"And this is how I choose to live, as if I'm jumping off a cliff
Knowing that You'll save me, knowing that you'll save me
And after all the stupid things I did, there's nothing left there to forgive
Because You already forgave me, yeah You already forgave me"
That right there is a line from the Relient K song "Death and Taxes." I love Relient K. It seems that one of their albums fits right in with my life at any given time. They get me.
I was thinking about fearlessness today. There is a good reason for this; I went head to head with about a trillion spiders to clean the basement at my Grandmother's house. Now I am by no means afraid of spiders - while living with my mom and younger sisters as a teenager I was the designated killer of anything creepy crawly - but by the time I had vacuumed up my billionth egg sack, I was getting a little paranoid that some huge mama spider was going to magically appear and bite my head off. Yet, I persevered, and my Grandma's basement looks as homey and inviting as it did when I was little.
It's the little victories like the one above that are keeping me going right now. I stand prepared to take a huge leap of faith in my life, and so far my courage hasn't failed me. So far.
I think the hardest thing about leaving will be the separation from my dad and youngest sister. My dad commented on Sunday, in a quiet and sullen way, "I don't want you to go." Talk about having your heart wrenched out and poked with tiny sticks. Dad doesn't share how he's feeling often, but apparently he has even been telling my Grandma that he's already starting to miss me. I can tell that he's trying to stay strong for me, which only makes me love him more. It means a lot that my father is willing to help me do something good for myself at the expense of his own comfort.
My little sister is showing her love in a different way. She clings to me when we are with each other, and demands several hugs before I am allowed to leave her presence. She doesn't want me to leave - unless I take her with me. Someday she'll know that it was primarily for fear of missing out on huge chunks of her growing up that I have stayed here as long as I have. I don't know what it's like to leave a child, but I imagine my feelings about leaving her are very near to the feeling of having to leave one's own child behind.
Despite all of this, I know that I am on the right path. Leaving now is what I need to do in order to restore my sanity, regrow the piece of my heart that was torn away over the past couple of years, and get back to what I know I can be. When I was in the hospital, everyone said it was time to "be selfish" and take care of myself instead of trying to fix/control those around me. Good advice, but hard for someone who looks at selfishness as if it is the worst sin a human could commit. This would be where the fearlessness comes in. In trying something new and different from the way I've always done it, I am throwing caution to the wind and saying that I can forge ahead into the great unknown. There is no room for fear where I am headed; in fact if fear pops up it's ugly head in my way, I'll kill it with the knowledge that I have a safety net. His name is Jesus.
So like the song says, this is how I choose to live. I am making a conscious decision to jump off the cliff that is the dead end my mind brought me to, and trust that I will be saved as I fall. (Side note: That image is totally used in the book "The Silver Chair" when Eustace and Jill have a moment on a clifftop and Aslan helps them to fall to Narnia. C.S. Lewis is awesome)
That's all I have for tonight. More on the morrow.
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