I feel…heavy.

“All your weight– it falls on me, it brings me down.”   -Collective Soul, from the song, “Heavy.”

I loved the last LOTR movie.  Absolutely loved it.  And it was for a reason other than I would have thought.  In the first two movies, the whole Sam/Frodo/Gollum thing just kind of bothered me.  I didn’t like the angle the story took.  It departed from what I’d imagined, and I decided to whine about it, and not like those parts of the first two movie.  The Aragorn storyline is much more appealing to me, for reasons that remains obscure.  (Or maybe they’re not so obscure, I don’t know.)  When I went to the third movie, suddenly, Frodo was the most interesting character.  I found myself deeply engaged by that part of the story, in addition to Aragorn story line.  The part that really resonated with me was the part where Frodo is trying to hide from the eye, and he feels like there is no way to hide from it.  As Frodo explains about the weight of the impending doom he carries, I just found myself empathizing with him in a way I didn’t explain.  A couple of weeks later, I went home to Wisconsin for Christmas.

When I got there, I stopped sleeping, in the same bed I’d slept in for years and years.  I was unsettled.  And I felt something akin to what I’d already witnessed on the screen–the feeling of being stalked, the awareness of impending doom, my radar screen freaking out and summarily melting down.  I wasn’t expecting it.  I was flying high after my semester at Seminary, and to be totally honest, I expected the time at home to be more of a refreshing time.  Instead, I felt like a castle under siege.  From the minute I got on the ground in Milwaukee from my flight, it was this constant thing.

But let me be perfectly clear–this is not about a girl problem.  It’s not about people I didn’t want to see.  It’s not about me not doing something I was supposed to do.  It’s something else.

I feel like I’m being stalked.  Like someone is setting a trap for me.  Delusions of grandeur?  Perhaps.  Some of you are thinking I just need to relax.  If you have advice for me for how I do that, I sincerely want it.  It’s not like I don’t want to relax.  I love to relax.  But when there is no peace, there is no relaxation.  Such is the problem of my situation.  I can’t relax.  Relaxation is the very thing I’m being denied.  Ah well.

For those of you who acknowledge the spiritual aspect of things, I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not sure you’re wrong.  That possibility has crossed my mind.  If that’s true though, my only question is why?  What was it about coming home that caused this particular thing?  I don’t really have the energy or the time to fix this right now–it’s a fight I don’t have the heart for at this time.  I will have to fight it, perhaps next week when I get some time, during spring break, but seriously, it’s starting to wear on me.  And with everything else, well…I just feel a little overwhelmed.  That’s all.  I’m going to go translate some more Greek.  Blessings, folks.