I’m Back But Is That A Good Thing?

December 1st, 2008 | By Sonnie Johnson

I missed you guys. I missed writing. And I’m going to share something with you today. This is hard for me, so bear with me. I think I’m going to have to break this up in to a couple of sections because I had one hell of an interesting week.

You can tell by the title of this post, I was not over joyed by my Thanksgiving. I had to deal with bad news, which I will share you because your family maybe dealing with some of the same things and we can help each other get through.

Life is hard. I know I throw alot of criticism out but best believe I know that each person has went through something that got them to where they are. The lost or absence of a parent. Abuse or just plain neglect. A sharp and unrelenting dose of reality that crushed a person’s confidence in what they thought they knew. Or it could be as simple as falling in love and having it not work out. All events that shape and create individual personalities.

Mistakes are easy. I preach personal responsibility and that still holds. But there are times when you have so much of the world on your shoulders and so much of other people’s bull laying at your feet, it’s impossible to move. You have to stand there and take the pressure, bearing it without losing your mind. And sometimes the easy way out lifts that burden, for just a while.

And in that moment, you can see things clearly. Including the extra damage you caused by taking the easy way out. But you also catch up on all the emotions you have been trying to hide. You weren’t expecting this. All the backed up pain, all the unresolved lies; I guess you could say, all those skeletons you keep buried in your closet.

And this is where we mess up. One of three things can happen.

We look for the easiest way to push all that mess back into the closet. We drink, smoke, gamble, party or sleep, anything that will make the mind forget. We make the choice to postpone the inevitable. We don’t think of it that way at the time. We make excuses, like “shit this is Thanksgiving, I’m not dealing with that shit”. And off we go on our mission to hide from the rest of the world.

Or we look to place blame elsewhere. We cuss out grandma for letting mom get pregnant in the first place. “I wouldn’t be alive if you watched your daughter closer.” We blame dad for not being there, even though we know how easy it is to get caught up in our lives and forget about those that care for us. We blame people we’ve never met for acts we never experienced. Then after all that redistribution of blame, we wonder why everyone is looking at us like a lost cause.

Or we cry. We let tears rush down our faces burning traces of regret and disappointment in ourselves. We know we were trying to do the right thing but some how it got all mixed up. We know we have to make changes but before that we have to let it out. We have to let out all the mistakes we’ve made and forgive ourselves for them. And only then can we move forward, with clean closets.

Now all of that is well and good but what does it do for me? All I did was try to make it. Maybe I didn’t do everything right but I tried. Where is my scenario?

You are still in the blame scenario. It maybe indirect blame but it is blame non the less. You are not blaming anyone for the creation of your problems but you like to place blame for the lack of change since copping to them. And I’m willing to bet there are still skeletons hidden in your closet.

I’m writing this to make a point. Of all the lessons I’ve learned over this Thanksgiving season, this one is the most potent. At the end of the day, all we have is our mind, our sanity. At the end of the day, all we have is what we’ve done.

You can blame mom and dad for the way they raised you but you can’t blame them for your lack of sanity. And by sanity, I mean that peaceful place that allows you to breath, think, relate, and re-act. Most of us just re-act. We raise our voices and our tempers and lash out. It doesn’t matter where we are or who we’re talking too, we just let it out.

I’ve developed a name for this, Closetitist. Closetitist occurs when a person has to many unresolved issues. When faced with something new, they go into overload. It becomes hard to differentiate and separate the cause of a single problem. All the mess becomes jumbled and they momentarily lose their sanity. This is truly a self inflicted sickness.

There are no drugs, pills or street brand, that will fix it. The cure does not require you to have insurance. Nor do you have to schedule an appointment to lay on some doctor’s couch. All it takes is one step. One step out on faith.

Faith that there is no situation you can’t come out of. Now, if you have digged a ditch to far down to climb out of, this still applies. Maybe you won’t get completely out of the ditch but maybe you can find some light in the darkness.

The question becomes do you want the cure. Is your faith strong enough to bear the weight of the problems you have created? Some of us hold on to mistakes God has already forgiven us for. We are so afraid of everyone else seeing us weak, we hide. We use a nice car or fly outfit to hide. And sometimes it works.

You get the compliments and the looks from people who think they want to be like you but you know better. They may have a shitty car or holes in their shoes but they smile wider that you could imagine your lips stretching. It crushes you to think you would rather be like them. Down on their luck but happy. Scrapping by but at peace. No bling but a spirit that glows.

How did you handle it? I’m betting every single person that reads this had a breakdown this week. Which person were you?

I cried. A lot. I even lost my sanity for a moment. But I’m happy about it. See, the world didn’t stop spinning because I decided I wanted something different. The earth didn’t blow up because I decided to let my family know I wasn’t happy. I didn’t cease to exist because I made a mistake and finally admitted to it.

Instead, my family gave me strength. I got wisdom from those who created a path I’m about to walk. I found a place of comfort amongst those that love me the most. And that caused me to cry harder because all this time my closet could have been cleaned. My sanity could have been restored. I was just to prideful to step out on faith.

Maybe later I’ll give you the whole story. Maybe I’ll wait until it becomes fully resolved. But I will give you this. I’m back and it’s a Great Thing.