The last month and 3 days have been quite challenging. With the combination of my own personal situations and the ongoing events with my family, its been a very heavy emotional roller coaster. I realized things were heading south very quickly when I was constantly making visits to the bathroom to shed a few tears during work hours.
Like I said, things have not been a pretty peachy color around here.
A few days ago, I got the cherry on top of the big cake. A very unexpected occurance crawled into my life and now I am learning how to deal with it.
This news was the last straw for me. I crumbled. I have been trying, albeit many times not succeeded, to be a strong, focused individual. I have become the backbone of emotional support for my mother and I couldn't fathom being a wreck in front of her if I was trying to help cope with our pain. I was swallowing it all in, showing a strong facade and try to only cope in private.
But I crumbled.
It is quite hard pretending to be strong when your insides are constantly screaming for help, a shoulder to cry on and just a simple hug. For the past 30+ days, I've laughed, smiled and even gone out more than my usual self. All things of putting up a front.
When that last cherry arrived a few days ago and I crumbled, I prayed.
For anyone, that would seem something normal to do. In time of need, reach out to your higher being.
Not for me.
I have constantly struggled with the construction of organized religion or the belief of any higher being. If I can't see it or hear it, I can't believe in it. I was once challenged by explaining what love is, given that I can't see it or hear it. It took me a while to realize that faith is just the same as love, I have to feel it. The truth is that I have never felt some hunch or indication that there is a god or goddess. And the boundaries of organized religion have never made any sense to me. I very much respect those individuals who worship a being of some sort, being a god or a rubber band, and I commend them for it. Me, I'm in the minority of diagnosing myself as atheist or agnostic.
However, on this occassion, praying just happened. I didn't realize what I had done until a few minutes after I was done. I realized that out of nowhere I had asked for the well being of my family and those I love.
And then I felt guilt.
Guilt because I never pray willingly and now, the first time in who knows how long, I had asked for something only in my time of need. The Best Friend (who used to be The Roommate but now has left my humble abode for his own) reassured that if it came naturally then it must be needed. Seeing as how he is always right, I stopped thinking about it. The guilt didn't go away and there wasn't much I couldn't do so I just let it be.
I began to wonder what it was that make me want to pray. As humans, we are constantly looking for that connections with someone (why else would we spend countless hours trying to find our mate? Come on! There are even websites dedicated to it. Harmony.com anyone?). In times of despair, we have turned to reach out to those who can lift our spirits and give us hope. That is, what I have discovered, is prayer. Its the feeling of telling someone, or something, that we need someone to talk to and to reassure us that things will be ok. It's an invisible best friend.
I can't say that I have been converted. I will need a lot more to make me believe that there is a higher being.
But for now, I prayed. And I still feel guilty about doing so but I feel better.
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