Day Twenty-One: Psalm 42:6-7
The Jordan is even higher today than yesterday. The pool is no longer tranquil…to the contrary…it is now a dangerous sucking whirlpool. How the river mirrors my life. Twenty-two days ago, my life was flowing along pleasantly…now I am in danger of being overcome by life…of being pulled under by the sheer force of my overflowing distress.
I cannot live in my present. It is too painful…too empty…too full…uninhabitable. It feels like drowning in a barren desert. Therefore I create another existence for myself. An existence that does not exist, but one where I can breathe without pain. I must do this if I am to survive.
Benjamin is my constant companion…a pervasive presence. I seek him at the river more so than any other place…there where no one can drag me back to where I do not wish to be. Like the river, his life rushed past me all too quickly. And yet, had I tried to snatch at any event to keep it, it would have trickled out like water between my fingers. One cannot catch a moment in time and keep it…not in a physical sense. No…such things belong to the world of light and shadow…
But I am coming to learn that the mind is at once wonderful and dreadful. I can bring back the most tender moments with a mere thought…a sound…an aroma…only to have it dwindle and fade before I am ready to let it go. And my memories play tricks on me too…they are not always accurate…some events are easily confused with other events. Unpleasant memories are dealt with by my heart. My love intervenes when a negative thought comes to the surface…like the river that sucks under a broken branch only to spit it out on the bank further downstream.
My unreal reality may only contain joy-filled moments. This is what makes the real reality bearable…spit it out or be overcome in the depths of the surging tides.
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