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The last five years have been possibly the strangest of my life. The changes I've gone through were inevitable. Nothing strange there. The strangeness lies in what happened inside me. 

I'm not the guy who gets fucked up over a woman. I'm not the guy who gets his feathers ruffled by life changes. I've seen it all. I've dealt with much worse. Those things don't bother me. But they did. I got laid out — clobbered by a perfect storm. 

If I took it all apart and looked at it, there wasn't one thing that should have messed me up like that. I've withstood incredible pain and hardship in my 41 years. What shocked me the most was my aberrant reaction to what I was going through. I simply wasn't myself.

By necessity, my whole life I've been laid back. It's been a bumpy ride, so I make jokes and get along no matter what. My wit intervenes. My mind finds other paths. Sometimes I even have to find my "happy place." I make mountains into molehills. In my head, things were never out of control. They were always in God's capable hands. As bad as things would get, I knew they could always be worse because, well, they had been worse. 

Something deeply unnerving went through me over the last five years. All of my confidence was reduced to a quivering mess. All of my paper towns were discovered to be just that — flimsy lies. I relied on myself. No one in my life was reliable as far back as I could recall. I had to be stoically independent and strong. But something happened to me I could not explain. Had I reached the end of myself?

I sat in my recliner a month ago and watched a movie. Nothing special there. But I laughed at that stupid movie like I had not laughed in what seemed like years. Most importantly, I forgot all my misery. And, for a brief moment, I remembered who I was. I was the guy who laughed in the face of danger, cheated death, spit in its face, and lived to tell the tale. More than anything, I was resilient. 

Heartbreak isn't something new to me. Losing people isn't new. Failure isn't new. Adjusting to a new reality isn't new. None of these things should have messed me up like they did. I have walked through fire just to stay alive. I have been stripped of my dignity numerous times. I have been repeatedly humbled beyond what was necessary. I have been crushed, rejected, spurned, laughed at, and openly disparaged. And that's just the short list. 

Something didn't make sense. I was a tough guy, but I was reduced to tears on a daily basis. I cried like it was my job. My heart broke in a way I never expected — like it was the first time. Only worse. There was a virgin part of me that got throttled. It was a part of me that had not experienced that caliber of pain. It was a part of me I kept pure and hidden somewhere in my core. It was the death of that thing that nearly killed the rest of me. 

There's no quick fix for how I feel, but I know this feeling isn't forever. This life I'm living will change again. And again and again. I survived many years on more meager rations. I made myself something out of seemingly nothing. I can do it again. I can pull myself through another shitty day in a shitty month and shitty year again. And I will. 

When I was going through hell, I looked in on myself like I was a stranger. I put an arm around my own shoulders and whispered myself through to the other side. No one was there to help me but my God, and He gave me words I needed. He helped me understand I could not save myself, but I could stand patiently in the middle of the pain and know I would be alright. Most of all, I had to know He is everything I need.

The pain. It used to roll off me. In the most potent moments, I would let it go through me like a cold wind as if I stood on a street corner on my way to someplace warm. I let it go through me and didn't hold on to it. It was gone in a moment. This time was different, though, as it seemed I invited it in to stay. It went to my core and sat there. It met my impulses at every synapse. It wrote my script.

When I sat in my recliner and laughed, I got a brief glimpse of who I used to be for a moment, and my heart burned. I wanted it back, and then I felt it start to come back. That ease, that confidence, that nonchalance, that calmness, that patience, that feeling that everything would be alright and life is too short to feel bad. It was me — the me I missed. And I welcomed him back. Nothing in my life had changed. It has always been a mess. But I desperately needed myself back at the helm. This ship was going nowhere, moored to an island of pain. 

It's good to feel strength in my bones again. It's good to look at myself in the mirror and see a flicker of recognition in my eyes. It's good to know I'm back. Life may not make sense, but it does make sense to see myself once again standing calmly in the storm, an unflappable reminder of how I've always been.