suffocation
And so I drove away... again...
Leaving so many things that I love, for the one person I love most of all.
I did my best not to stop until I got to this side of Atlanta. If I had stopped before that, I'm sure I would have turned around and headed back home... I mean... to Cleveland.
But, as it were, my gas light came on right when I hit I85 - almost to Athens.
AB asked me, "So, what's it like coming back to Cleveland?"
"It feels like coming home."
Of course, I realize, that within a couple years, all that I love about that place will be gone, and it will be yet another bittersweet part of my past. I will have no reason to go back. That makes me very sad.
Driving home, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was so tempted to turn around... so tempted. I felt suffocated by the life I was going back to. I love my husband. I do. He is the man of my dreams. But the life that he wants for us here... in Watkinsville... is everything that I have fought to stay away from. Yet, as if by some supernatural force, I find myself inexplicably drifting closer and closer to the life that I have always loathed. It takes my breath away... not in a good way... more like it knocks the breath out of me.
Work, school, church, family... work, school, church, family... work, school, church, family... AAAAAAAA! The monotony of it all! And I see no end in sight! Do you see why it suffocates? Why can't he understand that?!
So I'm driving down I75. I can't breathe. I want to cry, but somehow feel all cried out. I pick up the cell to call B... I'm not coming home for a few more days. Call my boss; tell him I'm sick.
Then God.
"Just wait."
I have no friends here. My husband loves me, but I fear may love his friends more. He certainly respects them more. This is too hard!
"Just wait."
And so... I waited... I am waiting.
I then began to think back over difficult times that I have had. Times when I felt that I had lost all faith...and all hope. Times when God felt so very far away, and when I felt so very small.
And still, looking back, I know God was there. Beside me. Every second.
And He worked the circumstances for my good.
Every time.
So, no, today I don't feel much better. I still can't see the forest for the trees. No circumstance has changed.
But something... something is different.
"Just wait."
He has said that to me before.
There have been times when I have waited...
... and times when I have not.
"Just wait."
I'll wait this time.
I'll wait.
"Goodbye. Goodbye."