I have a tendency, once I get involved in something, to take ownership and invest myself deeply. I get all tangled up in whatever it is, so that it hurts when it either goes wrong or no one else takes it seriously. How do you fall in love with something or someone for that matter, without losing your self? 

Making my internal self home, where even in exile there is self-acceptance. What is it that I value and cherish? What is it that makes me feel safe? What do I do when the serpent makes it impossible for me to be in the garden? Sometimes, my usual tricks don’t work to bring me back to that place of peace and joy: my guitar, running hard, writing, reading. At times, I can’t even put words to what the problem is, why I’m out-of-sorts. I just know something feels wrong and like sometimes I need to find a new self somewhere, or take this one to the car wash with the colored rainbow soap.

Sometimes I lock myself up in a small section of my heart and hide my self there where it is safe. The self I show, the one that looks like I’m okay, easily slips out when my true self needs a hiatus. Most of the time, it is beauty in creation that drags me back out where I’m supposed to be. I remind myself that it was God who knew me first and called me into being, and that is powerful.