Probably.

It’s 1:00 in the morning and I can hear the rain tapping on my window. I should be sleeping, of course, but I am choosing to write instead.

I realize it’s possible I may have overreacted just a tad in my previous entry—realistically, I probably can overcome this. Let’s make a quick, very important pit stop: “this” encircles so many different trials, things I have been struggling with for up to seven years. I want to be clear that “this” is not limited to any specific events that may have evolved within the last twelve (longest) months of my life. I am not shallow; the stream flows much deeper and much wider than that.

I refuse to say with absolute certainty that I’ll face up to all of "this." I have no idea what the future holds. Proverbs 27:1 reminds Christians not to boast of tomorrow, because none of us have any idea what a “day may bring forth.” I do not have faith in myself, but I sure do have faith in the God I serve. That’s where probably comes from. And I don’t mean to imply that God will drop the ball—quite the opposite, really. Instead, I’m wondering if I’ll be able to hold up my end of the bargain and give God my future and everything else He deserves. I’m the flawed one. I’m the only thing keeping myself from conquering “this.”

Bitterness is destroying (my relationship with God) (my relationship with others) (my sense of humor) (any internal motivation) (my happiness) (my sleep schedule) (good memories) my life. Bitter feelings don’t just cause me to lie awake late at night. No. They are, without question, eating me alive.

But I feel optimistic tonight, more open than most nights. It could be that I dislike myself less than I did yesterday, or maybe it’s the fact that I earned an A+ on my Modernism exam. Or perhaps it’s plainly the weather. Whatever the case, I’m taking advantage of this rare pellucidity and letting my pencil say all the things I cannot.

It’s never been my honest intention to put a damper on anyone’s day nor has it been to place an extra burden on the shoulders of those I love. I write because it frees me from everything rattling inside this weathered box I refer to as my head. People my age think I’m crazy and wonder why “this” is taking me so long. I’m not shown empathy or compassion, but I don’t know why I expected either. Adults smile at me. They recite to me that time heals all wounds and say they have faith that I’ll be just fine someday, but their melancholy smiles sing a different song. How do I know they’re not lying, too? How do I know they’re really okay? It’s been said that fearless is not the absence of fear; it’s living in spite of those things that scare us half to death. And God knows I’m terrified. I could blame the world for lying to me or I could blame myself for listening and believing. Most days, I blame myself. After all, I should know better, right? I pollute my mind with tabloids and television commercials and I wonder why my thought process develops the way it does. I suppose how much truth I find in the media relates in some way to my lack of certainty. (Duh.)

I’m just so scared. I don’t want to live my life saying all the right things and making all the right choices and impressing all the right people and still end up with an obituary that blandly states, “Jessica Kane did the best she could, but it was never enough. She never reached her goal. Kane wasted an entire lifetime preparing for her happy ending, but he never came back. What a shame.”

This world is an ugly place, but sometimes when I look close enough I’m grateful to find traces of beauty in the strangest of places. Sir Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” And so I’ll continue pushing through the pain in hopes that one day someone will be able to penetrate through this ice box in my chest. Then maybe we'll all hurt a little less. I will strive and seek and find and will not yield because after all, I probably can defeat “this.” The odds are in my favor at this point.

I will now close my notebook (and my eyes) and attempt to silence the taunting, yet otherwise chipper, 60s music buzzing around in my head. "Wouldn’t it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong?" Yeah, it would have been. And it probably should have been. But it’s not and it probably never will be.