The Grey Room

Here's what happened to me recently, the title will make sense in a minute:

I have been doing really good in poker lately.  However, life keeps throwing me curve
after curve, none of which I can handle right now.  For instance, my mom pretty much just
disowned me this week, telling me that her relationship with her new husband, who I
refuse to grace with the title of "Stepdad," is worth enough to pretty much destroy her
relationship with me, which has been around, oh, 22 years longer.  She's called me an
embarrassment, and when told that I wanted to go back and finish college, told me I failed
previously, and I will fail now too.  And that because I was such a failure, no school would
accept me, and I would be able to get no scholarships or grants.   How's that for encouragement?

On top of that, I now have a contusion on my right tendon that I have a hard time putting
weight on my right leg at all, which is compounded by the fact that I STILL have to go to work,
and now, contend with customers calling me gimp and cripple at work.

Last Thursday, I almost committed suicide.  It took a collection of 11 friends to talk me out of it.

Things have been starting to look up.  I started on my way up to being more optimistic Saturday on, but, unfortunately, come Tuesday, that hit a wall.  During a slow moment at work, just when I thought I was starting to put things behind me, everything started showing up in my mind, and just hammering.  When I finally got back to the break room, I had my head in my arms, crying.  It's just been that hard.  They sent me home after break.

I got home, ate, and took a nap.  I then had this dream:

It's pretty much an absolute of what's been going on in my life this last week or so.  Everyone's looking down on me, and I just keep getting hammered from every angle.  I found a college that would accept me, but I didn't have enough funds to pay my way through, and couldn't find grants or scholarships to get me through.  Also throw into the mix that I was running bad in poker, with everything else going on, and I just couldn't do it anymore.  I had made up my mind, 100%.  I was going to put a bullet in my head.

I wound up in this grey room.  The floor and the ceiling were both grey.  The walls, I couldn't see, because it was dimly lit in the room, with only a small light hanging from a wire from the center of the room.  The light coming from this bulb formed a perfect circle, and within this circle of light, was a circle of boxes, one of which I knew for certain held a gun.  And that's exactly what I wanted.  I wanted to end this pain.

I got down on my knees, and started looking through these boxes, about 20 or 30 boxes in this circle, trying to find the gun.  But every box I opened had pieces of paper in the tops of them.  I wound up pulling one out, and reading it.  It was a message of encouragement for me.  But then I looked at the box again.  This note of encouragement concealed a box full of hundred dollar bills.  I can't count how many were in this box.  I kept opening boxes, and reading the notes, some from people I know, and pictured as I was reading each note, thinking, "Wow.  They actually do care?!  I thought they could've cared less;" some came from people I don't know.  Some boxes didn't contain money, but all contained words of encouragement for me.

As I kept opening these boxes, the light in the room started to grow brighter and brighter, meanwhile, I'm reading these notes and counting the money, and figuring I almost have enough money for my first semester back to school.  Then my alarm goes off, and I awake from the dream.

I know a lot of people that know me wouldn't be able to guess it by the way I've acted lately, but I used to be very religious.  I fell away from God and anything even keeping me grounded 2 years ago.  I've been off and on since, but since this last week hammered me, I've been trying to get back to where to Jesus at the core of it all.  Granted, it's an uphill battle, one compounded by my current situation, but one that I'm optimistic will finally start to bring me back to what I really need.  Call it fanatical, call it stupid, call it blind, and you may be right.  But it brings me joy.  Even through all this, I'm starting to see the joy again.  And that's good enough.

But even still, this whole situation will not stop rearing my ugly head.  And as much as I tell myself I'm not worthless, and I'm not a failure, and that God has a purpose for me, when your own mother speaks stuff like that over you, it hurts you so deep you can't even begin to rebound.  I didn't come home thinking about suicide, the thought never crossed my mind.  But as much as I knew things were going to look up soon, it still looks dim from here.

That dream, I believe, was a sign from God, that tells me, "It's dim, but not hopeless.  People still care, and people still believe you are going to succeed.  Do not give up, because your prayers will be answered, your needs will be met, and your life will get better."

And I'm not giving up.  Not now.