Bondage (Finale)
I saw a bumper sticker last week. It had a black background with white letters that simply stated: All Else Failed. I could only think, “Ain’t that the truth?”
(The story so far: Part I, Part II)
For the next few days, I kept catching myself actually singing worship songs… and you know how much I loath worship songs. (I had another song in my head too, but that one deserves a post in itself, so remind me later.)
So, it was mid November, and I spent the next six weeks trusting in God and chasing every potential social and ministerial opportunity that I saw; trying to endear myself to an increasingly cliquish group who mostly did not seem to care if I was around or not; trying to restore a relationship with someone whom I was too blind to notice was screening my phone calls and unwilling to devote more than a few minutes to talking to me. “She’s just really busy…” I kept telling myself. Until it became obvious that she was perfectly willing to make time for other people. Several other people.
One morning in late December, I was still lying in bed, just thinking things through, and became suddenly so overwhelmed that I let out a bellow of pain. That’s no way to start a day. I let out another later as I beat my fists against the shower wall. (Which at least was less destructive than the last bathroom experience. Why all this rage in the bathroom? I tend to do a lot of my deep thinking in the shower as there is literally no possibility for distraction there… and when I think about certain things, I get angry.) Anyway, it was then that I realized with horror:
I had not been freed from anything… they’re just taking turns!
Who is, you ask? Well, did you do your homework on this post? (I told you it would be relevant.)
When I talk about this kind of thing, some have mistakenly thought that this “Scarecrow” I speak of from time to time is in fact some kind of demonic entity. That is not true. In one of those old posts, I was amazed and delighted to discover the statement: …a Scarecrow is simply a straw man, hung on a cross, to ward off Blackbirds. Wow. One sentence, three metaphors, all TRUE. I wonder how long it took me to think that up?
Anyway, there was a specific point in my life when I “created” this scarecrow in order to protect me from something even worse. (Which I really should have kept in mind when killing him off.) Sometimes even people who believe in God are unwilling to accept the existence of the Devil. Interestingly enough, I technically believed in the Devil first… I imagined a dark presence that sits upon your shoulder and whispers all manner of despairing things in your ear, or maybe straight into the back of your mind… I just called him The Blackbird.
As for the other… I have not mentioned to anyone what exactly I was doing last summer, when my friends had all left or were otherwise occupied, as I turned away from God. Maybe someday I will, but suffice to say for now, as the record that I did leave indicates, I identified a new demon.
So then, the Blackbird and the Wolf. Or as Radiohead so succinctly put it:
Sometimes you sulk… sometimes you BURN.
The problem, obviously, is that I said I was trusting in God’s plan, but I was still looking to this girl as a sort of “litmus test.” I will know God is real when He restores this relationship. I had given myself the loose deadline of New Year’s to get things straightened out. It had seemed like plenty of time, yet it didn’t happen. I couldn’t help but think that if I had only had my breakthrough a month earlier, I might have gotten somewhere. For everything had started to change back in October, but I wasn’t ready to move until November. As the year drew to a close, it was clear that I had fallen once more.
I put my trust in you
pushed as far as I could go
for all this, there’s only one thing you should know…
I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter!
–Linkin Park
So that about brings us to here. It really makes no difference how much I love her, the fact remains that she did not respect me. Traditionally, I signal the end of a relationship by cutting off all of my hair. This posed a slight problem at the end of my third relationship, because I had actually never stopped cutting off my hair since the last time.
Are you ever in luck…
For as it turns out, at this point my hair was probably the longest that it had been in about six years… but I worked hard on that…
If you consider not doing anything for months and months “working hard.”
But I had been wanting to try something new, let it grow; I had been wanting to dye it as well, but was never properly motivated to undertake that operation.
That’s nice… Gone!
But it’s January…
GONE!
So I cut it all off again. I had also been trying some facial hair at the time and when I looked in the mirror the first time, my only thought was, “Man, you look like you just got out of prison.”
I DID JUST GET OUT OF PRISON!
But I didn’t necessarily want everyone that I met thinking the same thing, so that had to go too. I looked in the mirror once more and realized, “Now you look like a monk.”
I AM A MONK!
Yeah… don’t push it. Anyway, not a monk, but a soldier. I had named my demons, and I was ready to put on the full armor of God, look them right in the eye and say, “I know what you’re doing… AND YOU CAN STOP NOW!”
Of course, people can’t help but wonder why someone would cut off all his hair in the middle of winter, so I told people that it was my New Year’s Resolution to lose weight… which I thought was pretty funny.
…Yet so very very true.