It’s been almost two years since I’ve written in this space.
A lot has happened in that space of time. I got married, I moved up in a freelance gig and now work at that place part-time, I finished my book (a large part of why I haven’t written here), I learned how to draw on my iPad, and so, so much more.
I also run five days a week now, which has created some space in my life to think, pray, and let God move my soul to new places. Today as I was running, I heard a song that instantly transported me back to when I was in high school. It’s called “Satellite Heart” by Anya Marina, and she sings:
I’m a satellite heart,
Lost in the dark.
I’m spun out so far,
You stop, I start.
But I’ll be true to you.
When I was a teenager, I felt this song so strongly. Like I was a satellite in the night sky, lost and not understood. Even though I had friends and family and God and things I was passionate about, I felt very alone and broken. Mostly, I felt very insecure and like very few people understood me.
I wanted to be a writer and camera person, but I didn’t want to be in traditional academia or traditional journalism. I wanted to express truths about life and my relationship with God and other people. But it didn’t feel like there was a space for that in Dyersburg, TN. At least, it didn’t feel like there was a place to support me in that dream as a child. Now, I know that if I were to move back to Dyersburg one day, I could simply carve my own space, make my own project, forge the path. But when you’re 16, it’s hard to forge a path when you have social anxiety and you need guidance because you don’t know what you’re doing.
And so I spent a lot of time driving the same backroads over and over, listening to my favorite artists in my little red car, which was my sanctuary of transcendence. I sat atop the bluff out in the country a few miles from my house, watching the sun set. Wondering what lie beyond, feeling so far from the world I knew, not sure if I’d ever feel connected to the society around me.
I scribbled in notebooks my secrets, my poetry, my songs, feeling like they were some strange, foreign currency that didn’t work in the place I lived. Like the trinkets you find in a museum or your grandmother’s basement, pretty, unusual, and not really wanted.
I did not understand that I wasn’t a satellite heart lost in the dark. I was a star preparing to shoot into the big, beautiful black. And the others around me were also stars in their own way. I wasn’t some damaged other, ultimately alone in the world. I just had a little bit of a different interest than many people in my hometown. I was a beating heart with hopes and dreams and fears and so were the people in my small town.
Sometimes I wish my teenage self knew just how precious she was and how much I really admire her now. I read past writings and I see how God fearfully and wonderfully made me. How different isn’t bad or a curse, it’s a gift. It’s scary, sure. But it is the ability to see new and wonderful things that maybe the ones around you can’t see. And then you get to take them on that journey.
My gift for artistic expression and spiritual depth got me where I am now. It helped me hear people’s stories who maybe didn’t always feel heard. It led me to my husband and the friends I have. It led me to write a great book and to bring the depth out of people.
We will all feel alone at times in this life. Even Jesus felt alone at times. But when we feel alone, will we remember that we aren’t different or alone because of a deficiency or flaw, but rather we are alone because we’re taking a new way? It is not a shameful thing to be different. It is a wondrous, fantastic miracle. It means you get to do something new.
You are never a satellite lost in the dark, even when you feel like it. Because although you are a speck in the night sky, it’s like another artist I like, Elle Azar, sings:
We’re all moving at just the right speed.
We’re all turning at just the right degree.
We’re circling round, circling round, circling round,
[and] tied upon a string.
We are part of a larger system at play, all pieces moving in all kinds of directions but held together by God, tied upon the string of his power and love. We are not lost. We are seen. Deeply seen. And deeply known.
Sometimes I wish teenage Alex knew this, but then again, how could she have known? When you’re that young, everything seems so far away.
Yet in the end, everything works out.
