"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
2 Corinthians 5:17
Dedicated to the friend who feels heavy in the midst of mourning her past.
Silence is deafening.
It's both quiet and loud when the past is present.
Today, the sun may shine its yellow warmth but all I feel is the loneliness of grey and blue.
It's my first time back here since I buried her and the first time I've allowed myself to feel the weight of remembering her. Remembering the girl I used to be.
It is here at her grave that I feel most alone.
No one else is gravely mourning like I am. I have mourned not just the person she was but also the potential she had to be then.
No one else is solemnly rejoicing that she is no longer with us. Perhaps because no one I know now knew her. The ones that did, I've pushed away far enough so that I never have to dig up the past.
I haven't been back since the burial because I've only allowed myself to remember her when it's convenient. When it serves a purpose for other people, never for me though. Otherwise, I've erased all memory of her so that no one would be hurt by her again, especially not me.
She hurt me the most and I don't like remembering the damage. I don't like seeing my shipwrecked wreckage.
Yet, I'm here again hating the power she still holds on me long after I declared her dead.
The power of making me inferior in any and all relationships. Making me believe that if the people who love me now saw me in my wreckage then, they wouldn't want me anymore.
She has the power to make me fear a resurrection. Because if it is possible to bring the dead to life, maybe it's possible that six feet under, there's an empty casket and nothing ever changed. It's terrifying to think that I never really buried her, that I still am her.
But when I look beyond the tombstone, I see the sun and a promised tomorrow on the horizon.
One day, I'll come back and won't feel cold or lonely.
The warm embrace of yellow will surround me for I will have learned to love the girl I used to be not because of who she was but because of who I am.
She will no longer have the power to haunt me like the ghost we hear in horror stories and I will be free from the walking grave I carry around.
The past won't be so loud as to interrupt the present and talk over the future. I will be able to remember it as a silent movie of all my mistakes and be able to learn from them. Most of all, I will have ears to hear the now as it is, not as it was.
