Finding Peace

It's almost two in the morning. I can't sleep. I'm tired, but not sleepy. I think there is something wrong with my mind. I feel this panic, a need to get away, but where to go? I hope to find peace in my empty apartment, but it's not there. I hope for it alone in my car, enjoying the rythmn of driving, but it's not their either. I look for it in the outdoors, in fresh air and sunlight - I've always found it there before. But this time, it's not there. I know in the logical side of my mind that I can get through this, that it's nothing I haven't dealt with before. But in my heart, I feel like it's different. Where all my illogical feelings are built up, I feel like this is the time I won't be able to handle it, that this is the time I really will go crazy. I think of all the place were I could feel safe, and it's always with the peope I love. Anywhere would be safe if I was snuggling with my mom. If anyone can save me from insanity, it's her. She has before. She saved my life. And now she's so far away. If I was with Best Friend, staying up too late and sleeping in all day, things would be right again. Therein, I believe, lies the key; the reason that this time is different. The sun came out, and the gloom dissapaited. But when I stop working, going to class, pretending like everything is okay, the lonliness descends like a cloud. The worst part about this time is that it IS real. There is a reason for the ache deep inside that it feels as if my soul is weeping and my heart is ripping open. Heartache. They should tell you that it's not just a metaphor. It really aches. The worst part? Not that it's real, but that there is nothing I can do to change it. I can't bring my family closer. I can't go see a movie with my best friend. I can't develop a trusting, tell-each-other-anything-unconditional-support-and-love in the next week. Or in the next month, for that matter. Worse, the one person I thought I could depend on, I can't. I don't know what happened, I don't know if it was somehow my fault. I just know it's not there anymore. It vanished so quickly - maybe I've been fooling myself all along. There was a reason I didn't want to call him by his full name. It's Frasier all over again.

I'm moving in six months. Six months - not long enough to establish a real relationship, and then I leave to a place where I know no one. How long is this desolate loneliness meant to last? These times, they challege my deepest and most powerful beliefs. "Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace? Where, in my need to know; where can I run? He answers privately, reaches my reaching. Who, who can understand? He, only One." Yet, in my darkest hours, when I most yearn for peace, when my reaching is greatest, I don't feel Him reaching back. I can recite the right answers, I can listen to pithy comments on faith from others, but the fact remains - I "know" the answers, but I'm not sure I believe them. "Faith precedes the miracle." What if my faith isn't sufficient. And that, that is my greatest fear. That in my anguish, the faith that I have based my life on will prove false. Perhaps peace can only be found within ourselves. Perhaps peace comes from having faith. And yet, no matter how I yearn for it, peace exceeds my grasp, and the ache remains.