For days when you think there's a package coming in the mail.

I got the notice this morning. 

There's a package for me, waiting for me a the Post Office.  I tried to scramble through my head about something I might have ordered for myself but I couldn't think of anything.  I tried to find any possible reason that it wouldn't be a care package from someone that loves me.

And then the ideas kept floating around in my brain.  "A handcrafted thank you gift from my former Bible study leader", "a friend of mine sent me a letter..." "someone annonymously sent me some kind of encouraging gift.."

Oh, I spun those ideas 'round and 'round.  I presented my piece of paper to the attendant and she went into the back room. "I wonder how big it will be..."

She returned and handed me my Skin Id parcel, a regular non-exciting parcel, which usually arrives directly at my house.

A bitter pill.

Fast forward about 12 hours and I'm crying in my living room because I've asked God to give me a best friend and I still find myself by myself.  And it's been a year almost exactly (because I would have to reference the journal for the precise date) since I removed the person that I cherished as my best friend out of my life.  That person is still not back in my life and that's okay on a regular day but on a day like today it feels really lonely. 

And I don't know how to build my dreams for my future and I feel like everybody already has their best friend.  There's no one next to me in bed; no one calling me after their shift to ask how my day went; no one who chooses me.  On a night like tonight I feel like it's fifth grade gym class and the teacher tells us to partner up and I'm the odd person out.  Destined to sit in the corner and observe. 

And I know that's not how it is.  I see beyond tonight.  And I realize that people feel this way across the board-North, East, South, West.  It's a pretty universal character: Loneliness.  I don't know if talking typing about it makes the loneliness any easier.  I'm not sure if acknowledging the community of it makes it any less lonely but I do know that I am a whole.  No friendship, no bond, none of that completes me.  In marriage there's this weird thing where two become one, but they were each one before.  Not half.  You're whole. 

And there's great freedom in that.  Freedom that should not be taken for granted.  If you find yourself in the corner observing others' lives while you waste yours, then stop it.  You don't have to play whatever game they're playing.  Go make up your own!  Wrap yourself up in the love of an eternal God!  Learn to sew! Bake cookies for the homeless and turn it into a business! Read 18th century literature out loud because it pleases your ear! Whatever! Concentrate on being a full whole, not a measly half looking for/needing someone to complete you. 

You're more interesting as a whole anyway.