Good to Me

“I want to feel alive again.”

That was a cry of mine for a few years. I’m not entirely sure what happened to have caused such a pervasive numbness in so little time. Yet, without invitation, it repeatedly ran through me whenever I sat down long enough to recognize its quickening footsteps.

In an unintended rebellion to said numbness, I began dedicating my thoughts to knowing the good days as I am in them; to seeing with eyes wide open in awareness and appreciation all the things I have now that I used to wish I would one day have and sometime in the future will wish I still had.

This awareness has positioned me in gratitude and subsequently, carelessness.

Carelessness?

Yes. Carelessness.

I stopped being tired all the time and learned how to longboard, swung on a rope 16 feet above my comfort level, laughed in the face of brown water coming out of my pipes weeks after becoming a first time homeowner, swam in the ocean until my raisined fingers couldn’t last any longer despite the reality that sharks are real and I’m not a great swimmer, and I left a lot of things undone.

Not everything can be neatly wrapped and stored the moment you find it. More often than not, it’s not yours to put away in the first place. Instead, I say, leave it undone.

As much as I’ve fought God’s idea that I can, in prayer, supplication, and praise, put things in His hands and walk away worry free, turns out He ain’t wrong. Don’t confuse these three very Biblically termed steps for theologically steep prayers. I’m really not cool enough for that. Instead, think, “Well, God. That ain’t my job so Imma need You to go ahead and do what you do cuz I know I ain’t got it.” And no ‘amen’ to close either. Just me on my way to eat a snack and move along with my day.

The association between ‘carelessness‘ and ‘irresponsibility’ does not go unnoticed. Yet I continue with ‘carelessness‘ not to promote apathy but for the possibility that not all we deem as ours to hold is indeed ours to hold.

Instead, I look around and I thank God for the goodness that surrounds me whether or not I notice it. I found I see this most clearly when I’m in mountains, sitting by raging waterfalls that run whether or not anyone is there to see or praise its majesty, completely unbothered by the things that bother me. It’s my version of the “lilly in the field” mentality you can find in Matthew 6.

The more I notice these good things, the more I see that they are all gifts. Gifts from a God who, even when lost and wondering when I’d feel alive again, has been so so good to me.

Some call it careless. I'll call it living again.