on glass boxes and not god

i don't think i've ever had the ability to fathom what comes next. every day i wake up, i am surprised i'm still alive. not to mention the fact that i'm incredibly clumsy and undeniably awkward, to the point where it is detrimental to my everyday health.
i can't save money, i can't plan for the future, i can't look towards a goal without finding the possibility that it most likely won't ever happen. everything i've ever done was due to a happy accident, and this fact alone makes me wonder - how much of my life did i really create intentionally? what have i achieved so significant that has been due to a proper course of planning, and not received largely because of some serendipitous grant that worked it's way into my life?
even though i live shrouded in a world of cynicism, it's never jaded me to the point where the outcome is that of despair and hopelessness. it's odd - to be a sarcastic optimist. a juxtaposition, really. although i have at times thought that i may never make it out of certain situations, there's always been an overwhelming sense of "this too shall pass" effigy. especially now, faced with an incredible sense of frenetic madness, in a city where i know no one and make less money than i ever had in my working life... i still feel like this is the next step before being settled. it's largely due to my glass box.
what is this glass box you possess, you ask? well, i'll tell you, baby birds.
maybe a large part of my small successes have been due to the fact that there is an intangible quality inside me that is untouchable. no matter where i am, who i have chosen to be destructive with, or any negativity being thrown my way... there has always been this one shred of nothingness that allows me to find optimism in bad situations. it is fragile and can be bruised and broken if someone else was able to touch it, their dirty little fingerprints mauling the outside prismatic beauty of it's walls. but the glass houses this seed, and allows it to grow even in the shade of our venal tendencies. it is what i cherish most in my life, this little seed of faith, and i protect it to all ends because in turn, it protects me from all the bad.
i will tell you right now. this essay is NOT about god. how overbearingly cliche.
we all possess this seed. some of us just choose not to allow it to grow. and this, is a fatal downfall. because if you lose faith in yourself, you have lost the fight against everything else.
after a two month long downward spiral during and coming back from san francisco, in which i had lost my pre-planned californian life, my hard earned apartment, half my furniture, my independence, my boyfriend to adultery, my family, my dignity, and my mutual fund... i was devastated. i found it increasingly difficult to look in the mirror and find things to be happy about, like the fact that i had a career that i had worked towards for twenty years and a car to drive to that career and that i had a loft with things to decorate it with...
these "things" never made me happy. my life was full of tangible shit that i could see and touch and hold, and i was empty as the day was long. it saddened me to know that i had lost this vibrancy i once depended on, that i employed to get me through all the rough shit. and so, i got rid of it all. of everything. minus about two boxes that are currently residing at my parents' house in north carolina. i had to shed everything to understand what it was like to live inside nothing, which is where all my strength decided to shine through.
when i made the decision to leave atlanta behind, all the baggage and trials and tribulations, i knew it was a decision based on seeing if i had enough inside me to eventually get it all back, the way i wanted to. so currently i sleep on my floor, on a cushioned mattress and two blankets warm enough to make do, walking fifteen minutes to get a train to where i need to go, with no pictures, pillows, and only two suitcases full of clothes and shoes to get by. i have very little money to get new things, which will change as soon as i can get the means to do so, which is fine by me. i'll eventually get my things back, through patience and time, and i'm okay with this. because none of those things would ever change the fact that my glass box is pulsing with the notion that all this too, soon shall pass.
it's not what we have that makes us strong. it's what we don't. and no amount of furniture, pets, or even love will give it to us. it's that shred of delicious self certainty, of complete awareness that what you have to offer is what everyone will desire as well... that's the most important thing for successes and happiness. without that, we have everything in the world but nothing to show for it.

k.