I meet you for coffee,
We get together periodically,
I got a bad case I can't shake off of me,
People wonderin how, wonderin how it oughta be...

Sometimes I run smack into myself. When this happens there is a great emotional distress. Who am I? How did I get here? What am I doing with my life? What am I contributing to life? They are all very disturbing questions that typically reveal some self awareness that ready or not here I come. It takes days to process and even the simple tasks take effort to focus, perform and follow through. Emotionally I turn into one of those train wrecks that you hear about on the news where some poor soul got stuck on the tracks because the car died. Just aweful. We secretly say to ourselves that we are glad that we don't know the poor soul. I have been that poor soul over the weekend. Train wreck victim. A casuality of my own mind. I live on a foundation of rigorous honesty. I have principals in my life like integrity, willingness, perseverance and an awareness of God. When honesty fails, when I become dishonest, oddly, my foundation cracks. All the other principals are contingent upon honesty and without that, I go a little bonkers. I look and act like a train wreck. That train whistle is pulled along with the brakes by the engineer as hard as they can be pulled, with no hope. There is nothing to do but run over that gal trying desperately in fear to get the car to start. It effects every relationship. It effects every commitment. It exhausts me. It makes my muscles sore. I start to daydream, but not really dream, just not see what's right in front of me. I become not present in my own life. Train wreck.

When I find that place of honesty, all is made right. In one single instant, I feel, I see, I hear, I return and am snapped back into the here and now. I am present. It is weird. It is a process. I have to get honest with one person, then another person and finally with myself. POW, I am back. Standing on my own two feet. I know where I am, who I am, where I am going and what I am contributing to life. I can pray again. I can take on the big, bad college grade. I can be where I say I am going to be and be who I tell you I am. My foundation is solid like a rock.

Thank goodness it only lasted from Friday to Monday. I am sure that it would have been aweful through out the week when I am supposed to be paying attention in class.

I didn't used to know how to be honest. I didn't know what was going on with me. I was in a state of disillusionment for years. I was drowned in liquor. It perpetuated the state of numbness. Like a 24 hours that repeated its self over and over. The same train wreck everyday. I couldn't get honest. I was constitutionally incapable of a manner of living that demanded rigorous honesty. Thank goodness, I don't have to live that way anymore. Thank goodness I have the support, the love, the steps to take to keep me on track. Thank goodness for Grace.