Free The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living by Lacey Sturm

maybe there was something in my life I was hiding from. But to think that way forced me to face myself in a way I feared. It forced me to consider that I might be just as messed up as all the people I hated and thought were a waste of space, and maybe now I would have to face the same judgment I had cast on so many others.
    When I’d reach the edge of myself like this, I’d start justifying all the things I was questioning in my heart. I would explain to myself why I was different, why I was justified, why I was excused. And eventually my thoughts would die down. My heart, mind, and body would feel exhausted. But something deeper in me still wouldn’t let me sleep, and the restlessness, the aching, the empty feeling were still there.
    And then, worn out on the inside, I’d begin to cry.
    It was such a familiar feeling, crying at night. It felt like an appropriate response to life. Something just wasn’t right about it, and there were no answers to make it right. There was a deep loneliness in those moments that I only felt in the mornings. The two quietest, emptiest, loneliest parts of my day were when I laid down and when I got up.
    It’s amazing to me that these two moments would soon be the most fulfilling times of my day. These moments would become the times when I felt the God I worked so hard to not believe in embrace me like no one else ever could.
    Later on I discovered I’m not just a body with a mind and emotions, a heart and a soul. I would realize that within my soul there was a spirit that I was neglecting. Within my soul there was a spirit God formed to be the roots of all that I was. It would be my source of life—or if neglected or poisoned, my source of death. Even then I knew my body was more like my vehicle than my real self. But I only considered my self to extend to my soul: my mind, will, and emotions. So to find a deeper part of me was a surprise, a relief, and itmade so much sense out of so much chaos and turmoil within me.

    Pain made sense to me. I could feel it. It was when I went numb to pain that I felt so anxious. Eventually physical and emotional pain would start to numb me completely. Bono sang the truth I felt during this time when he said, “The only pain is to feel nothing at all.” It is one of the emptiest, deadest feelings.
    You can see what hurts your body and emotions in this life, but you can’t always see what hurts your spirit. I think my addiction to being sad culminated into an addiction to rage and violence. I knew if I pushed my mother to a certain point she would fight back. If my mom wasn’t around, I would push my older brother. If he wasn’t around, it would be directed toward people at school.
    I loved to fight with anyone who was sensitive to being challenged. I was so messed up that I would actually create horrible situations in order to cry about the injustice of my life. I would get bored with peace and act out, causing crazy drama to ensue. I was addicted to emotional pain. If I didn ’ t have anything to hurt about in my own life, I would hurt about something in someone else ’s life, like it was my own problem.
    The emotional pain I desired deadened me.
    Eventually life circumstances had to be traumatic in order for me to be affected by them at all. But over time the pain lost its flavor and I discovered I was numb.
    Death and Truth
    Though I felt numb, the insatiable desire for something still existed in me. That never goes away. That’s the very reason Iwas in the place I was. I was seeking something beyond me, beyond you, beyond the gross pain in the world.
    Writers of great literature talk about this deep desire. They call it sehnsucht , a German word that literally means “longing.” A friend of mine showed me these lines from the haunting poem “The Buried Life” by the great poet Matthew Arnold:
    But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
    But often, in the din of strife,
    There rises an unspeakable desire.
    After the knowledge of our