PARTUM

i'm trying to find god and people tell me he hasn't gone anywhere, that he's there if you just reach out but i don't know how i'm supposed to.

i don't know when praying started feeling like i was talking to myself and i know there's no formula but when it's dark out and it's too quiet i just want to be able to shake the feeling that i'm alone.

how do you know when god is there? how do you rely on someone when you hear stories of him being great and kind and amazing but you never hear him?

maybe i'm being selfish. maybe this was never about me. but i'm broken and lonely and i was told there would be everlasting love. (i feel like an entitled child.)

1. there's something about darkness. you lie awake at night because it's too hot and it's too quiet and you can't see, and every thought that got scared away by the light comes seeping back. all the edges are blurred. anxiety is your best friend, anxiety is the bad influence your mother warned you about.

2. you speak to him as you've spoken to the others before him, who have come and gone and taken a part of you with them. i'm sorry, you say. you wrap yourself in words you think will drive him away and instead there are apologies.

people search for meaning in their lives. that's it. that's what separates us from all the other animals. we stumble along making money and watching television and at the core of it all, we're constantly looking for something more--like compensation for all the work that goes into existing. i've decided that what we're looking for is ourselves.

buying stuff is a popular means to an end: people define themselves by the things they own. others more philanthropic have decided that in order to gain oneself, one must give to the poor. we take up the guitar. arts and crafts. religion.

my mom recently started working from home. other than the drastic improvement in my sleep schedule, the biggest change is the amount of talking going on. we hang out in her new home office having irrelevant conversations that will probably mean nothing tomorrow, but mean everything 30 years from now.

if you ask me, we can't find who we are by ourselves--we find it in other people. we empathize. create relationships out of nothing; end them. we fight and love and discover with dialogue. in other words, our attempts to connect bring forward thoughts and ideas and beliefs that we never knew we held. we reach out hoping that discourse will help us make sense of what happens inside us.