Sarah Nyhan

How do you define success?

Do you leave the definition of success for yourself up to someone else? Who do you give that power to? It’s your life. You are the only one who gets to live it. 

What will you say when you are in those last days? Looking back at all that happened? Will you be happy? Will you be satisfied with where you are now?

You gotta get over all these fears that hold you back. From living the life you really want to lead. 

Unless you want to stay mad and keep blaming everyone else. Including God.

What if you only get one chance at this? Weeping and gnashing of teeth – that’s it?

God told Adam to give the animals names. God didn’t give Adam the names. If you need Bible verses.

What about the story of the talents? The only one who was corrected was the one who did nothing. The one who tried to blame his inaction on fear. The one who was forever waiting for outside permission before actually living. The one who didn’t value his own thoughts and opinions. Who tried to blame their inaction on God.

We gotta get over that. 

Perfection isn’t the goal. In the sanitized sense. Otherwise the world would not have so many different colors and nuances. So much mystery. So many invitations for relationship presenting as intentionally unanswered questions.

There are no right answers to keep looking for. We’re not even supposed to judge ourselves. Yet I know some who make it their full-time job working overtime to cast down condemnation on anyone that dares to trust Jesus and take up space. Dares to voice an opinion. Dares to stand for something other than the dead status quo. 

Sure, get angry with me. I gotta get over that. I gotta believe in myself at some point. In what I feel. In what I think. And quit defining success as everyone else never having a problem with anything I do or say.

It’s just not reasonable to expect everyone to like you. To like me. It’s not reasonable to only start living after everyone approves of my decisions and what I want to say.

I believe in working things out. I believe in processing. I believe it’s okay to discuss thoughts and beliefs. I value taking action over dying before I’m physically dead. Waiting until such a day as everyone takes time out of their life to validate me.

It’s really okay. To not always get it right. No matter how hard you try. So-called failure just means you’re trying. More than I can say for a lot of folks. 

Guess what? You’re human. 

Imma roll out this bitch like the last car in a demolition derby. My opinion? I think it’s foolish to leave anything on the table.

I been there. Twice at least. Getting wheeled into surgery. Thinking this might be the end. You know what I instantly regretted? Not doing more. Playing scared.

Fuck that shit.

I dreamt about you for several hours this morning. We spent time together in my dreams. I was so sad when I woke up and it wasn’t true. At least in the here and now.

There’s definitely not a week that goes by that I don’t think of you. Maybe not even a day. Now that’s pretty gay! 😉😆

Yet I have to surrender you. To respect you – for one. And to keep my sanity – secondly. But I don’t think I’m capable of ever giving up on you.

Unless someone else comes along that I am better connected with. But it’s been over twenty years. And you’re one of a very few that my heart ever still wants. 

How many thousands of people did I give rides to when I worked as a taxi driver for Yellow Cab way back in the day?

How many dozens of people did I meet when I managed those Airbnbs in Austin?

I gave rides to over 800 people on Uber.

I met over 11,000 people while doing Lyft for over six years. 

And STILL! I’ve probably met well over 20,000 people in the past twenty years. And STILL there is no one like you. No one has ever been able to replace you.

It’s true: I have a handful of people I have Loved. For completely different reasons. And I would also want them all in my Life if that would ever happen. But that doesn’t mean you mean less to me. Twenty years! And my heart still dreams of you. Literally.

It isn’t like I don’t get offers. Just this week. A male my age, quite fit, approached me as I was walking into the grocery store. Grabbed my hand. Put his arm around me. BEGGING! To the point of following me around the store.

The logical side of me tells me to move on. But there was nothing in me that wanted him. 

I can’t settle for just getting attention. Or even for money. Not about the house. Not about the career.

It isn’t even about looks. Had a gorgeous Indian athlete with a chiseled body begging for me in Georgetown. Couldn’t do it. I was completely unmoved. Couldn’t wait to get out of there fast enough.

