Thirst

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to explain it.  Feelings can be hard to capture.  Challenging to explain.  Impossible to justify.

It’s like I’m thirsty.  Not just, “I could use a drink.”  But the kind of thirsty that makes a person willing- no, thrilled; DESPERATE to put their face into a warm, stagnant brown puddle and suck up as much water as possible.  This is how I feel socially.  I’m so VERY thirsty, and I’ve been thirsty for so long that I can’t really remember how it feels to be fully hydrated.

So this is me- real thirsty, to summarize, and I see water everywhere around me.  I know it’s in every house, at every restaurant, in every mini-mart, but I can’t seem to get at it.  If I want the water, I have to ask for it.  Which is fine.   I don’t mind asking, but when you ask for water, people give you just a little bit.  Like a thimbleful, or maybe a shot-glass worth.  And I am so thankful for that little bit of water, but it doesn't meet my need.  Before I’m even done swallowing my body is crying out for more.

Like those last weeks each year in elementary school, before school let out and you had just come in from the sweltering blacktop of recess.  You waiting impatiently in the raggedy line for your turn at the drinking fountain, thinking you could drink a whole gallon of water right now.  Your turn finally arrives and you slurp up every single drop.  You don’t even worry about your ponytail, lying forgotten in the puddle of the basin.  You drink with the fervor of a castaway who’s finally found a stream of sweet water, and then suddenly your teacher announces that your turn is over.  The kid behind you is on your heels and though you’re nowhere near done, you’re forced to move on. 

You’re not going to die.  You will survive until your next chance to snatch a drink.  But you’re still thirsty.  Forever thirsty.

People visit me.  I visit people.  Sometimes someone stays the night, or I get a few visits in a row.  This is good.  I appreciate those gulps of social-water.  But then they leave.  I drive back to my little house.  Alone.  I go to work alone.  I come home alone.  I spend my evenings alone.  I go to bed.  Alone.  There is so very much alone in my life; alone-ness that soaks up the social-moisture like a giant, dry sponge.  Ruthless and uncaring of my constant social-dehydration headache.

Why am I like this?  Am I the only one?  I try to do what I can to fix it.  I try to be friendly.  I make myself vulnerable over and over, to meet people; to make friends; to try a new Bible study or church.  I go where the water is, but I’m still so thirsty.  

I know I’m needy.  And I wish that I could change that but I don’t know what to do about it.  How to fix it.  How to get the water I need.

Just so thirsty.