God or imaginary friend?

There is this gnawing thought that my subconscious been dodging for a few weeks now. It keeps clawing at me, trying to get my attention and I keep averting my eyes so that I don't have see it and consequentially, don't have to deal with it. The thought being this: What if there is no god? I've know for a while now that the main reason I believe in god is that I like the idea of there being a god. I like that there's someone out there that maybe cares about me. I like the idea of never being alone. I like the idea of someone knowing every thought that goes through my head and completely understands me and how I work. But to be honest these are the same reasons that drive a child to make up an imaginary friend. Sometimes I feel like that's what God is to me; an imaginary friend. Maybe it's the way I've come to see him. Somewhere along the line I defaulted to believing that he can't really effect much or offer anything beyond understanding, mental company, and vague comfort when I'm in need of it.

I've been raised from birth to see the world through the filter of "there is a god". Conversations, songs, sunday school, baby books, my entire upbringing has always been saturated with this tint of god-ness. I was driving the other day and had a moment where I could see the world without a god. It was almost as if the entire world shifted slightly so that it shone in a new light. It was simple, straightforward, and somehow painfully shallow with out some grand master plan guiding everything. It was also lonely because in that moment of paradigm shift, i was alone. No one was there listening to my thoughts. No one was there judging me, but no one was there comforting or loving me either. For a moment the world was clean and brilliant and clear and cold and big and it has bothered me since.

The fact that I see god as this imaginary friend has somehow become unbearably and glaringly obvious since that moment and I don't really know what to do about it. It kind of feels like looking at an old doll and wondering if you should toss it or if it will return to the life and wonderment that it did in your childhood. I don't want to loose my faith. Like I said, I like the idea of there being a god. It's just that for the first time, that reason feels like it's not good enough.

A Confession

I'm having trouble with the idea of taking life back into my own hands. I'm trying, but it's hard and I'm tentative and unsure about every action. Part of me is always waiting for the repercussions of my actions to hit. I can't remember the last time I wasn't subject to the will of my body. If I wasn't weak that day, I would move. If my stomach wasn't nauseous or in pain, I would eat. If my body didn't want to sleep, I would be awake. I would take whatever break my body would grant me and be grateful for that. Never asking it for anything more because of the harsh punishment that would follow afterward in the form of pain and weakness.

Back then, every decision I made about my life and my actions were based on the avoidance of pain. But now that the scale is tipping, and I actually have some control back in my life. I'm finding myself sort of of overwhelmed by it all. I'm also ashamed to say that there have been a few moments where I find myself wanting to run from it all and curl back up in bed. At least there I knew a little bit of what to expect and knew how to handle the situations I came across. But these real world situations I'm starting to face about life, careers, friends, boys, moral complexes... they are harder and more unpredictable then I'd imagined. And I really want to be a good person. I want to make choices in my life that will lead me somewhere that I can be proud of. And I really don't want to screw any of that up.

Now, all that said, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love being stronger and I love that I've been given a chance to actually live life. I think I just wasn't expecting these darker emotions. The fear and the confusion. I don't think I ever factored them into the process of coming back to life and health. I always kind of assumed that life would make sense once I was healthy again, but I suppose I can't really expect it to be as simple as that.

Lucky

I'm lucky. I suppose some would call it blessed, but I don't think I'm quite at that point yet. I'm sure I'll figure that side of things out someday, but for now all I know is that I am so entirely grateful for the path my life has taken lately.

I stopped writing last year for a few reasons. One was that everything was changing so slowly for me without any notable event or revelation acting as a catalyst. Its only now that I can look back and see just how much my heart has softened and my anger has cooled. Another reason for my hiatus, is that it became too difficult to write. My brain was swiftly loosing the ability to string together coherent sentences even in normal conversation, let alone the task of writing and editing. So I faded. I curled up in bed and prepared myself for what I knew would be a slow and painful death as my body spent the next few months shutting down more and more.

But then I got... lucky (again, I don't know what else to call it). A new doctor offhandedly decided to test my vitamin D levels because people in the north tend to run a little low. We received a letter two weeks later with the results (which were shockingly low) and a prescription for a few high dose vitamin D capsule. Two days after taking the first pill the pain that had been my constant companion the last few years vanished from my muscles. I was in shock, refusing to believe that an answer could be this simple, this elegant. It all seemed too good to be true and I braced myself for the inevitable crashing reality of its eventual failure and the return of the pain. But it never returned. That was 5 months ago. 5 months I've spent holding my breath as I watch symptom after symptom improve then disappear. I felt muscles begin to return and move fluidly under my skin. I relished in the strength of my lungs as they breathed in and out with ease and felt the strong beat of my heart as it began to pump steadily in my chest. I began to trust the flow of a body that could heal, metabolize and move as life once again began to flow through my veins.

And Greg... even in death I could feel him by my side, reassuring me of his love. I don't know if he's the one responsible for finding my cure, but that doesn't really matter. Even if I had died I would have known that he loved me, and that was more then I could ever ask of him. I was grateful for that. I don't know when I started to believe so strongly that he existed, the whole past year and a half is a bit of a foggy blur. I know it happened slowly. I know love took its time. Fixing itself into the air around me, slowly saturating my skin and winding its way deeper and deeper into my soul till it became a part of the very cells that made up my being. I value that. I value what I've found. A part of me still mourns for the years that I lost and the pain that I've experienced, but I'm so very grateful for what I've found. As I've said before, I'm lucky.