End of the day I still want you.

Had TWO guys in the Dallas area offer to pay me to suck my toes! Of all things. So many would have done it. But I had no interest. I even needed the money. But couldn’t bring myself to even consider it seriously.

Was in the Goodyear off Bandera in San Antonio. Another quite fit man from Africa. Aggressively pursuing me. 

I tried to deflect another one by telling him to call my uncle and brother for their approval. He actually called my brother! I didn’t think that would happen. 

Another one named Solomon. When I tried to deflect him by saying he could only spend time with me if he went to the church when I attended back then. He actually showed up! 

A guy in Austin I met. Again BEGGING! “You’re gonna miss your blessing, girl. You’re gonna miss your blessing.” 

The guy in Denton who tried to pay me to spend time with him. Still I couldn’t do it. Still I wanted you.

The list goes on and on and on if I make the effort to think of it.

They feed me this line that they can help me come up by us partnering up. Over and over. Guy after guy. And believe me, I have needed the help. But still can’t bring myself to ever settle.

Still I think about you. 
Still I want you.

Still I’d rather work night and day. Bust my ass by myself. Alone every damn day and damn night. Than settle for anything less than you and I had.

At least take that as a compliment. At least don’t settle for anyone who doesn’t want you and value you like I do.

And there have been females also. But that’s a more obvious comparison. And none of them even came close to measuring up. So far behind I gave them all zero time.

But I also have to apologize. Because I haven’t respected you. I didn’t trust God to bring us back together at some point if that’s what is best.

I thought by trying to get you to see my point of view that things could be fixed. I’m sorry I didn’t respect you to make up your own mind.

I’m finally there. I finally get it. That real Love means exactly what they always said: you gotta let people go if they want to leave. Real Love only exists in absolute freedom. To be who you are, who you want to be. And do exactly what you want to do.

I have completely surrendered you now. But even if I do my best to move on, I still hope I’ll see your name on my Caller ID someday. I still hope someday to be laying next to you in bed watching whatever. I still hope someday we’ll be driving around together. You giving me shit for everything. I miss everything about you, honestly.

I want to grow old with you. I want to cook you food. I want to help out with the lawn. The laundry. The car washes. The cleaning. I want to give you massages. I want to show you off. I want to listen to everything you want to say. Everything you want to talk about.

And I’ve traveled from one end of the country and back. I was as far northwest as the San Juan Islands up in Washington State. To the tip of Key West, Florida. 

And still there was no one who took your place. I saw lots and lots of places. But still they were empty without you there with me.

I realize now that home isn’t a geographic location. Rather home is who you are with. Home is a person. Home is who is in your heart.

I could care less about where I stay anymore. I only care about who I do Life with. Who I Love.

Like I said, I know you can do better than me. I know I have messed up. I wish more than anyone I could go back and do better by you. I’d pay every last cent if that was an option.

All I can do now is work on myself with whatever time I have left. Hoping someday at least we’ll spend time together as friends. That would be better than nothing. For sure. That thought alone gets me out of bed and upright. Helps me get the motivation to keep on. 

But if I never see you again, I genuinely hope you’re happy. I wish you no ill will. I hope whoever you have in your life values you. I hope you have lots of laughs and enjoyment. I worry about you physically and pray you experience relief in every sense. I hope you are safe and comfortable. 

Even with someone else. As hard as that is to admit.

I’m thankful for the lessons that I had to learn while we have been apart. They were so necessary. But I don’t know if they were worth it if I lost you forever in the process. 

I guess as long as you and I are still breathing then there is hope.

But I know I am not my best right now. So that’s what I am focused on in the interim. Working my ass off to really be available. To be a present partner. Who can really show up this time. For real life shit. Not just the fun.

I want you to be proud of me. Not me just proud of you. I want you to be able to show me off. Not me just wanting everyone to see how good you are.

You deserve that. Whoever you pick. Me or not.

