Between Me and God

Months ago I had a dream about being saved. My ex-Sweet Escape rode up on a white motorcycle (his trusty stead) and saved me. From what? My life. Just my plain old life of school, bills, work, and sweet beasts. No monsters here, just the mundane. I woke up before we rode off into the sunset and I wondered where in the hell that dream came from.

I listened to "In the Arms of an Angel" by Sara McLachlan the other day and it had such a different meaning for me than the first time I heard it. When I first heard the haunting melody, I was just out of college.  That song fed into my longing for a flesh and blood angel to save me, to comfort me in my life. I tried on different "angels" for a bit, and then I married one. Soon after the wedding I had a profound experience.

Days after I married my first husband I realized we had made a big mistake. Oh shit. I was afraid to admit it, to myself or to anyone else, so I kept it inside and for a month I went totally crazy inside (I'm a sharer, I need to talk about it!). I wish I could find my journal from that time. I'm sure it is full of very interesting rants from a lunatic.

The culmination of this crazy time happened one night when he was at work. It was pouring rain outside and I lay on the hardwood floor of his house sobbing. I had so much anger and sadness in me I wanted to take a kitchen knife and carve FUCK into the beautiful brown wood so they would look how I felt. I sobbed and raged, and PRAYED. That's right, all caps praying, saving my ass prayers, making deals with Big Guy upstairs if he would just SAVE ME prayers. I kept waiting for someone to come, for the phone to ring, for a knock on the door, for something to happen that would change the situation I was in, but it didn't happen. No one came. Nothing changed.

The rain fell, my tears stained my journal, my soul ripped apart. At some point through my haze of pain, I realized that no one was going to save me but myself.  I got up off the floor, I opened the front door, and I walked into the night. I went to find some of my friends because I knew I would need them. I left my husband the next day.

From that night on I continued to pray, but in a different way. My prayers were more about me receiving comfort from a larger being than expecting to be saved. The night I saved myself I realized that in life it is just me and God. At the end of the day, at the end of the night, at the end of my life, it will be just me and the divine. I won't take anyone else with me, no one else will be held responsible for my deeds. I am here to save myself, to steer my own vessel, and to fill my own vase.

When I was listening to Sweet Sarah sing about the angel, I had a very real sense of being curled up and comforted by the divine. Those are my favorite prayers these days. I imagine myself curled up on The Committee's table receiving all the comfort they can give, not saving me, but loving me as I stumble through this life. They have the faith that I can figure it out....eventually. They just love me through it. I trust them to handle me with care, and love me at my ugliest, darkest moments.

It is funny how we have such profound experiences, yet we have to learn the lessons over and over again. This week I found myself wanting someone to change my reality, I wanted someone to fill my vase, and it made me so uncomfortable, dissatisfied, and anxious. It made me angry with the person who is not filling my vase (bastard ass mother fucker, and also sweet gentle soul) So I sat down this morning to write and see what came out, and what came out is this: I am my own savior. All that I need is carried within me. Expecting someone else to do it for me is just laying on the floor, sobbing in the rain, waiting for a knock on the door that will never come, and really, what fun is that?