HE GOT UP.

I’m stuck. I hate it. I’m losing control of who I am; the “me”, I worked so hard on. Doubt, clouds my judgment. It robs me of my sleep. It swipes my comfort right from under me, causing me to slip. It’s a bucket of oil tipped over and spilled all over the floor I stand on. Impossible to find balance on. Doubt: the pond of sinking sand that caught me by surprise. Covered so beautifully with a false pavement that illustrated the strength of the actual concrete pavement that accepted my many steps of before, that held me up this long on this path of life. 

A step into the bliss, expecting something new, expecting something I’ve been waiting for. Every step, as the last. Walking forward. I sink. The path of life is a foggy one way street, never clear on what’s ahead but always pointing forward. So I have two options, either stop or keep walking. Every step is a risk but never a wrong one. I can never step backward, so what lies ahead is meant for me. Even the surprise ponds of quicksand. I’m sinking. The path is getting foggier. Clarity is becoming foreign. Almost a new language I’ve never heard before. Forgetting what it’s like, the peace it brings, and the strength it provides. I’m stuck. Fog is heavier than ever now. My comfort waits for me at the edge of this which holds me down from getting up. It awaits to see what’s my next move, waiting for me to reach out and grab it and call it mine once again. But my hands are stuck to my side in the sand, not being able to pull them out. What a grasp? Only my head knows freedom as it sticks out above the tight grip of Doubt. Experience paints a picture of my past and illustrates a familiar image but it’s blurred. Of this image, all I understand is “Your freedom…” The rest I cannot interpret. 

I begin to jerk my body with panic. My comfort, that still awaits my survival, whispers gently in my ear: “it is your mind that is under attack. A battle that you will not win with your arms swinging out in front of you nor with the use of your legs to walk away. The more you attempt to fight this way, the faster you sink.” 

I relax. The familiar image is no longer a blur: “Your freedom lies in your mind”, it reads. The fog remains thick and heavy. As it always was. Never changed. It was my sight that changed, only my sight. 

Most battles we fight in life are never won because we’re normally fighting the wrong battles. I’m losing my battle because I’m not fighting the one I’m meant to fight. I’ve convinced myself that Doubt, an outside source, is the opponent I needed to overcome. And with every punch I swung and every kick I threw, I missed. My actual opponent is far greater and stronger. An opponent I've lost many battles to. Never able to get up from them. Always being knocked in even further into the ground. Each time, my opponent stands above me and watches me as I lay flat on the ground weak, it screams and yells at me. Never seeing it for what it is, I’ll look up at it and scream back, “the hell with you, Doubt!” 

Now, I realize why I never got up. Doubt was never the opponent, it was a mere costume that hid my true opponent: Trust. 

Today, as I stare at the familiar image that reads so clearly, “Your freedom lies in your mind” and with my comfort that has anticipated my resurrection, stretches towards me with arms wide open to receive me again, saying “For this son of mine was lost and is found.” 

I now hear clearly the screaming voice of my opponent saying, “I am not your opponent! I never was! Never will be! I am your partner! And always will be!”