Walls down, walls up?

This will not be the normal type of post that I usually toss out there. To some folks this will make sense and have meaning, to most people this will seem cryptic, riddle-ish, and nonsensical. It is not intended to be that way, it just is what it is and what it is, is raw.

(is there a rule against putting 'is' in a sentence 5 times?)

Over the course of my life, particularly my younger years, I became rather adept at building walls. I could build them to keep things in, emotions, anger, fear, etc. I built strong and tall and thick walls to barricade these things within and keep them from seeping out into the world. I would do this to ostensibly control and prevent them (those things) from going out and causing damage to others, to relationships, and to myself and my situation.

I also was very talented at the constructions of walls to keep things out. I could keep out anything that I deemed a risk to hurt me. I could prevent people from getting to close, from getting to understand and know me and what I think and how I feel.

At some point when I became older I made the logical observation that while I was extremely talented in this area, the process actually was acutely illogical. Think about it for a minute, if I can keep pain out with walls, what was it that made me angry and hurt that I needed another wall to keep in? Once I became consciously aware of this issue I realized that I had barricaded a lifetime of darkness inside my walls and was keeping them all locked up in my mind. My mind was self destructing from the turmoil, but my outward appearance was remaining unchanged. This was the point in my life when something changed. Different people call this change by different names. Some say I found God, some say God found me, some say I got religion, some say I was born again, some call it an epiphany, some say I was covered in grace. Still others point to verses and say things like, everything old is washed away and made new again, you are (I am) a new creation. These phrases all have there faults but boil down to the same thing. I changed, I was changed.

At this point I began the demolition process of tearing down walls, not alone mind you, but the walls were torn down brick by painful brick. I would remove each brick and expose the mess behind it. The mess was cleaned up for me and the bricks were hauled away for me, but I had to remove each brick on my own. My hands became torn and callus and my back ached with each brick, but with my nightly rest my hands were bandaged and my back strengthened to begin anew the next day. Events were dropped in my life that motivated me to keep going with this process. Eventually, over a period of time I began to relish this labor because I knew I was getting stronger and learning and growing. Finally, the walls were down and the mess cleaned up and the piles of bricks were removed and hauled away.

Now you know the past, here is the present.

I miss my walls. I know it doesn't sound right, it doesn't even feel right. Something is amiss. There is a fox in the hen house I think. I feel like I am being worn down little by little without having any cover to dive behind and hide. I don't want to resort to my old ways of survival, because I am aware that the price was too high. I am not having success with doing the things I know I should be doing. I walk through each day uncomfortably. I feel the pressure beginning to build and my mind is getting more and more cluttered. My ability to be patient is getting thinner, I am getting grumpier and more short tempered. I cannot and will not allow myself to completely lose my temper ever again. That would simply not be fair to my wife or my daughter, so this must not ever happen. This battle is getting more intense however as I feel that old troll climbing back on my shoulder and it is getting more and more difficult to dismiss the rage that is boiling down in me.

Why do I blog? Well, many reasons. One reason is just this is a medium that I can use to communicate things. I am given the opportunity to share things about life in general, things about Gracie, things about politics, opinions, news events, whatever. I also have been know to use this medium for self therapy.