Finding Faith

I try to have faith in the universe. When I stumble and fall and feel like the world is closing in on me, I lose myself in feelings of powerlessness, self loathing and fear. Yet, fortunately (or unfortunately?) I am not a person that can abide those feelings for long. Eventually I get sick of feeling so pathetic. I start to notice the small things again, the good things, the ways in which the universe provides for me. I get back up on my feet and resolve to just keep on keepin’ on.

Sometimes I think this is an excercise in futility, after all what is the point of getting up if I’m just going to be kicked down again? But, the other option is not getting back up. Just laying there and accepting your fate, waiting for an end. That is simply not who I am.

It’s a hard time, currently. I am fat, poor, have kids to support, a marriage to rebuild and a husband to tolerate, if not learn to love again. I still have faith in the universe to provide for me. Sometimes though, I wonder if the universe has ever only provided me with one thing- a tenacious spirit, that never knows when to quit, and refuses to be crushed. The spirit to withstand all the bullshit that will be thrown at me in my short time in this life.

Sometimes, I resent that spirit. It does not always seem like a gift, more like a curse. No mater how bad things get, I am still here. I do not have a nervous breakdown, or faint from the stress, I do not become very sick or weak, I do not hold grudges, or take my anger and intense pain out on people. Instead, I just get on with the business at hand. But, really- what I’d like is to just be one of those frail little women, who needs someone to take care of her. I’m tired of being “strong”, I’m tired of being everyone elses rock while inside I feel as if I’m coming apart at the seams. I want to fall apart and be taken care of.

Is that sad? An affront to the feminist movement? I don’t know.I just know that it’s how I feel, after I’ve made it through to the other side of one disaster and while the next is tearing it’s way into my life. Like, this will be the last thing I can stand, my strength seems to run out of my legs, the energy out of my body,and for a while I feel like nothing more than a hollowed out shell. I try to find my faith and hold onto it, but blow after blow has done its damage, and I’m not really sure how much is left to hold onto. Or what it will mean for my life when it finally runs out althogether.

Is there a point at which suicide will no longer feel abhorrent? Or when the thought of just leaving, abandoning my life and my children, won’t shock me and fill me with guilt?  I hope I never find out, that my faith in the universe holds out.