I want to be the best person for you. Not just someone who adores you. You deserve that also. No matter if it’s me or someone else.

So I best quit writing this and get busy. Every minute I waste doing anything else is a day and night I might miss out on with you.

Loving myself first. I know that is the answer. 

But damn, I hope one day we’ll be together again. More than in just my dreams.

More things I had to give up on: being understood.

I’m kinda thankful now for all the people who rejected me. Who needed me to be the bad guy. So they could have an excuse to push me away. When things got a little too real. Or a lot.

Because you forced me to find myself. 

I was raised to be an echo. To fit into everyone else’s life as a supporting actor. Not to have my own life. Not to become my own person. 

E-fucking-xhausting! 

I never knew who I was for the longest. I was always just someone in service to everyone else. Showing up to dance to their whims just so they’d keep me around. 

And they did. Until I wanted some respect in return. Just a little fucking respect. Just a little fucking acknowledgement that they at least considered me worthy enough because I was human. Much less equality.

Nope, that was apparently too much to ask for. Serve or die. Shut up or die. RE-fucking-JECTED. Over and over. You’re not useful as a quiet tool to be exploited anymore? Get fucking lost. 

Sucks. Another thing I’ve had to learn: how to face the pain and accept the reality of the situations. How to let go of my narrative of what I thought was going on. When people clearly show me otherwise.

And the worst part: actually forgive. Actually live and be as if God really IS good in the face of so much humiliation and loss.

And this isn’t a defeatists’ mentality even if it sounds like it: but I truly believe God is only good. So then even the removal of the people I thought I wanted most has to be good in some way. 

(Admittedly not really ready to explore now if that theory applies to EVERYTHING in this human experience.)

But as it applies to most things I’ve deep-dived on in this respect thus far, seems like God letting relationships fall apart is always for my ultimate good and ultimate healing in the long run. No matter how upset I am about things not going my way.

Their rejection forced me to finally find myself. I never would have met myself if I had just stayed an echo of everyone. 

And that was a terrible place to be when I based my self-worth on who kept me around: zero security. I couldn’t stand up by myself for very long then. A day would have been quite the accomplishment. 

It’s because I was raised with no homebase. Every time there was any stability it would be ripped out from under me. Family, community, schools, friends, churches, homes, etc. 

I’m not mad at the travel aspect. I enjoyed that part: despite others saying otherwise and trying to use that as the excuse to escape responsibility for how they treated me.

But as an adult I can see that the whole lifestyle took a big hit on me developmentally, socially, and psychologically. Specifically that I didn’t know who I was. I had no anchor other than God and who I was with. And unfortunately I put too much weight on the latter.

It took me decades to learn. Screaming, crying, kicking, and fighting God all the way.

Surprising things also: thinking this whole time that you liked some things that you end up realizing later on that you only picked up because someone you wanted liked them. 

I mean there would be so many days where I would feel like a piece of trash floating completely aimless and powerless in the middle of the ocean. I had to build from the ground up something to tether myself to. I had to work for the past years to find the person I truly am inside. 

It sounds so stupid. So trivial. So full of myself. But it’s been everything. 

Unfortunately without the ending I wanted. Where I could convince everyone I wanted to join me on the journey. That has been one of the hardest things. 

To realize that happy endings in media are convenient. Are like a drug sold to us over and over. And are rarely realistic in actual Life. In actual relationships. At least in the short-term. And maybe only for as long as we insist on particular outcomes. Instead of embracing mystery by way of surrender.

To understand that most times this has very little to do with me failing as spectacularly as they’d like to make it out to be. So they don’t have to do the work. 

I have to let go without being understood. I have to let go without any guarantee things will ever get better in the future.

I have to give up in order to save myself. Which I absolutely hate to do. But they force me to choose. They give me no other choice. 

Sadness. Grief. Anger. Exhaustion. So tired of this same story over and over. 

