At a moment's notice I would choose to escape, if not for my conscience reminding me daily that to love my brethren is far more worthy of reward than is death - not a reward in which I receive merit, but a reward in which the One whom I love most will have exceeding joy.

Love. Love covers a multitude of sins.
It is gentle, patient, kind, forbearing, does not seek its own, is not unseemly - it bears every quality and desirable appearance that I feel slipping far from me. Love is what we live for, in whatever form. It is love we seek continually - both to give and to receive.

I am stretched thin between nostalgia and looking forward to new things, except the new things are in no way an immediate glory that is available to me. I am concerned that in the midst of what I want to accomplish I am losing my soul life. I am tossing aside too easily the treasures that make life rich, the small moments that make our memories sweet, the material blessings that make our quiet lives our own. I feel like I'm abandoning all things temporary for the sake of giving myself wholly to God, and I am unhappy for it. I am in depression for it. I am apathetic for it, blazed over, indecisive, without passion, without life to give.

We consume things in life because it then causes us to have output. I have no output. I feel so empty - not empty in that my life has no value, but I feel like I am in no position to supply for my neighbor what he lacks. I am out of balance.

There have been tiny revelations along the way that have made me begin to consider who I was two years ago compared to who I am now, and what I spend my time doing. I find myself wanting to reverse time to replay environments in the past that harbored and entertained my intellect. It's not an honest sickness for home, it's a desire to allow my environment to prod me into loving life again. I am currently in an entirely new place in the country and instead of curiosity and excitement driving me to grow, I am unconsciously retaliating and objecting to change by becoming a lively version of apathy.

"A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a delieverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope."   - Emerson in Self-Reliance

I want to care. I want to love people. I want to be lively and full of joy. I want to be so vibrant that others marvel and can share in my abundance of it. I used to have this, and I want it again.

How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and hear me, O Lord my God:
lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.
Psalm 13:2-3