Illumination (Part 2)

I wake up with an emoitional hangover. I was expecting this to be a most depressing day due to the rain 9which I would usually love, if I weren't going to have to work in it) and yesterday's heartbreaks. I started some depressing music and headed for the bus stop.

I started chatting it up with some people on the bus, including a co-worker, Katey. It defintely lightened the mood of the day. Work was short and work. It wasn't half as bad as I thought it'd be thanks to the low crowds. I was beginning to think today was going to end up to be a good day. I got off and planned to go to Universal Citywalk with Dayna and Alexandra, and Tess, Alexandra's new best friend. I went over to Dayna's and she made some amazing chicken. Also, it was one of her roomies birthday and they had the most decadent cake I've ever had the absolute pleasure to experience. It was chocolate cake infused with chocolate chips and covered in a stick hot fudge, whipped cream, caramel, and Heath bar on top. It was divine.

We head out to Citywalk to hang out. Dayna and I get some ice cream, well...techinally, frozen yogurt form TCBY. I got white chocolate mousse flavored. It was delicious, tho odd. As for Tess and Alexandra, they went over to the little food court and got some ethnic food...chinese and burritos and chips and salsa. I sit there, conversing with them as they all talk about boys...and a few other topics. But I guess it was still a little fun, but it was starting to induce yesterdays heartache. On top of all of this, a love intrest back home was getting flustered and fed up with me. I really can't blame her, I'm awful it's true. But that's another discussion altogether. I go home afterwards, feeling comletely distraught and somewhat angry. I can't stand to be around anything familiar at the moment, especially the lovers on the couch. So I leave (Mind you this is at midnight).

I have to get away. I need to escape the reminders of love and lonliness. I walk. I walk without end. I want to avoid civilization at all cost. I turn my cell phone off. I want to walk roads that I'm not used to. I want to wallow in my own depresing pool of self pity and woe. I've spent to damn long trying to be positive and I'm sick of it. I walk to the painful and heartwrenching soundtrack to the movie The Village. I walk amongst the heavy winds brushing fallen leaves on the dark roads and unfamiliar scenery. I'm walking, but my heart seems to be running. It's pulse quickens with fury and sadness.

All the sudden, I'm crying. I've reached the highway at this point and I veer off the sidewalk, distancing myself from the busy interstate and trampling on the cold and wet grass. I'm crying because of the hopelessness of it all; how I'm tired of liking the ones who don't like me. Of not being able to truly feel love, even when it's clearly presented itself to me relentlessly; to be at discords with emotion.

But what hurts the most, and brings the most tears, is that I can't help but wondering...where is God in all of this? I feel incredibly distant from him? Why is it that, whenever people are in devastation, they feel most apart from God, why must they seek him out? I know he's there, right beside me, but why isn't he stepping in? I know that I'm probably being incredibly ignorant of the obvious and completely real blessings he is preforming and preparing for me, but I'm searching for answers from the only real friend that is always there with me...the one who can't speak back. I see a church in the distance and I feel like it must be some kind of sign.

I run to it and desperately try opening it's locked doors. I go around the back and there's an intense amount of construction going on. They're bulding something; broken bricks and unfinished concrete line the ground. I find a courtyard where inside there is a statue of a mother type figure playing with a child standing n some kind of altar with candles lining the base of the monument. In the back of the courtyard, there is a single bench. I go over to the candles depserately trying to find something to light a candle with to send an SOS flare to the Heavens, only to find wet candles and dead matches.

I sit on that bench overlooking the courtyard. I sit there, crying as the soundtracks stops having played the entire album twice. I take my giant headphones off and hang my head, hands folded. I pray. I pray from my heart to be opened...not only to the love and all the aspects of the human spirit, but to God's blessings and acknowledgement. I proay for the deliverance from my pity and angst. But then, I forfeit formality and talk to God straight up.

"Look, I'm trying. I understand you probably got this all planned out. You know what your doin', and I trust that. But, call me selfish, but I just want to know now. It's the waiting. I just...need to know now. I know your here with me, and I love you for it, but I just don't understand. What's coming for me? What am I to do? I'm doing the best I can, and I hope that's good enough for you.

I take a moment to compose myself. I sit for a few more minutes and the lights in the courtyard switch off. Probably because it's so late, it's nearly 2AM now. So I walk. I walk some more, not wanting to surrender this war with myself by going home and giving up. I then realize I haven't been to the REAL happiest place in the world in quite some time: Waffle House. I head that way. But it's quite a hike from where I am.

When I get there, the place is empty, other than some drunk girl and a stoned middle-aged man in the corner. I just take a seat in the back. I rder a coffee and a sausage biscuit. I spend a few moments in silent comtemplation while in my confusing state until the place clears out at around 330. I then strike up a conversation with Bryan, the cook. Funny story, I've always wanted to work at Waffle House. It's a place that has always brought joy and comfort to me and I wanted to share that with customers unlike it's usual employees. Anyways, Bryan lets me bitch about my job some and offers me some great advice...to just get high. Some fry cooks are just so wise. I inquire about his job and how he feels about it. He responds that he's somewhat fond of it, but it does kinda suck. We talk about Disney, Universal, and Florida in general. After the place brings more characters in, incuding a shady man who scrathced is arm without end like that of a crackhead, we didn't talk much more. I sip my coffee and listen to more depressing tunes and Bob Dylan. It's at this point I realize that I've yet to see the sunrise here. So, I stay in Waffle House for hours, until 545.

I leave and go walk around town some more, to get to the blood pumping but also to find a spot in which I can view my sunrise. I take advantage of several of the 24hr locations open along the road I'm on. For intnce, Dunkin' Donuts...I had no idea they were always open, but I went in and decided after the sunrise I'll stop by and get one. I also go into Walgreens and go up and down every isle. I find a spot outside Walgreens at a hotel. There is a bench directly facing the slightly rising sun. I am amazed. I sit with my back facing the moon and looking toward the sun.

Then I realize as the sunrises, the beauty of the moment brings the brightest illumination to the sky and my soul. There isn't anyone who can help you. When you have problems, the sunrise can be the absolute, most cleansing thing in the world; the start of a new day! And you know who does that? God. There he was, up in that sky, coming through for me. The power to sove problems can come from no other source. It comes from within, the small piece of God or the diety of your choice inside of you and there in lies you consolance. This is what must be understood, That the answers to trials must be sought after, not in the dark, in that pain and woe, but only in the hope and optimism that tomorrow brings. So turn around, face away from the dark and unyeildingly emptiness of night, and look towards tomorrow. Because you'll never find answers in the dark. You have to look ahead, to the new possibilities that God opens up to you each and everyday.

I'm overwhelmed at this revelation. I walk home, with my route home facing directly towards the sunrise, and grab a donut on the way. It's chocolate mint; a chocolate cake donut with shaved peppermint stick on top and it was so scrumptous! I walk home, practically giddy at my findings and go the whole way home.