Ready to Leave
It’s been almost a year now since things started changing. not fully a year yet, but close enough that i notice it constantly. sometimes i try to remember what life felt like before all of this and it honestly feels far away already, like i’m remembering somebody else’s life instead of my own.
I keep wondering whether things are eventually supposed to go back to how they were before or if this is simply what my life is now. everyone says periods of suffering eventually pass, but i don’t really know if this feels temporary anymore. it’s not constant sadness or panic or anything obvious like that, but it’s more like emptiness. everything feels flattened out. days pass very quickly and then suddenly weeks are gone and i can barely remember what happened inside them
sometimes i genuinely can’t remember what i did yesterday unless i stop and force myself to think through it carefully, entire months feel blurred together. even memories from a few years ago feel distant now, like they belong to someone else. i don’t know if that’s stress or exhaustion or something else.
The Church teaches that earthly life is temporary and that human beings are ultimately made for union with God, not permanence here. "for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (hebrews 13:14). i think about that verse a lot recently because more and more i feel detached from the idea of building a permanent life here at all.
And i know the Church teaches that life is sacred and that we are not meant to destroy ourselves in order to escape suffering, i understand that, it’s more that i constantly think about the absence of suffering, the absence of illness, the absence of fear and shame and memory and exhaustion, that sometimes heaven feels more real to me than my actual future does.
the Church teaches about the resurrection of the body, that eventually there will be no more suffering, no more sickness, no more death, and i think part of me clings to that idea very tightly because i honestly cannot imagine existing forever in the state i am now. the idea of finally being free from mental illness, from obsessive thoughts, from fear, from the feeling that something inside me is constantly fighting itself, is probably the most comforting thing i can imagine.
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore" (revelation 21:4).
sometimes i wonder if that longing itself is wrong. whether thinking about heaven this much means i’m becoming detached from reality in an unhealthy way or whether this is simply what happens when a person becomes tired enough. because more and more i feel like i’m only continuing through life because i know there is supposed to be something after it.
everything here feels temporary now. routines repeat. days blur together. people disappear. memories fade. even emotions feel less stable than they used to. sometimes i wonder if maybe this detachment is happening because i’m supposed to let go of things eventually anyway.
i just know that recently heaven has stopped feeling abstract to me and started feeling like the only place where i can imagine finally becoming whole and healthy without carrying the weight of everything that happened before.