Unimaginable

Nicholas L. Laning

Everyone has heard the phrase, "you don't know what you had until it's gone."  It's true.  Sometimes, my adult subconscious seems to constantly be trying to kill any emotions.  It is intent on functionality, to the point of killing the real joy of functioning in the first place.  In that haze, sometimes I can forget what people mean to me in any given moment... almost.

Every time someone gets cut out, someone who means something to me, a cold wind bows through my lonely heart until I take notice, and remember.  Maybe all of this sounds incredibly weird to you.  Maybe be it is.  I am okay with that.  After ten years of depression, I know my mind has mind, my heart, they have both done things in order to survive that are now not necessary.  I don't need to cut anymore.  I actually never did.  It was love, the love of and from people that were God's greatest gift.  There is nothing even close to it. 

So it is, that whenever those latent defense mechanisms start slashing away at people, I have to step in and remind myself.  All I have to do, is imagine removing that person from my heart, and I know... I know exactly who they are.  All of them mean something, or I wouldn't even be asking myself the question.

Some are just acquaintances.  Some people treat acquaintances as if they are not very valuable.  My belief is that acquaintances are very big influences, in a unique way.  Individually, one may not be huge, but as a collective, acquaintances are a huge influence on who you are.  Take high school for example.  Most of the people at New Braunfels High School were acquaintances.  Was it not that collective of students, acquaintances, that influenced what I wore, how I acted?  Surely it was, whether I like it or not.  Take away those faces, and I change.  I become a different person.

Some people, when taken away, take large chunks of you away with them.  Pieces of you become hazy.  You look in the mirror, and without them, the edges of you are become softer, less defined.  Who might you have been?  You don't know, maybe you would be similar, but not the same.  They are important enough to where, as an individual, pieces of you slip.

Then there Them.  They are few, very few.  They are life changers.  They are the people that, when you imagine your life without them, you disappear.  The very notion of who you are is gone.  You would be a completely different person without them.  Colors, sound, knowledge... they all change.  It is as if they are portals to another reality or dimension.  They don't affect your soul, they are a part of its very fabric.  Without them, and the wind that blows through the shell of your being is complete torture.  It is unimaginable. 

Yes, imagine them gone, and you will know what they mean to you.  You will know.  Try it and see.

Proverbs 18:24 ESV

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

 

Philemon 1:12 ESV

I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.

Thessalonians 2:19-20 ESV

19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?  

20 For you are our glory and joy.