Trapped in paradise

Today I awoke, and packed up my stuff, ready to catch my ferry to Dubrovnik. I checked out of my hotel, and began the long haul to the other side of the city where the docks are. The streets where especially crowded, and my patience was tested more than once by the frequent tour group, or old lady who just had to have a picture on the tiny bridge, and didn't care about the hundreds of the rest of us trying to squeeze around them. I've grown accustomed to pushing around little old ladies, and small children with ballet dancer precision. Europeans are usually pretty good about staying out of my way when I'm carrying my backpack. I think seeing me struggling with every ounce of me to haul on one more block, sure my back will break at any moment, reminds them of the time they did something similar once themselves. I usually get a friendly nod, and they clear the way for me as I go by. A couple hours later, I reached the docks where the ferry station was. Upon reaching it, I couldn't see anyone inside. I pulled on the handle of the door, hoping by some chance they were all just somewhere else at that moment. However, the door wouldn't budge. I slumped down onto the ground, defeated. The sweat rolled off my face in almond sized drops. I laid there for a while wondering what went wrong. A ways down, a fishing boat pulled into harbor, so I gathered my things and asked them how I could get get to Croatia today. They seemed as surprised that the ferry station was closed as I was, but one of them walked a ways down the harbor to another station with me to see what was going on. We talked to a guard, and he told us every thing's closed down here on Sundays, so I'd just have to come back tomorrow. I was stuck here for another day, and I had just checked out of my hotel which was miles in the other direction anyway. I thanked the sailors for their help, and then I walked down the harbor trying to figure out what to do now.

I began to come to terms with the idea of just crashing on a wall by the harbor, and sleeping there for the night out on the street. I walked inward as far I could go to where I thought might be a place away from the cold air of the sea, and one that might stay populated through the majority of the night. As I prepared to collapse onto the street, I noticed another hotel right there. I thought I'd give it a shot and see if they have anything available fairly cheap. To my astonishment, they did. It seemed, for the moment, I was saved from spending a night on the street. I decided that today I'd just spend resting. I've had a hard time lately dealing with the little stresses, and loneliness has started to set in. I thought I needed some time for rest, trying to calm myself down and focus my mind on the things that are important.

I did find some rest, I slept a little, and then I started to feel anxious, like I needed to get out my room for a while. I walked around the nearby area, and saw a guy handing out flyers for an Opera playing tonight. La Boheme was being performed in an Opera house not far from San Marco, so I decided I'd go see that tonight. However, I still had like 4 hours till the show started. I found my way to the theater, and bought a ticket just to make sure I'd have one, and to know where exactly the theater was, then I walked over and sat down by the canal. I got an email from Jordan, whom I had talked to the night before, so I knew an email was coming. Jordan missed me back home, and he had expressed in this and earlier emails and phone conversations that he'd been figuring out some things about his own life, by reading about mine, which I loved to hear, and he's always given me some amazing insights and we've shared our thoughts back and forth. However, one thing he had written in this email stuck out to me in particular. When I saw it, I must have read it over a thousand times. He was commenting on my solitude I had in Fiesole, and he said "What is it that's going to make you proud of the person who looks back at you in the mirror?" It stung me, like a sharp pain in my chest. Just reading that question suddenly opened up a screaming match in my mind between two warring sides of myself. The one said, "What do I have to do to make you proud of me!?" As if a child to his father. The other coldly replied, "there's nothing you can do." I had worked and prayed so hard in my solitude in the Tuscan forest, and I think I had finally come to a point where I had forgiven God, but I now think maybe God wasn't the issue here. I need to forgive myself.

I think I blamed God for my inability to forgive. I decided I was his, and so it was in his jurisdiction to fix the problem I had with the pain that I felt. In the same way your landlord fixes the broken dishwasher. But somehow it doesn't seem to work that way. I tried to give the pain away to make God deal with it, but I never came to terms with it myself. I never forgave myself. I still haven't. The wound is still so fresh that upon reopening it, my body began to tremble. It's a shiver that originates deep within the core of me, and drains the blood from my hands and face. Coming to terms with God was the easy part. This is the hard part. I have to face myself. FORGIVE me God for what I've done! For WHO I am! I wish I could tear this flesh from my bones, and force this heart from my chest. I'm embarrassed that this issue of self worth weighs so heavily on my heart. It's a secret only my deepest nightmares know. "What did I even do wrong? What sin have I committed to merit such abandonment?" I hear the voice ask through childlike tears. To be honest, I can't myself fully figure it out. I rack my brain to come up with some answers, but still it eludes me. What has my memory blocked out for sheer volume of pain? Why do I still I torture myself for a sin I don't know the name of? There are things I've done I'm not proud of. I've murdered thousands in my darker thoughts, and said awful things aloud. I've lustfully ravished countless women within the depths of my mind and soul. I've even given over my heart to what would seem like love to turn out to be nothing more than hormonal exhaust. I've been used, and used others just as well. My sins are not written on notecards, packaged up in file cabinets like Brian Moore's, but ingraved on the backs of my eyelids, here to see now, every time I close my eyes. These things may all contribute to who I am, and why I can't find forgiveness, but there's more in me that hurts far deeper, so that I can't even reach so far inside. I don't even know where to begin to solve a problem so big. It's beyond me.

One thing to remember here is that I'm very clearly unworthy of forgiveness, but God did forgive me. So why can't I forgive myself? I tried to make myself say it out loud, and I did it, but I didn't really mean it. You can't make yourself forgive, and mean it, any more than you can make a stubborn child. Also, the truth sets in on the loneliness issue. How can anyone love me, when I can't even love me?

After the opera, I thought about it some more, and still got no further. As I said before, this is the hardest part of my journey. From here on out, I tread on dangerous ground.
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