The past few weeks or longer have been difficult for me. My mental and spiritual state was in dire need of a check-up and series of re-balancing to tune it back to health again. I never told a soul, and only Dad knew, well that's for sure, because it was Him that I was consciously not speaking to all along after all.

It all started when things began to crash slowly but surely, one by one, around me that I gradually followed suit in wishing to be able to crash just as hard so that I didn't have to deal with it anymore. I didn't want to play the responsible young adult role, at least not for the time being.

For the first time 21 years, I felt the biggest insufferable annoyance and disappointment at myself for being incredibly, utterly, useless to and in reaction to the things and issues that matters most to me. Family, friends, work, studies, health, hopes and fears, it all went downhill. So I did what I always did best in coping with issues, I kept it all in and ignored the feeling that continued to gnaw. I didn't want to talk about it, so no one knew. Neither did I want to talk to Dad about it, so He can know all He does, but I didn't want to talk about it. So I left Him behind too.

That, I admit now, was a pretty dumb move. It wasn't very helpful not letting God help me, I knew it then I know it now. But I didn't know how to just instantly rely on Jesus, not when all my life growing up I never quite knew how to relied on anyone to fix my problems. Here's the part where I have reservations of being a Christian. Its not so much the being a Christian part, but the being a Christian in a Christian community that I don't know how to live with. I feel extremely uncomfortable knowing that every move I make or take is under scrutiny all the time. Call me sensitive or paranoid, but I have that nagging feeling that I am constantly judged. And that I'm right about it.

There's probably more to this thought, for now I won't dwell much into it. Actually I'm not sure why I'm writing all this down to begin with. All I do know is that many years from now I want to be able to read and remember what happened in my youth and that typing is much faster that scribbling.

Anyway to draw a conclusion to that, I think what I am trying to say is that I am not an honest person - at all. Not to myself and certainly almost never to anybody else about myself. Imaginary friends don't count. I probably will never be. I don't know how to tell people about my most difficult problems, and when I even attempt to I play it down so much I myself buy into the idea of 'its not that bad, it'll be fine soon'-ness. I don't know how to admit I can't do things, deal with things, or let others see I am an epic fail-person. It took me this few long suffering weeks to finally come to terms about it. I slept late again last night, now a normal occurrence in my daily routine, thinking about it and mulling it over in self pitying agony.

This morning I woke up with a set of bad rashes all over the torso area - cause unknown. The known effect however was that it hurts a crazy lot and I get to stay home from uni today. Dealing with the insane urge to scratch the itch away, I spent most of the morning making up for lost time and playing with the dog using a new rag-toy I made for her. During the tug-o-war watching her yelp in excitement waggy tail style, was when my latest epiphany hit me square in the head.

Bubbles is the most honest living thing in my life (other than God, that is)

She eats heartily, plays wholeheartedly, chases intently, fears openly, loves passionately and is never once sorry for where she decides to dispose of her post-meal dumps. She will always shamelessly beg for food when we're sitting at the dinner table; she comes and demands for belly rubs then at times totally snub us away when we call her name. She chews the hand that feed her and fights fiercely for sleeping space on my bed. The only time she puts her guard up is when faced with the one creature she is hopelessly intrigued yet fearful of - cats.

I have a lot to learn from this dog. And so I promised myself that I'm going to learn to be a little bit more honest about myself and let my guard down slightly, one wall at a time. I had a good long chat with Dad about everything after and patched things up between us. I'm asking Him to patch me up as well. With Dad and Bubbles by my side, I'm finally crawling out of my man-made slum. (: