Have you ever felt a little bogged down by the weight of all of the things you wish you could change? Here's a reflection I wrote awhile back that helps me maintain my sanity in those moments.

The Sea of the Wanted

Phantom smoke from too many cigarettes filled the air of the cramped room. I coughed as I scanned my surroundings. The busy DC street outside mumbled distant sounds reaching us in this apartment sitting ironically on top of an ice cream parlor. Dusk was approaching. The four of us took in the motley furniture, the sage, the crystals, the zodiac signs. We carefully contemplated the menu in front of us. How much would you pay to know your future? Don’t answer that.

Apparently the price of fortunes is subject to change without notice if fate walks in the door with dollar signs in her eyes staring at the group of wide-eyed 20 year olds at her mercy in her den. We paid her price. Individually we entered, palms upward in surrender and hearts open in hope. My feet shuffled against the creaking floor until it was my turn to face this unsure destiny. Clairvoyant, tell me, what will I become? A wife, a mother, a caretaker. Tell me, oracle, what other visions do you see in the smog of your chain smoking? My humanity was a giveaway for the gravely voiced answer she gave me next. “Yous was a wanted child.” Just like that, suddenly I was transported with her to a vision of my parents staring down at me as a baby. They lovingly gazed at their new, healthy infant in front of them, happily gnawing on her foot and babbling. I was wanted, and I have been wanted. I drank in this vision like every action I had ever taken was now affirmed because despite any mistake and every choice I had ever made—good, bad, questionable, or otherwise—I was wanted.

Her words rang in my head with each new growing pain this summer.

These words floated in my head weeks later as I fell into a troubled sleep pondering why Evil exists. How could it be that a young girl could sprint and scream down an entire busy Chicago block before someone stopped to care? How could it be that someone would rather film her pain than intercept her fears? How could it be that suddenly I was faced with a drunk 17 year old girl screaming that she was raped? Screaming that she was worth nothing. I lost faith in humanity with each passerby who didn’t stop to help this innocent child bleating in pain. I tried to hold her as I pictured myself sprinting desperately down a street. You. Why aren’t you stopping? Brother. Sister. Can’t you see me? Can’t you hear me? I’m here, and I’m wounded. How can this Evil that causes me this pain somehow silence me to your ears? There she was, overcome by the Evil that had taken hold of her voice, her heart, her mind, and her purpose and said seductively, “Silence.”

Days later, still shaken by these wounds that weren’t mine, I stared at the remains of more Evil. Another young girl had fled her fate. What would you bring with you if needed to flee? More importantly, what would you leave behind? No one had known of the ferocity of the storm that had been brewing in the Clouds. Again, as I stood in her empty room, I felt a now familiar numbness of horror fill my senses, protecting me from the reality that slowly dawned.

So this is what happens when people don’t know how fiercely they are wanted.

Gradually the culmination of pain and Evil became a mountain before me. Who am I in the face of a mountain?

I am wanted, that’s who I am.

We are the wanted.

And you, Evil, you are unwanted.

You with your weapons of emotional destruction and manipulative vengeance, you are the pathetic, entitled mask of everything you wish you could possess.

I choose to lie in the Sea of the Wanted before you. There you stand, tall and proud above the infinite expanse of pure and powerful water that surrounds you.

I lay with the small waves, lapping against you.

I lay with the storms, pounding tirelessly against your walls.

I lay in wait until you erode into mere sand below us.

Your expanse might deafen the ears of those around you, but then you stand alone to feel the effects of a single drop repeatedly hitting your surface, tearing you down.