Today, I went with some Cherry Street guests to the Heidelberg Project for a field trip. From what I understood, the Heildelberg project is basically art made from abandoned homes in Detroit to make a point about social issues. I really liked it, others sat in the van and waited to go home.
One installation there, however, was a river of shoes. I mean literally, a river of thousands of old shoes. People are encouraged to walk over said river of shoes to gain a rounded perspective on the piece. After we grouped back together and debriefed many discussed how they felt as if the shoes represented all walks of life, different experiences, different shoes, if you will. However, what someone else said made me crumble into a million pieces. He said that while the shoes may be different, and have different experiences, they are still in the same river. On the same path. At the core, we share the human experience.
It struck my nerves like a drum not because I resonated with it. It's because the moment he said it, I had never in my life felt more alone.
My entire life, since the moment I was born, has been basically laid out for me step for step. And while for the most part, it felt out of control and dysfunctional or like a train off the tracks- the next move was always planned for me. Sure, I had some involvement in the process of driving through life but, can I really say what I chose had a whole lot of adversity against me? My time in college was incredible, but looking back it seems as if these experiences where a mere chain reaction to each other. Tied to each other like prayer flags. I was a student, an intern, a leader of Cru. had a place in a community. I was a puzzle piece that vaguely and strangely fit into the world somehow, and even if I had to be jammed in, I was still there. Safe. There.
Between May 4th and May 5th, everything I had accumulated in order to create my identity had literally been ripped out from under my feet. I am not a student. I am not an intern. I am not a leader of Cru. I am nothing. I exist.
This has got to be the loneliest a person can be.
It simultaneously feels heavy on my chest, yet distant and airy. All day, everyday it's pick pick pick at the edges of my seams and everything is falling apart. I feel lost in this. I feel like I had just jumped off the dock into an ocean and swept to sea. My salty eyes see nothing but more vast blue. Vast blue upon vast blue upon vast blue.
This must be why they call graduating college a quarter life crisis.
And that's what it is, and this is where I am. I feel so incredibly alone in this. A speck in a universe that has no other specks in it. I'm unsure about who I am, and what I believe, and who I can go to for support.
This is where I am: I am confused, I am lost, I don't know what I want, I'm lonely, I'm angry, I'm depressed. I'm terrified. I don't think this is any kind of fun adventure. I'm not having fun. I don't feel like I have anyone I can turn to for support. I know my identity is in God but, I don't believe it and I certainly don't know how to live it right now. I don't believe things will work out, and sometimes I burst into tears for no apparent reason. I'm also really, really broke. That's where I am. That's where I really, really am. I am an old shoe in a river of other shoes who is afraid that none of the other shoes are in it with her. I am a busted up, partially spray painted person who's lost her laces. Sometimes being nothing sounds better than that.
I think you are a good shoe. A good shoe that will go on many adventures. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe you need to not focus on defining yourself. Instead, just do something good. Produce good fruit. Love people. Eventually you'll figure out who you are and what you need to do. Maybe, for now, just take a step and start doing...you have many years to do many things: many years for mistakes, if you need to make them. Go! Do fantastic, amazing things because you can.