I should be wrapping up the summer ESL term in Sarajevo right now. But I’m not. Or maybe I should be knee deep in loving relationship with the most patient and gentle, basketball-crazed guy I know. But I’m not. Certainly, I should be able to be confident in a clean bill of health. But I’m not. I shouldn’t be working dirty, mind-numbing, minimum wage, manual labor job. But I am.
The last two years of life have been filled with seemingly reasonable expectations which were met by clearly irrational disappointments.
I wasn’t asking for much…just for life to turn out the way it was supposed to. I thought the road was going to wind up in the place that the signs were pointing. I thought if I fulfilled my end of the deal, things would work out.
Instead, life turned into one giant crapshoot. Everything got turned upside down and inside out. Life went from the occasional no good, awful, very bad day to weeks and months of perpetual screwed-up-ness.
I live in America again and even if I didn’t, life as I knew it in Sarajevo no longer exists. I’ve been dumped. I have more health problems than your average emergency room. I work with immigrants and hooligans at a wholesale greenhouse where I bring home more dirt than money.
But the most disappointing thing is that I’m no longer sure that love always wins or that it really can cover over a multitude of sins.
I can handle things not going my way. But why did God have to screw with my perception of love?
Apparently it needed to be screwed with, and it’s taken me an awful long time to accept that. But I still don’t understand why or what it is that I’m supposed to be learning. I’m just accepting it.
i only read a bit so far. i truly love how you write, you know. i love your dry sense of humor. but i am sorry as the reality of your words hits me and i know you are not were you would like to be right now. however, remember that every new step of life is an adventure, and that those of us who truly love you, never leave you.
love, Jillian