Sometimes I want to stop my search for the perfect, the ideal, the unknowable, unreachable goal...that thing that hangs just out of reach that I always wanted, that made me want to grow up, but has confused me ever since...someone wise said that God put eternity in our hearts, but sometimes I want to forget that such a thing exists...eternity...I picture it as a little island...or destination...and that if i find it (in this lifetime) I won't have to travel anymore. So often I've felt so very close, but only realize in the next instant that life is far from perfect, and the mystery of life is so much more than I can ever understand, and eternity, well that's just crazy. I considered this journey to be my lifelong duty, my calling, which in it's daily monotony (life) unfortuantely became like a fulltime job, somedays are terribly routine with no particular purpose, sometimes I want a mental vacation. Most people don't actually want a vacation from their thought-life routine, only their work routine...but since my life is sometimes what I would consider mentally laborious...I take over-analyzing to a whole new level, I think...it's alot of work...
Work. In healthcare we watch people breathe; especially those who have an increased 'work of breathing'; when someone is using excessive energy to maintain their airway and get oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange in the lungs. Breathing becomes something that requires all their attention and energy, they become anxious, can't speak properly...their life is work. Just as I think people can physically become burdened with the work of trying to live, and want a vacation from it. I think I can scare myself by wanting a mental vacation from thinking about eternity...I just want to get a new version for awhile...start over...do things differently...see a different perspective...would i still get to this place...where life seems like such hard work, like I am watching myself painfully breathe.
Life. Popular ideology would have us believe we are empowered people. It is our work to become the creater of our own lives, the sole shapers of our future...it can sound like...what do you want to be when you grow up? What are you going to make of yourself? Go for it! (you) Make all your dreams come true. But thats actually when I stop looking for that island. I forget eternity. I forget life is a journey. And when life doesn't work out...it so quickly turns into..."Hey, they must be a real looser, an empty dreamer, a failure." And what was 'the plan' or purpose and fulfillment, is all just a whole lot of extra work, left barely able to focus on anything else. All that anyone else sees is someone who is getting nowhere though working so very very hard.
Eternity. People don't say that word anymore, we say, "Life-long guarantee". We say, "10 year warrantee". We say, "Hedge your bets, don't take risks, make a five year plan." But we don't say, "Eternity". It's as if that small little reminder, that started me on this trip, becomes obsolete as I see so many more pressing, more immediate milestones of life. But no, Eternity hasn't changed. Eternity is still unknown, untried, missunderstood. I still have not arrived, I am still traveling...
Sometimes I only get this far, I think, I contemplate, I try, I almost come to some sort of conclusion and then I stop. It's frustrating, but then, sometimes, here is where I come back to the beginning of where i started, that there is so much more to life than just validating myself. Here is where I feel like that little island...is somehow the key...and all this work, this restless heart...will find it's rest in something beyond myself...I think Augustine said that his heart was restless too. Where can I find strength to watch someone work just to breathe? Where can I finally lay this mental burden down...eternity. It is where life is more than just working to make something of myself. Thats no answer, it doesn't resolve a whole lot but thats enough for now. I'll get back in that ship and keep sailing...I'll keep thinking:) (and thinking and thinking)...to find something that I can't even understand that someone else put inside of me...eternity
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