DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE

Sometimes you wake up, begin your day, and you just know it's going to be a bad day. Whether it is remembering something that you forgot as you walk out of the house, getting stuck in an unexpected traffic jam even though you left for work early, or spilling Gatorade powder all over yourself as you're speaking to your boss in the kitchen. Once enough mishaps have occurred and in a not so random fashion, you become convinced that it is time to buckle down for a rough day. So, most of yesterday was spent half expecting more bad things to happen. It's when you're in this mindset and a pleasant surprise occurs that you are then taken back.

I often feel a sense of anxiety or heightened despair whenever there is a scheduled appointment with Dr. Poon. Yesterday was no exception, and it was compounded by the fact that I had forgotten about the appointment AND I had already registered for a workshop that evening. I've come to accept that not much happens in these sessions. Dr. Poon leads us through some scenarios and discussions, typically directed at Katherine, but it usually ends with Katherine declaring a stalemate, yet again. But I guess this is where the pleasant surprise came in yesterday. After the regular routine of talking about our situation to us, Dr. Poon must have said something that caused a pointed reaction. Because, for once, Katherine actually started to make sense. For the first time, there was a glimpse of hope in her demeanour and in her words. She seem to transfix on the resulting freedom from going through some action that would symbolize the end, namely the burning of our wedding pictures and her wedding gown. Mind you, she did not say this in a psychotic, pyromaniac way, but it was more in the context of doing something (whether it was through the action of burying, discarding, burning) to rid herself of all reminders of that terrible day. I had more in mind the completion of the certificate of divorce, which I see also as a formal ritual to achieve closure. Katherine even made the suggestion of having a month of complete isolation from each other, so that we could pray about this and deliberately bring ourselves to the point where both of us can truly say that we are in perfect tune with God. And should our discovery of God's plan for ourselves individually also reveal that there will still be some relation to each other, well, then that's another bridge to cross (or build) at that time. After the appointment, she reiterated the "black out" period of no contact and chose December 16 as the final date (ironically, the same day that snowboarding starts).

Of course I have mixed emotions about this. One is of surprise, as I was totally not expecting this turn of events. One is of hope, that finally things may be coming to an end. One is of grief, because my wedding day WAS the happiest day of my life, yet it also represents the most hellish day for someone else. And to think that all icons from that day will be destroyed... I guess part of my heart will go with it. Regardless, I'm working through the mosaic of these feelings, no really knowing which one dominates at any moment. I pray that this breakthrough is real, and that closure is just around the corner.

I find myself writing about Piper's book again. I still don't think that it's speaking to me much more than an interesting read. However, I was going through the latter chapters last night, and it was speaking about wartime lifestyle. It's a concept that I first learned while in the Perspectives course, but I guess reading it again spoke to me. Without going into the whole rhetoric of materialism, comfort lifestyles, and television (because I don't feel that I'm struggling with any of these), I did feel inspired to do something. What, yet, I don't know. But it was a significant enough of a prompting that I felt it necessary to journal it.