But trying to pretend otherwise is no longer possible. I am all tapped out after decades of this shit. I have no more capacity for masking just to keep the peace. 

Have you looked around? It’s not a game out here anymore. Real Life is hitting us. Square up or get rolled over. And under.

I can’t. I won’t. I’ve worked too hard to get the shred of dignity and sanity I was able to mine still hold onto. And fucking happiness while we’re at it.

You take the pills. You smoke whatever it is y’all are smoking. You keep taking hits off the attention you settle for in whatever relationships. You keep your face in those screens. Shit hard out here. I can’t even knock it. Can’t even knock you. 

But you know I’d be abandoning myself if I did the same. After all I’ve been through to get here even as this. As the version of myself that I still am quite far from being happy with.

It’s really all okay. In the end and now. For me. That’s what I tell myself as I am doing the work. Imperfectly – unfortunately. Because I am so human. So not God.

I gave up. I surrendered everyone else’s perception of me to God. I surrendered all my relationships to God. All the outcomes to God.

I just show up the best I can. Try not to kill myself by taking everything too seriously. Try to find some god-damned fucking happiness in this crazy-ass human experience. And try not to waste Love when it happens for me. Try to not waste beautiful days when they show up. Or as I make them.

But overall learn to Love myself. Not to fall into some weird obsession with myself – very much ew and ick! But Love as in learn to validate my own experience. And learn to take care of myself. Even half as well as I tried so hard to take care of everyone else all this time. 

I was taught to wait for everyone else to take care of me. Then I learned I had that power. To be my own. Period.

When you’re a kid it’s not your fault. And you can’t do better until you know better. 

But now that we’re adults we get to decide. For better or for worse. 

And I choose Life. I choose Love. I finally choose Me.

No matter how anyone or even everyone treats me. No matter if I’m ever understood or not.

I had to make peace with not being everyone’s cup of tea. Not waiting to LIVE my Life until everyone approves of me. Not waiting any fucking more to be me until nobody has a problem with every last thought and action I choose to take.

I’m taking my power back. Not giving myself away for free anymore.

I am just as worthy as anyone else to exist without the permission of each and every person’s whims. End of story.

“Without going into dramatic and gross detail, I’ll summarize my childhood in as few words as I have.”

That right there tells me enough. The way you put that.

What would God say? Would God say to use as few words as possible? I challenge you to show me that verse. To explain that modality.

As if intellectual understanding is all we need. Don’t we wish it was that easy. 

Are you doing to yourself exactly what was done to you? Were your needs invalidated when you were a child? Did you learn quite well to make your wants and desires so small that you would at least be tolerated? Or not actively punished. For being what I would expect a psychologist to say is a perfectly normal child?

Why must we abandon ourselves just because they did? I mean I get it that that’s all we learned. But does that mean we are doomed to follow suit?

The pain is the way. The pain is the door to the other side. Where I can have compassion for the ones who hurt me. While also not invalidating my anger. My sadness. My grief. My unquenched desires for all that was very, completely normal to want.

Are you telling me that if a little girl was standing right in front of you reeling in pain that you would tell her to stop being dramatic and gross? If so, we gotta a big problem. 

Maybe you did. Maybe you don’t want to face that. I don’t know. 

But at least the intellectual should say there’s a way through and forward all this – and it probably isn’t denial. It probably isn’t hiding away in our minds while trying to murder our hearts. That’s what they did. 

We adapted for survival. We had to. There was no other choice. 

But dramatic and gross? 

Is that what the psychologist thinks as the patient is sitting there wrestling with even finding words to describe what happened? Much less process how to get through it. How to EVENTUALLY move on. How to maybe even master whatever happened. Thrive. And share to help others.

How is that wrong?

Dramatic and gross? Is that how God feels about what happened to you? That you are just dramatic and gross?

I don’t say this for anyone else. I say all this for me. For the grrrl who feels so much trepidation when even considering speaking. Who has been told over and over and over and over to shut up. To stop being so “emotional”. Rejected constantly when I try to discuss these things.

