Lead, Kindly Light

I’ve been calling you again.

You probably didn’t even perceive my pause, because your life continues as it ever did.  You skip along just fine, not knowing that I, at the other end of the line, struggle every day to make this decision:  to call, or not to call?

It has been getting easier and easier to make the decision, but not that much easier to converse.  Have you noticed that we’re not easily laughing together the way we used to?  Does my voice seem a bit more stiff?  Do I seem more distant, animated only when talking about third-party subjects like work, which have come to feel much more “safe” than topics closer to my heart?  Have you noticed?

Probably not.

You have no idea that right now, the reason why I continue to call is out of guilt and out of insurance.  I call you out of guilt because I know that all the trouble you have caused me and are causing me is out of love.  Your big, fat, overflowing, gushing, invasive love.  I’m lucky to have it, yes.  But it is also causing me much pain.

I also call you out of what I call insurance.  Because I remember that just two years ago, I agonized for a different reason:  because I thought you might die very soon, you might leave me, and then I didn’t know what I would do.  And I also remember that three years ago, I resolved to call you as often as possible, because you were taken away in an ambulance and I only found out after receiving 7 missed calls, the scariest thing I have ever seen on my cell phone.  I vowed then not to let you live without knowing how much I cared.

And so now, even though I don’t “want” to, I call.

But it’s still hard.  And I wish you would understand my point of view.  I wish you would learn how to help me while trying to help me, rather than hurting me while trying to help me.  I know, somewhere, that you do it because you care.  But in the moment, I sometimes feel like you do it because you’re afraid of losing me.  And that’s not a way to love me.

Tomorrow I won’t call you.  I’m okay with skipping a day or two here or there, or an entire weekend, since you apparently can’t stand to hear what I’ve been doing or who I’ve been spending time with anyway.  But don’t you worry:  I won’t carry out what I sometimes am tempted to do – to punish you, by distancing myself for real.  I wouldn’t be able to handle that myself – not only because of me, but also because of what it would do to you, how it would hurt you.

So, instead, I will continue as I have been:  carrying this load by myself, battling my own battles by myself, and letting you go on as you have been… skipping along.