Appendix

Today, I am feeling very much like an appendix, a metaphor my friend Ashley described to me once. A thing that can be useful sometimes, but that no one really needs. It gets cut away, yet the body heals and, in time, does not even remember what used to be there.

I don't know how to be a person of value. I don't know how to do virtually anything. I see important, astonishingly wise, and brave people around me, moving in and with God and I do not know how to feel the way that they do, to harvest the passion that spurs them to carry on. I think I used to feel it, but sometimes I find myself wondering if I ever did.

Too much of the time, I feel alone with God. I don't know how to bridge the gap between myself and other people. I want to be understood but before I can do that, I have to understand others and I don't know how to do that either. I want more than I can have, I want to do more than I am able, and I want to love more than I am loved. But I don't know how to do that.

I sit and think of the ways my life has turned out, the ways I have seen good people hurt, demonized, and cut down, the ways I and others have been taken advantage of and my heart cries out. Why do I want people more than I want God? Why am I not satisfied with what I have? Why do I need more?

Why can't I be happy right now, in the beautiful moments of today?

Why do I feel so restless?

I am almost 22 years old. When do I learn how to be a person?