No, that’s how they treated me. 
But I don’t have to do that to myself.

I can define my own values.
I can decide what’s good and right for me.
I have to eventually make peace with myself.
With my choices.

And stop dancing for everyone else’s fickle approval. Let them pull all the puppet strings so they can keep on avoiding their healing. 

Dramatic and gross, eh?

That’s a really hard line.

It strikes me that the problem the religious zealots had with Jesus was that He called God His Father. They said, “Oh no you don’t. You look just like us. There’s no way.”

I’m not adopted. Because I was never separated. I was God’s kid before I landed in my parents’ home. I was God’s kid before I was even my own.

It’s fine if everyone else wants to minimize and dismiss. Like I said, I’m no longer in the business of saving anyone. I trust God completely to work out what everyone else thinks and does. 

But I am not going to abandon myself just because everyone else did. Even if preachers and potential employers and psychologists abandon me and themselves because I keep going on. 

I’m going to speak. In as many words as I want. Not even in response. Just because that’s what I do.

I think my words have value. I think I have value. I think expressing what I went through, all the details, is exactly what I need most sometimes. Especially to those that understand. And for those that also need a voice.

Not going to waste a bit of this healing. While also not making it my entire personality. 

But even if I did. If that’s what it took for awhile. To get to the other side.

At some point I realized Jesus wasn’t asking me to believe in Him. Jesus maybe has all this time been asking me to believe in myself.

“War is bad for business unless you are in the business of war”.

It’s the same playbook as the 2020 “plandemic”. Not that we are guaranteed safety. But the end goal is money. Not destruction.

Once I realized how much they make off market fluctuations. Once I realized that it benefits them a lot to destroy real estate and then buy it on the cheap. It only scares me to have something they want. Or get in their way.

Until you have any real power or influence, the best you can do is aim to be as little dependent on what they are selling as possible. And be as quiet about it as possible. Or else they’ll take you out for fear that you’ll wake up the other sheep. 🐑

And then always ask God for wisdom. Because goodness wins in the ultimate end.

Just try to find some damn happiness every day in this crazy life. If I can’t control it or do anything about it then it’s above my pay grade and not my problem. Genuinely.

My work is to take care of myself and anyone I bring into this world or sign up to take care of. That’s it for me right now. That’s all I have control over. Blinders now on for anything else that distracts from that.

Unless it directly impacts me, I know enough about all the bad stuff. I take away from myself when I give it any of my precious energy. Yep, bad actors exist. Check. Moving on.

Deal with whatever comes when it comes. If the worst even ever comes.

And remember sometimes the sheep don’t want to be free. Sometimes they’ll even turn on the ones trying to save them.

Remember how many millions of people got in line and violently tried to get everyone else in line for the trains during the plandemic.

Remember how the Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt even after God showed off with miracle after miracle.

Remember how they wanted no part of meeting with God one-on-one. They didn’t want to be a nation of priests. They desired a king to RULE over them. Even when God wanted them to be free.

And yet even after all that, I understand. Freedom is great but it is EXTREMELY expensive. I lost literally everything except myself and God.

To the point that sometimes I wish I hadn’t begged God since I was a kid to help me not be deceived. Sometimes I think fondly back on the simplicity of ignorance.

I can never go back now, but I understand why people may choose to stay.

You prioritize being comfortable. Right?

This is one in the very long list:

I don’t think Jesus is coming. To save you like you think He is. 

I think you need to believe in a rapture. So you don’t have to face the consequences of your decisions. Of your choices. 

I hope, selfishly, that you’ll live a long, long time with your actions catching up with you. In the spirit of millstones hanging around your neck. Carrying just a bit of the weight you’ve relentlessly piled onto others all these years. You who say you love justice so much.

I’m not God. I’m not holy.

This shit. This me running off at the mouth is completely pointless. When it comes to trying to move anyone else. I’ve given up on saving people. 

