I'm leaving. 17 days, and I'll be hundreds of miles from home. Everyone keeps asking when I leave for Princeton, and I have no problem telling them, but each time is like another layer being peeled off my purposefully and self-built summer shell, or like a needle poking through to touch something that would much rather be left alone. I don't know. I must have been living in this shell this summer, hidden in my own facade, believing that this is what life really is. It's been an almost-ideal summer: no homework, no really consuming work to do, Sam home for the summer, time to get everything done without stress, and seemingly little to worry about. Even when bad things would happen, or situations would arise out of my control, somehow I could confine those moments to just moments--the next day was like a new world again, back to my summer paradise. Nothing's really been dealt with, at least at its core. It's not that I don't want that, but somehow there's something in the way. I keep making myself believe that this is life, that I should just enjoy, scoot around the issues. Each time someone asks when I'm leaving, I start to realize that I have to come back to face reality. I'm scared, sure. I'm not under the impression that school will be easy, or that all of a sudden my stress won't overwhelm me, but what really scares me is facing myself again, facing situations without a dream to return to the next day. I'm scared of being in a place where I have no choice but to face my life. Each time someone asks, I just think more about how I'm going to have to face reality. But now I'm beginning to have to ask myself: What even is reality? Honestly, just because life is going to be harder in Princeton, does that mean I'm facing reality? Now I see that even that can be unreal, it can be an even deeper mirage. I can so easily bury myself in schoolwork--I've done it many times before. Now I don't even know. What is reality? Who says my summer hasn't been real? Just because I enjoyed it so much doesn't mean it was unreal. Reality doesn't necessarily equate to suffering. I have this concept that reality means I have to be in pain, that I have to face something I really don't want to. But really, that's completely wrong anyway. It's not that when I face reality I won't have to face these things, but rather that reality is an entirely different concept in itself, not even confining itself to suffering or joy. I'm still not clear, but I know I want a real taste of that--of something that encompasses all of human experience in its most pure and genuine form. The Lord is breaking my concepts. He's not asking me to just suffer or just enjoy . . . He's asking me to be real. He's asking me to stop pretending, to stop trying to find a way to touch reality. Can I just live? Can I just touch Him in these moments and see that reality only comes through His eyes? Our eyes, they're so evil. They show us the world through a film, through a filter, making us think that what we are seeing is real. Nothing we see is real. Nothing we think is real. We even see our own lives through this filter. We'd be better off blind than seeing these lies. I'm slowly realizing that my only way to be real is to disregard my own sight, to do away with something seemingly so useful and necessary, and instead turn to the one Person I know will not not betray me. His eyes do not lie. Lord, please, I beg you to give me Your eyes. I do not trust my own. Let me see the world as it is. Let me see my life. Let me see my failures. Let me suffer. Let me be joyful. But please, let it be real.
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