I Need A Shoulder.

I lost a chunk off the icon of myself today.
It's not every day you have to look in the eyes of something you had not known you were afraid of, and admit to yourself that you are scared to death.
I thought that coming Home would be a sort of release. A step back from the unknown into the known, into familiar territory. I was wrong.
It's not every day you have to stifle the terror welling inside of you with a tender, naive exterior (a caring, reaching sort of thing, like putting your finger inside a pencil sharpener, because you knew that if you didn't, your fear has feelings too and would be hurt). To monitor, to handcuff your every movement lest an ill timed fidget should betray the monster inside of you that is screaming to run or cry, or snap.
It's not every day you have to admit to yourself that you have not emerged as much as you purport to have, and that one you considered older is actually newer than you are. It makes you feel like a has been, even at 21, because the yardstick is our freedom and the extent our love is willing to go, not our years. I have fallen short.
It feels bad in a good sort of way to admit it cryptically.
I could steel myself. I could close my eyes and detach and pretend and carry through. Like stepping on the back of a beginner doing his first split. Oh yes, he will go down all the way, like you want him to.
But will he come up?
Ever?
Fortunately, there is a Will. And where there is a Will, there is a Way. I will ask the Will what He wants, and I will do it His Way.

It always feels better afterward.
The Will told me that it is not in His plan for me to stretch right now. He merely wants to draw my attention to the distance between myself and the floor. It is no good thinking you are at 180 degrees when you're really barely clearing 130.
It is to make me exactly aware of my position, no less no more. And I must keep working toward the goal.
He said maybe I am no gymnast. Perhaps the goal is not the floor. Maybe I'm just warming up to shoot a few hoops and an actual split is not in His plan for me now or ever. Either way, the goal is progress.
And either way, I will have to get my actual reply from Him because--how do you answer this sort of thing? Do you say, I would but...? Do you say, He said...? Do you offer a compromise, and then tell the story years later of how you sat through every heart wrenching second, fearing the worst, fearing the advantage taken? Do you ignore it and try to forget? Would writing a song be inappropriate?
That is what the Will is for.
Thank you for listening. You are special.

Joe.