This is for me. Who values talking about things. For those with ears to hear.

You grew up with lots of fairy tales. Where a great rich man saves the damsels in distress. And a big, genius, tough guy saves the rest of the world. Always. Every show, every book, every movie. The entire zeitgeist. And we didn’t even see it. That they sandwiched Jesus right in there.

You hum songs about lots of fictional characters just like you hum hymns about Jesus. Praying always ad nauseum for someone to save you. From every angle. To swoop in and magically fix all the messes we make.

Do less privileged societies have this same superhero Saviour narrative? Or do they have community and a spiritual Life based on some completely different story? At least until the missionaries show up. Making ’em twice the sons of hell that they are.

Religion devoid of real relationship is witchcraft. And professing Christians are some of the worst in that regard.

Jesus showed off. So we’d believe what He was saying about Himself/God and ourselves. For true healing.

Not so we could all escape the learning process and be magically delivered from our consequences. 

And that news doesn’t preach as well on Easter Sunday. That the preacher isn’t going to save you. But come back again next week to learn how you can save yourselves.

Because there is a literal SHIT TON of work we’ve let fester for thousands of years. Century after century of people sitting in pews trying to invoke incantations. Rather than getting a backbone and getting to work.

Sorry to break it to you. The worst being this is not at all popular. At least in America.

The good news: God never let you down because God wasn’t in the business of making sanitized robots. 

The bad news: Everyone else let you down. And you were raised to fall in line: shut up, not put up a fight, and then teach everyone else to do the same.

You’re sitting there asking yourself how big players on the world stage, who claim to represent Christ mind you, are allowed to get away with the horrible things making the news.

The answer: we ALL let it get to that point. Everyone who ever interacted with them. Everyone who ever did business with them. We enabled that horrendous mess. That absolute crime against all of us going around like the worst pandemic. 

Again, the good news: that means we are strong enough to see it now. To deal with it. To do the work. 

Bad news: there’s A LOT of work to do.

You can’t take it all on. There are people closer to the world stage bad actors than you. 

But you can make changes in who you have contact with. 

And more importantly, you can focus on cleaning up your own Life first. That’s what I finally figured out. To my GREAT disappointment.

That I don’t think Jesus is the great janitor coming to whisk you away to heaven somewhere on earth while he erases your messes. 

I wish, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve waited my whole life. Decades. Because that’s all they always told me to do: be still.

And NOTHING. Things only got worse. Deteriorated. Until I was finally tired enough to get angry and start asking different questions.

Oh, I still believe in Jesus. But not the Jesus you tried to give all the blame to.

I now believe in a Jesus who walks with me constantly. To bring me as much healing as I’ll allow. So I can deliver myself. 

I don’t think anymore that Superman Jesus exists the way you taught me he does. I don’t think Sugar Daddy Jesus is going to swoop in like a pimp and save the day. I don’t think Daddy Warbucks Jesus exists like you’ve been hoping all this time.

But I even think Jesus lets us believe those lies. When we are too young to know better. So they’ll see us through. Until we’re strong enough to handle the Truth.

Now that’s genius. Even if it’s confusing to wrap your mind around at first. That Jesus will even use the lies we’ve been taught to comfort us until we’re strong enough.

Do you want more? That’s what it comes down to. Jesus asking you if you want to be healed? Or not. 

Either way you are Loved just the same. This isn’t about some fictional Sky Daddy having an ego. 

This is about REAL Love. That you are a Child of The Most High. That you and your Life actually matter. Not at all in any measure of service to others. But even if you truly did nothing at all.

This is only about what you want.

And the fruit will be a direct result of what you choose. Or don’t. As long as it will benefit you in the end. Even if you INSIST on learning the hard way: what not to do first. 

ZERO condemnation!!!

Just you deciding how many laps you want to do in the desert before you believe how worthy and valuable you TRULY are to your Creator. 

AMEN!