― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
We all have a madness inside us. It hides sometimes, however it always finds it's way to the surface. This is the part of us that we are embarrassed of, but it's also the part that is the most "us". You see it when you forget to check yourself when others are around. You hear it when you're laughing so hard that you snort and wheeze. When you laugh at your own joke, and you're all alone in your giggles, because nobody else gets it. You feel it when the emotion that catches in your throat is too strong and you run down the street searching for solitude and scream to the heavens, because there is no one else to blame.
I sometimes run from my madness, but it is always there...following me like a shadow that chases its maker.
I once heard a pastor say, "you can't run away from yourself...where ever you go, there you are." Because, in all actuality, "ourselves" our "madness" is the part of us that is the rawest and the most honest. This part does help us adapt, because it is real and it is the truest "us" that is willing to accept who we are and what we must do to survive. Isn't it funny that this is the very part that we apologize for the most? We have to apologize for it though, right? Because we can't completely control it. No matter how hard we try to disguise it, or pretend it away, we cannot deny it.
My madness humbles me and reminds me where I came from. This is why I secretly cherish it...why I'll forever turn red-faced by its inevitable appearance, but never be able to let it go. It is my "real" and what people really see on the surface is just its shabby dressings. Because my madness gives me permission to guffaw at what is truly funny and tear at those shabby dressings that you all see, when I truly despair. It is also the part that allows me to survive the unimaginable. Only those who have met this point understand the madness that is required to do so...survive. Yet, we have all been there...or will one day, and it is this madness, within measure, that will give us the permission necessary to unearth ourselves from the pit we're found buried in.
Here you find the tears that transform into laughter; the sadness that finds joy in the ashes. The torn relationships that reconcile amidst loss, because it no longer makes sense.
Oh if we could all embrace just a bit of our madness ;)
