THE GAME WITH NO WINNER

From our second story window I can see nothing but the treetops keeping time with a breeze, and I feel it. And there, the birds chattering and laughing over some joyful news that I don’t yet know, but I can guess: the perfect place for a nest! A new feeder! Or maybe it’s even simpler than that. Something about a blue sky or last night’s sunset of overripe apricots. At any rate, I’m caught up in this worship of theirs and I feel it still.

I feel it again out on the country roads behind our house, past the winding hills, and down to the meadowlands and the woods that smell like woods should: damp earth, all those flowers, those flowers reaching up and up towards the sun. There isn’t another human in sight and it’s just the two of us with the windows down and he’s singing along to a song on the radio, but I’m just trying to catch my breath, to say, to whisper: these roads are healing me.

I’m shocked when I spill the words. They feel strange and I look up to catch his gaze. He smiles, because he’s known all along. He could see my limp a lot more clearly than I could.

And isn’t that how it goes? The way we don’t know we’re walking around with gaping wounds and a broken leg, we just know something hurts. We slink away from a dinner that we didn’t need to attend, we murmur “I’m just not feeling like myself”; we say “yes” to all the things we don’t need to, we minimize, call it a paper cut, and the whole time we’re bleeding out.

And we’re so afraid. That’s the worst of it. We’re afraid to look a little deeper. To admit to ourselves that something’s wrong, that we need a break, that we can’t attend, we can’t be present. We’re afraid to be someone who isn’t applauded, who has the possibility of being misunderstood because what if we end up alone or disliked?

So we choose the life of walking with a limp.

Or is it just me?

I’ve known something’s been wrong for months. Dare I say years? I’ve felt the dull ache gnaw and grow. I’ve known it in the way my words weren’t my own because I was too afraid to speak the truth. The way I choked over vulnerability and yet longed for honesty all in the same breath. I felt a knot in my stomach every time it came to write because my head became an endless stream of comments and opinions that were never mine to carry.

I was no longer that little girl with her two braids and giddy faith.

It’s strange, the way we can pick up identities. I’m drowning in clothes that aren’t my own and a smile that I can pick up on cue. I’ve memorized the language of those I care about, but all that caring is in the wrong place and without my consent, I became a player in a game that has no winner.

That game is called acceptance.

I like to think that I became a master at it. It’s one of those things you just need to observe for a while. You study the ones that are “in”. The loved ones, the ones who can do no evil in the sight of many, and definitely the respected in your field. You read up on every criticism and heaven forbid you do anything that would make someone think you aren’t fully committed to the game. Like, being honest or different.

And yet the longer you play, the deeper the wound grows. It festers in silence, in pretense and most of all, the home you grew up in, yourself, is a space you’re no longer comfortable digging around in. Because it’s a mess and there’s no room for imperfection here.

There’s all these rules, too. An impossible amount of rules. Don’t say this and please don’t dye your hair, it doesn’t look that good with your natural skin tone. Don’t create art that isn’t perfect because bad art is hard to understand. For goodness sake, pick a political side and fight for it until you’re blue in the face: questions are unwelcome. Don’t post so much. Don’t post so little. What are you wearing? Yellow was so last year. Why aren’t you more outgoing? Please let someone else speak for once. Oh, I see you’re writing about sadness again… gross. Anxiety? Boring.

And somewhere, in the midst of the noise and the people and your heart that so often feels too small to carry it all, there comes a whisper:

Stop! It isn’t worth it! This isn’t what you were made for!

Now, if you’re anything like me, you might try to get the voice to hush up. It’s too uncomfortable. It’s easier to keep charging on, full speed ahead, and try to win this game that other people seem so very good at.

Still, it grows. That whisper doesn’t stop. It isn’t afraid of your questions, your crippling self-doubt, or your bruised and battered heart that throws up a security perimeter if anyone gets too close. It isn’t scared of your stubbornness.

Maybe you try to drown it out. I did. It was too frightening to face, this idea of quitting the game, of cutting the ties, of letting myself be so imperfectly on-the-way. I couldn’t face the thought of disappointing people.

