In this life it always seems that there is a little more stretching and a little more thinness that we’d planned on. There is always just a little less time and a little less money than we need to really be happy. And I can’t help but feel that at the end of it all, I have to wake myself from walking around like a human shell. Constantly saying “Don’t miss it.”

      It’s just that there can be so much life that gets lost between the breaths and the blinks, and it always seems that there can be something saved for tomorrow or simply done another day. Some days I want to shake it all and scream “Be alive. Don’t miss it. Don’t blink and don’t breathe. Because if you blink you might get caught up in it all and miss the whole point.”

    The worries of today weigh our slumped shoulder far closer to the earth in half delirious living that consists of bland tastes and weak lighting. It is fight, a constant struggle, to to drink our breaths deeply, to feel our feelings intensely, to ensure our time invested in the people that we love. It is far to easy to simply “call her tomorrow” or think “they didn’t send me a card for my birthday either.”

     But what if that is all that matters? What if the whole point is that we walk in this life awake enough to see? Alive enough to taste and breathe, awake enough to see the people and things that cry to us for intimacy and touch? Are we so easily silenced by our work deadlines and our calendars that hold us captive to ball and chain? Is life so easily satisfied that we can merely lay half dead on our couches after 15 hour days of craziness, simply wishing that the world had a slower setting, and the time would pass a little less quickly? Is there a way to fight the cataracts that continually disease our eyes to be blind to all of the beauty and excitement that awaits us if only we could see it?

   It is in the struggle of these these questions that we must sit. That we must drink in the life between the breaths. Inhale and hold deeply. To feel intematly. It is in this that I cry out “Lord dont let me miss the whole thing. All that is beautiful is in you Lord. Let me see it. Take the disease from these old eyes to see the places where you are crashing into my world. Give me ears to hear the symphony that is You all around me. Let me feel your grace that washes over me, declaring your truth in who I am. Rest on me in this place. Let the softness of your life wake me into something more than death. Let me not refuse your call, let me walk willingly in the adventure of it all. Let me sit at your feet and declare that you are the only one for me. That no one other than you can create a life that is worth living with. That at the end of it all it is you that never leaves me. That is you that walks me through the battles and equipts my sward. That is only you that provides and cares for my every need. That you have never left my side, that you have never left me alone, that you have always kept intently your promise that declairs ‘I will never leave you.’ Thank you for letting me play. Thank you for taking the death from my eyes and bringing my shell of a life into a vibrant creation that is worth being lived. Let me not miss it. Let me not feel the chains of death long after they have been removed. Let me not live like a small scared girl. Let me live free. Let me live brightly. Let me live dangerously and excitingly. Show me the places where the illusion of chains still exists, and show me how to move beyong into free new territory. Show me to slow. Show me to breathe. Show me to blink. Show me not to miss it in the breathing and blinking. And most of all, show me how to walk around being alive.”

It’s neither here no there. And that seems to be just the problem. Tired of here. Not sure of how to be there. And even still there are so many questions about there. “Am I ready to be there? Does it mean that I am not ready to be there if I have to ask? How do I know when I get there? When is it soon enough? When it is too soon to be there? Does the time from here to there matter? Do my friends think its too soon? And if they do, does that just show that I am not ready to be there if I have to ask what they think?”

I’m feeling quite small in this moment. Quite little and quite rediculous for having such big wants. Maybe I am always going to be the girl who gets the cart in front of the horse. Maybe Im actually doing this right, but I just dont know it because I’ve never done it right before. Feeling like everyone thinks I am much to young to have this be real. Too young for that job that I know I can do. Too young for the feelings that I want to let myself have.

And yet I also wonder, are these just my reflexions of myself? Is this the fears of what other people will think when they look at me? Do I think that the look at me and say “She is too young, and doesnt know what she is doing, therefore, I must be?”

 I think too hard. I’ve screwed this up too many times for this to really work out. Maybe its all one giant field day of failure. Part of me wants to quit and run right in this moment. Be safe. Work at the coffee shop - single and safe. No job that works too hard and delivers too much responsiblity. No boyfriend to make a collosal mess with. Its amazing how tempting that all sounds, even in its simplicity. To have the coffeeshop job and a party girl mentality just seems to keep the world at bay.

Is it my fight to stay in the limbo even if there are no answers there? Is the challange in this phase to stay with the boy that excites and scares at the same time? Does the battle lie in not running, and doing the things contrary to what always was? Does the distance make it all worth while? Does staying at the job that eats the soul mean for better years when the time has been put i? And at what point do you know when you are simply perservering for the sake of a damn good reward….and when you are just refusing to give up on something that shouldnt be fought for? When do you listen to the friends that tell you that what you are doing is right….and when do you know that it doesnt matter what they think? 

And all of these thoughts for the next place. Yet there is so much about the “this place” and displeases the pallet. Too many things. Streched much too thin. There is never enough. The time is always short. There is always month at the end of the money. There are always tears when there isn’t enough emotion to cover all the bases. There is always shortness and impatience and slight cruelty to people I dont understand. There is always more frustration than seemably goodness.

And coming back the the place where you ask, “Is it here or there where there is enough?” Is it over there where you get too look in the mirror and say “I have just enough for today. Enough things to do. Enough money to cover all of the needs. Enough  fun to make myself laugh. Enough hardship for me not to take it all for granted. Enough joy to make it all worthwhile. Enough pain to make it a fight. Enough love, sadness, things, beauty…there is just enough, and I have no wants.” …Or when said out loud you can hear the rediculousness of it all. The romance in the idea that one day I will be “there” and “there: seems to be satisfaction.

Shakes head. Silly Jenni. There and here have all things in common. Satisfaction does not exist In Limbo.