Forever Yours

The Meaning of Heartache [26]

26. The Meaning of Heartache

Maureen

Even before I'd dragged my puffy, swollen eyes open the next morning, the events of the previous day flooded my head and I buried my head within my pillow, emitting a low sob. Oh God, what am I supposed to do...

The majority of the night had been spent in hysterical tears. It had seemed endless as my mind roved from one extreme to another - the extremes of regret, of anger, of grief, of sadness... At first, I cried with fury, blaming my father.

I could stand up to him, refuse to obey! The thought, so strenuously deflected in the past, barreled its way into my conscience as I sobbed, dry-heaving, over my drawn-up knees. I'm seventeen now - practically a woman. I had a job, I had a car. I could leave home! I had enough money of my own... I could go live with Ryan.

Oh, but no! I shook my head roughly, a fresh wave of sobs overtaking me. What was I thinking?! Leave home?

It wouldn't be just my home I'd be leaving. It'd be my siblings, my parents... all of whom I loved dearly. My mind jumped to dizzying heights, tumbling headlong into the uncertain future that would be mine if I chose to do such a thing as defy my father. Would I be welcome back home if I left? I didn't know but I knew that I wouldn't be able to bear coming back to visit, just to see the sadness and disappointment I would have permanently etched into my parents' faces. I would have to tear myself away from them entirely in order to deflect the guilt I knew such an act would bring. And could I live the rest of my life knowing what I'd left behind? I wouldn't be around to watch my siblings grow up. I wouldn't be there for Justin's first driving lesson, for Cara's first kiss, for Ashley's graduation day. My littlest brother, David, would remain forever three in my mind because I wouldn't be around for his fourth birthday.

And what of my parents? Live life knowing that their last years on earth would be in mourning the loss of a defiant daughter? Could I stand to be cast-off, forgotten, alone? Never see my mother's soft, brown eyes lift with a smile... never hear my father's deep, warm voice calling me to his side to steal a kiss for his cheek... I shook my head against the onslaught of pain these thoughts brought but I could no more suppress them than I could erase the long-term developments such a decision would bring. What of reality? I would no longer have a job and would have to find work... what would I do? I was only seventeen - and whereas a minute before, seventeen had seemed like a grand number of years to have lived, in all reality, I was still a teenager. Still technically a child. What experience did I have in the world? I knew how to run a multi-level marketing company but who would hire someone so young?

And then (and this thought hurt terribly) what of me and Ryan? I wasn't so desperately naive that I'd think that we could last very long. My guilt and heartache would eventually drive me to rage and unrequited regret and I'd end up estranging the last person I had to call mine... I would probably end up blaming him - just as I was now trying to blame my father. And then, where would I be then? Alone. Homeless. Broke. A virtual orphan in all respects concerned... Would my parents take me back then? Maybe. But what would be the damage - what would be the consequences?

I was also not dumb to the fact that in estranging my parents, my family - in leaving home and moving in with a man that wasn't my husband- I would also be giving up something that nullified all the rest in its gravity: God.

I'd turned my back on Him in the past few weeks, I realized that now. Guilt and the ever-increasing sense of living a life of deception had tormented me to the point of ignoring my nightly devotions to Him. For all my gentle prodding and pressing about God to Ryan, I hadn't been the white example I'd played myself off to be. I couldn't remember the last time I'd read my Bible. My parents had always raised me with the sense that having a relationship with our God in Heaven was meant to be joyful thing, something to take refuge in, something to cultivate and let grow. It wasn't meant to be religion, or something mechanical and automatic. I had let it become that, starting all the way back when Ryan had first started working for me. I realized that not only had I screwed up any chances for Ryan and I to stay together, but I'd shoved away my relationship with the Lord and replaced it with a quick, perfunctory, "Father, forgive my sins and bless this day, Amen," prayer in the mornings. I'd felt the pulling call of His still, quiet voice often - and ignored it every time. The deceitful life I'd been living had done something even graver than angering my father: and that was turning my back on the Father in Heaven that I'd given my life to when I was just a little girl.