safe

I used to think that writing was safe.  I used to think writing was safe because I've always done it.  I mean that literally.  when I was in the fourth grade, I created a newspaper for my family.  I was the sole researcher, reporter, designer, and editor.  it was my baby.  I wrote nonsense stories about what my older brother did with his summer and gave a detailed anaylsis of my little sister's sleepovers and shamelessly advertised myself for a friendly game of basketball in the driveway.  I've always liked to write. 

but now that I'm older, now that I realize how much power each fragile thought I have holds, I no longer think of writing as a safe thing.  it is scary and wonderful.  scary because it makes me face the darkest corners of myself and display them for everyone who takes the five minutes to read my blog.  wonderful because it makes my life make more sense.  for me, there is freedom in writing, because it releases me from all my pent up thoughts, from the me that I try so desperately to hide.  there is something about the danger of exposing myself to people that attracts me to writing.  I realize that may sound masochistic, but that isn't it at all.  I was thinking earlier about how much I love driving on interstate flyovers.  my mom hates them; she doesn't much care for heights.  but I love them.  when I drive on them, I feel like I'm not just driving an ordinary car over an ordinary road, but instead I'm driving a rather extraordinary car right into the sky; I'm flying. I also love heights.  fear of heights is, I'm sure, one of the most common fears of the general public.  but I downright love them.  I love being high up and looking down at all the tiny things and then looking up and seeing miles and miles of space.  it makes me feel small and insignificant, and yet an important part of something huge and beautiful.  there's something about the little bit of danger that you feel when you aren't standing on solid ground, ground you can't by any chance fall from.  it feels reckless and unsafe, and like the most natural thing in the world - like that's how we should be living.  and it is.  because the only way to rely on God is to realize how very, very close you are to the edge of the precipice, how very, very easily you could fall right down into the abyss.  because when you realize this, you realize that you have absolutely no control over what happens to you and the other people around you.  and when you have no control, what can you do but turn to the One who does?  all this talk might make it sound like I've got the right idea, like I'm living just the way I should, with just the right amount of danger and recklessness.  I'm not.  I wish I could say that I liked danger and recklessness, but it isn't true.  I like being safe.  I like knowing what is going to happen.  I like being in control.  this sounds completely contradictory to what I said earlier, but that is where the complexity of my brain comes in.  I love being dangerous when I write and when I drive on flyovers, but I don't like being dangerous in my life.  I am, in fact, incredibly bad at being dangerous.  I wish it wasn't so, but it is.  I was talking to my best friend on the phone earlier after going entirely too long (something like four or five days) without talking to her and we talked about all sorts of things, among them being control.  she uttered one word.  one word that changes everything.  that reminds me my life is hardly mine. that forces me to live a dangerous life.

surrender.

me and surrender don't get along very well.  I think surrender is a beautiful thing.  I'm quite in love with the idea of it.  but I just can't seem to make myself commit.  I tell myself after a long day in which I've fought with myself, wrestled with ideas, come to the conclusion that I am a despicable human being who can't think a right thought, that I am ready to surrender.  that I will henceforth no longer put up a fight.  but it never works.  it lasts maybe an hour in sarah brain and then gets thrown out the window, along with every other trick and method I've tried to quiet my mind down.  but it's the only thing that will work.  it takes time, it takes a conscious choice and effort every day to put down my weapons and my need to control things and let go.  surrender.  it may never get easier; it may be just as hard each day to surrender as it was the day before.  but even if that's the case, it will be well worth it.  I will get to live each day more freely, more purposefully, more dangerously.  and it will be beautiful.  so, today's to do list?  surrender.