So, which smile should I put on today? How many pages should I write? How can I say this in a way that will please them, and them, and mostly, them? How can I be the perfect friend? The perfect wife? The writer of the next great American novel? An awe-inspiring Christian? How do I make those people love me?

When do I reach the level where I’m enough?

There, again, the whisper.

You are mine. I have called you by name.

And I think, in that moment, after you’ve been running for months or years, it’s really important to stop for a second. To stand in the face of everyone you want so desperately to please. The chatter, the questions, the sickening hurt and anxiety eating away at your soul. To stand there in the construction zone of your life and be revealed: all the messy, unfinished bits displayed. Maybe, even, to reintroduce yourself.

But maybe, that comes later.

Just stand in the face of it. Maybe you don’t recognize the layout of your house anymore, the curves and beat of your heart. That’s okay, there’s time. Maybe you don’t know what it is you like anymore, the thing your hands were made for before the game told you what tools you needed to survive. That’s okay, it’ll come.

All it takes, is a second of courage. To flick on the light and there, in the mess of all that we are, to not run away and face the voice we’ve been hearing all along.

Patched up humanity stitched together with grace, isn’t that us all?

I know that the game is intoxicating. You think if you could just tweak yourself a little more, put on that hat, wear that smile, then surely, surely you’ll win. If you just had enough time to master all the rules…

But you are not on this earth for applause that changes with the weather.

So, are you ready for the reintroduction? I am. It’s been years, but here I am. Hi… yes, hello! My name’s Amy. I still wear pigtails some days, by the way.

Oh yes, and I played the game well. At least I think I did, it’s hard to know with so many rules. But it didn’t change anything. It still didn’t connect me to people. It still made me feel isolated and distrusting. It didn’t make people love me more and God felt further away.

Anyway, that’s not the point.

Once you decide to hunt down that whisper, there’s a list of things you discover. Things like, how loud the voices are that have been shouting in your ear all this time. How angry they sound; not at you, but at themselves, at some wound they don’t even know they have.

You begin to realize that it’s entirely okay if the day looked nothing like you thought it would. If you spent more time pacing than creating, the anxious beat of your heart stiffening your body and mind. It’s okay, necessary even, to see it for what it is (a moment) and let it be just that.

Suddenly, a spark ignites in your heart. Who you were always meant to be steps into the room and you stand back in surprise. This Amy is bold and kind. She’s controversial and not always liked. She’s imperfect and often doesn’t say the right thing, and oh yes, she overthinks it too. She’s restless and impulsive, but also safe in the stillness. She’s afraid, but she isn’t afraid of them because she isn’t playing their game any longer.

Mostly, you begin to realize that your words weren’t meant to be theirs and vice versa. They are the echo of a tale that you lived through. Scars you’ve collected. Friendships that were alienated, and friendships that stayed. Your words are the stories that you’ve lived through and the quiet whisper that never ran, never wavered: with that, you arm yourself.

Nothing was wasted, see?

Isn’t that how our Father works? Isn’t that the process of redemption? I think of my time in the game and I want to mourn. It was wasted time, wasted energy, but I’m equipped with tools that I would’ve never otherwise had.

I know I make it sound perfectly wrapped and finished, but it’s not. You still get really afraid sometimes. Or at least, I do. I care what people think and I still feel the ache of not being enough sometimes. These words flow easily, but I know that I’ll have to rewrite them twenty times for it to even sink in. I really truly want to be loved and I still look in all the wrong places for it, but I’m learning.

I’m learning that in the stillness of the mornings, when I drop all pretenses and I let myself be honest in the face of a Father who doesn’t flinch, I feel it…

I feel like I’m coming home.

I do not need to be more than I am called to be. I do not need to be her, or them, or anyone else.

Open enough to be honest.

Confident enough to change my mind.

Willing to be wrong, to ask for forgiveness, to take a step back, to love and be loved, but always, always to know who I am.

I have called you by name, you are mine.

These are the things I ask of my heart.