Getting un-stuck

Image 'Lucifer' by Franz Stück, from Bierbaum’s Franz Stück.       Found at:  Tumbler
and at:   Franz von Stuck

There are spaces that feel comfortable because we've gotten used to them.
Just because we've become accustomed  to them doesn't actually mean that they ever fit at all.

They've felt too tight, short, uncomfortable, or like they've been borrowed from someone who didn't want to loan them to you in the first place. But you wear them anyway. Because they are there, or there are no other options or whatever reason makes it bearable at the time.

There have been attempts to force a fit, change to fit what is there, and even negotiate for some new duds - but it just didn't click.

That day that it smacked you in face - the "unfittingness" of it all, should have been evidence enough that it was time to take it off for good. Those words, "I can't do this anymore." escaped from your lips, before you had the time to stop them up inside you throat.

So, you let go for a moment - a day - a week - but kept coming back to that familiar ill fitting thing, putting it on and trying to make it work. You tried accessories: scarves, jewelry and shoes to see if it would pass; but it didn't. Each time you tried to force it, it caused you pain. Pain for what was lost and pain for knowing it needed to be let go of.

You packed it up and set it in the corner for a while. Vowing to never try it on again. But then someone asked you where it was and why you don't wear it anymore. So you went looking for where you had stashed it. For memories sake, you took it out of the corner, unwrapped it and tried the misfit on once again.

It just didn't fit, and that familiar pain stung your heart once more. This just can't go on.
For the last time, back into it's wrapping and out the door it had to go.

This time you knew it couldn't stay with you. It needed to go back to where it should have been living all along - apart from you. There is someone that it fits, and they can't try it on for size until you send it back.

It's time to return what doesn't fit and get ready to wear what does.

All this time it's been waiting, hoping, praying that you could let go of ill-fitting to be free to wear what was made for you all along.

It's time for a change.

T.L. Eastman 2013


"Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."
Matthew 19:17