alive in this moment

i keep telling myself i will be asleep come 4am tomorrow morning.

and yet here i am, awake yet again. this has to stop.

i've been realizing how much i really need to learn how to love.

i feel like i'm generally a pretty good guy, but when it comes to love, its like a foreign concept to me sometimes.

i'll do things because i'm responsible, or obligated, or because it's the right thing to do. i will be a good friend, i will do the right things. but when it gets down to the nitty gritty details, i just don't think i cut it when it comes to relationships with people. i don't show much love in actions, in words...i dunno. it just doesn't seem like something that comes naturally of me.

i can take care of people, but i'm not sure i have the slightest idea what it means to love them.

conversely, i think the hardest thing in the world at the moment is just ltaking care of myself, let alone learning to love myself.

it seems like i'm always kicking myself, or beating myself up for so much of my problems, and the struggles that i'm going through. as if i deserve nothing but the bad, and totally am not worthy of being blessed by God when it happens (and it happens often).

why? why can't i just be grateful, or appreciative, or humbled by love? why must i be so damn cynical? so judgmental?

and i want so bad to be able to give it all up. i wish at the end of every day that i had given more up to God. that i had trusted more, that i had just stopped trying to take things into my own control. to let go of everything i'm holding onto dearly -- to allow myself to be broken.

i want all the benefits without putting in the effort, or the time. and i hate myself for it.

i mean, the truth is, i'm not in a terrible situation. i'm unemployed, but i've had plenty of chances to work. i'm fed, i'm clothed, i have all the creature comforts and doo-dads a guy could ask for. in short, i'm living the life.

but -- and this isn't a recent realization -- this just isn't what i want.

the reason the past little while has been the hardest period i think i've been through since first andsecond year, is because i feel like i did in second year. i feel like i'm disonnected from God.

i can't worship, i can't pray, i can't bring myself to listen or follow or trust or love.

i don't know who i am anymore.

i keep saying the words "it's going to be ok".

and i know that sometimes, we have to go through trials, and He never gives us more than we can handle. but sometimes it feels like i've already reached that point. where'd i want to just concede how much easier and happier i'd be if i wasn't spending my time trying to please a God i can't seem to know, or see, or hear or reach. of trying to satsify these expectations and standards -- or setting this bar for myself that i will never reach.

i want to say it can't be done, and live my life ignoring it because if i could just do that, i'd have money, and friends, and a nice car, and i'd be so much happier.

but i can't. i just can't, because i know the truth. i know i won't feel complete. i know slowly a hole will grow in my heart that will gnaw away at my insides until i feel as if i am completely hollow inside -- devoid of humanity, purpose, meaning or life itself.

and i know where the only place i can turn to fill that hole is.

and despite my failures. despite my struggle, despite the fact that right now there really isn't a light at the end of the tunnel....i just have to keep on going. because i know that it's worth it. i know in that moment when things become clear, and God says "hey -- you did good". and in that moment, i will realize again that i.....am loved. that someone loves me so much more than i deserve, with a love that is so much greater than i can wrap my head around.

and not only that i am loved, but that i am deservedly loved.

and i know i'm not just going to be able to say it, but i'll be able to believe it again -- at some point.

and there will be no dark days, no long nights, no self-doubting moments that can ever overshadow that knowledge.

because despite it's intangible nature, that moment will be more real than the very computer i'm typing this on, or the desk that supports it. and all i can do until i get there, is try to be the best me i can be, even of in the meantime that seems like not a very great person.

but there's a reason. there's a plan.

and my only goal right now is to see that plan through to the end, no matter how hard it is.