Waiting for a miracle

Where do I start? I feel like I've always been a failure. When did I start believing that? As the youngest child, you do everything later and slower than everyone else. Then you have two parents (ideally) to compare yourself to. You never win the comparisons so you stop trying. I did well in school for the most part. I did okay in athletics. I wasn't ever popular, nor did I desire to be. Those kids were assholes. The older I got, the more the world I knew lurched away from me. I was lost. 

I've never been good at any job I've ever done. I just kind of wing it. People have a propensity to hate me because I'm so bad at what I do and I really should feel bad about it, but I don't. I struggle and no one helps me and that's okay. My life is struggle and failure and an occasional success that scares the shit out of me. Like, where did that come from? The law of averages gives me an occasional home run. 

When you've been a screw-up as long as you can remember, you have to make peace with it. Make peace with those who said you were no good, that you should try something else. Make peace with your image in the mirror because it's only downhill from here, brother. Make peace with those people in your life who tell you you'll never get it right. Because the next miserable failure is just around the corner. We can't spend all day crying over this one. Spread those tears out. 

Seriously, though, I've had low self-esteem my entire life. Life offers you the antidote, and that's pride. Most people with abundant pride also harbor significant self-esteem issues. I reject pride. I have no use for it, and it prevents me from doing what God tells me to do. I jettison all pride. I'm sure it will swim back to me, but if I toss it overboard enough, maybe it will get waterlogged and drown. I know it's hopeless; everything I want is hopeless. I don't know why I don't just quit and walk away. I've done my fair share of quitting. In fact, it may be the only thing I'm good at! 

Asking for a miracle is what I'm doing. Every day I wake up, I ask God for a miracle that today will be my day. No day will ever be perfect. No relationship will ever make total sense. We're all just trying to figure things out. No one has all the answers. Still, my heart runs on high-octane hope. A miracle is just around the corner. I know I'm swimming upstream, hoping against all hope she'll see my heart and know it was made for her. Maybe I'll wake up someday and realize this has just been a bad dream, that she lays quietly beside me, ready to face every day with me. Maybe I'll wake up someday and all the hurt will peel off like a mask. Maybe I'll feel the tension in my shoulders drain out through my toes, the tightness in my fingers evaporate, and the dull ache in my bones subside. Maybe all it takes is one more day, one more tomorrow to get there. Maybe it's just a moment away, a breath and a heartbeat and a sigh and a wish away. It could be any moment now. I'm like Gatsby waiting for a telephone call that will never come. With an empty house and not a friend in this world, I still hope.