The Unfinished Quilt



It is my birthday. I think everyone assumes I should be partying. Or even maybe I think that. But I am not.

How many other people in the world feel incredibly depressed on their birthdays? I have been wondering this all day. People try. I love that they give. Is it because empathic people are so used to giving they cannot receive? I do not know.

So much change. I think sometimes I should be awarded for having walked my trials. Shouldn't I be blessed on this side, God? Have I not given enough of my life? Wasn't the pain of what I went through for so many years enough that I now deserve a form of Utopia?

I am tired of waiting. Waiting for Love to be with me, to live with me. The silence inside the home is deafening. The ticking of the wall clock beside me is so loud. My girls happily playing I presume, in that man's home - that man I do not know at all. Why does he not just live his life? Move on? Why must he continue? Because it is about winning. It is about pleasure in causing me pain. It will never end. It was the first taste of blood in the water that now, brings the addicted. It will never end.

I'm tired. I'm so very tired. I wonder about my body. How much longer will it endure under this? The stress of everything. The pressure. The pushing down, as it were of my heart. How long will my body carry it?

And the prayer I have prayed so much these past few years: "Please don't let me die, please don't let me die with the music still in me!" My plea to the Universe to give me more time - more time to write, more time to speak, to share the song in my heart that I want to give back to the world. To do something great - to share what is in my soul so that others would have their spirits soar as a result. The completion of the book of my life. It is the thing that presses me forward.

And yet, today, I crumbled. I yielded. I am so tired. I don't know if the song will ever be sung. I don't know if I will get to finish the story I started to write. It is like a half finished quilt - worked on, labored over, until the creator can no longer hold the needle. And it hangs on the wall, no one else picking it up. The person lay dying. It will never be finished.

What if this song dies inside of me? What can be done? Nothing can be done. Can I then wake up knowing that tomorrow could be my last day and be fine with the half finished quilt? Will it be enough? I don't know. I don't know if my life will have mattered much at all. Maybe that is the reason for the sobbing. Maybe that is the reason I seemed to release the control of it tonight. There are no promises.

I don't know if my song will be sung. I don't know if I will get to finish what I started. I don't know if my life will end with a pretty bow tied about it, the symbol of a finished book. Insignificance may be my lot. And the question is not can I be okay with it - I have to be okay with it. The question is will I surrender.

It is the war. The shots have been fired. The dead lie all about me. Guns are aimed at my head should I stand up. I have fought a good fight. I have done all I can for our cause. With shaking hands I raise my white flag. I raise it. I am too tired to fight anymore. I surrender to the Universe because I am tired. Maybe I will live. Maybe I will not. I have become a captive of the other side - the choice is theirs.

But regardless, I cannot plot or plan. I just surrender here and now. And that is all I can do.

The way will be made clear. I am hopeful of that. And my song - even if it is only one solitary unrecognizable tone - I hope it was not in vain. But if it is, then I hope my love, my hope, my courage gave something to the world. Somehow. From dust I came, to dust I return. I am just a speck in the Universe hoping that it mattered that I was here.

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