learning to breathe again

you know those thoughts, those feelings, and the way that the life you desire seems to be just beyond your grasp? almost as if you can feel its energy, you can smell its scent and even taste its flavor on your lips, but to truly hold it in your hands and understand how it looks and the form it takes is just beyond your reach? i, too, wait for the light to turn green, for the darkness to fade, for the joy to return. i understand the heartache that comes with healing. ironic, isn't it? that healing could cause more pain. the guilt of letting go is almost unbearable. i feel traitorous when i begin to sense happiness. i feel despair when i think of love being so close at hand. it's a tricky thing, this life we lead. we get free of one thing, simply to be trapped by another. sometimes the traps are just more to our liking. to be free of the pain, of the despair, of the guilt is, for me, to be trapped inside without release...to push down the feelings and thoughts so that i feel and think nothing, just enter a state of numbness. but it's still a trap. it still hurts when i finally open the prongs to release them from my skin. the puncture holes are still there, biting and stinging. and when the sweat of emotion and thought trickles down my body into the wounds, my safe trap becomes my personal hell. sometimes, breathing is just a fleeting process that takes me from one moment in time to another; sometimes breathing is my gateway to hell; sometimes it is the relief of focusing without feeling too much, yet not fully shutting down; and then, sometimes, breathing is simply that - breathing. all at the same time i am fine and i am not fine; i am alive, and yet part of me is dead. my life is moving forward, and yet i feel as if i am standing still. what do i do, where do i go, to whom do i turn? all these thoughts flood me...they consume me and eat at me. the only time i find peace is when i allow myself to be taken in by God - out of this world, surrounded by His love, His hope. without hope, all seems futile. God is the only center to my universe that makes sense. He loves me when i feel unlovable; He believes in me when all i want to do is run away; He surrounds me with his hope and compassion when i feel that all is lost. He is the faith that keeps me going; the light that glimmers when darkness surrounds; the kind sun that shines - embracing me, warming me, gently filling me with light...allowing me to see the beauty that surrounds me...sometimes even the beauty within me.