because they needed to know. I wanted them to understand.
2020, in the days leading up to me saying those words, I was in a tailspin of self-destruction that I was sure would lead me to the end. Having just been released from the hospital yet again, I was going to be successful this time. I was going to finally be free.
The question… “What do you want Chad?” led to the realization that there might be hope. That the journey wasn’t coming to an end, it was taking a right hand turn that would change every aspect of my life.
In the last five years there have only been a handful of times that I’ve even had an inkling of a thought of the darkness. The emptiness that is there came from a lifting of the shroud that I thought would never go away. Any heaviness that I feel now is nothing compared to the years of trying to carry the heavy burden myself.
I choose life. Every single day. And even when it’s too cold in my drafty house, or it’s just a little too much to face the happy people in the God-box, when I miss my kids more than I know how to express, I do know that I get to do this thing! I choose to do this thing! Life.
If you are struggling with thoughts of exiting this life, I ask you to take just a moment and realize that it does suck, it does feel like the world is going to come to an end, it does want to kick your ass every fucking day, but it’s not. It doesn’t have to. There is hope. If you’re hiding hurts, find a place to share. There’s so much more out there.
Maybe in opening up and sharing the hard, there’s a lifting of the spirit. For me, it took a faith in something much greater than myself to come away from a life of depression, drugs, and depravity.
And just to be honest, I believe in God. I’m so thankful for that still, soft voice that asked me a question.
One I answered from a deeper place than I have ever known, where my spirit was just crying out to be.
To just be…
Still.
~ Peace
The Burtle
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