The Great Ache
Sometimes, I want the Ache in my chest to be satisfied with a deep breath.
To be kicked back into place by beating on my chest.
To be set free by my body sprinting off.
Any action that will capture and release this unnameable emotion all at the same time.
It lives right at the end of my sternum, sometimes creeping up to where I place my hand when I say the Pledge of Allegiance.
I’ve grown use to its presence, encamped inside of me. It’s a familiar friend, sticking its head up just when I get quiet enough to feel again. It’s how I know I’m Me. Because when it cries out, it’s the realest thing I might feel that day. Because its cry is a call to the deep. It cries for me to sing, to dance, to weep, to wage war, to take the brimming thoughts head on.
It’s not satisfied with my attempt to appease with crafted daydreams.
It’s not satisfied with anything less than the real thing.
I’ve long thought the Ache was for the Infinite — all the world I wanted to take in but couldn’t. Because I simply was incapable of absorbing it all, or because to bear all the beauty and beastly would destroy me. Of course, that didn’t stop me from trying to appease it. Yet in my most extravagant and simplest of earthly moments, the Great Ache remained.
The Ache is less of a never-ending novel and more of rat-tat-tat, a whisper placed within me. I’ve poked and prodded it, mulled it over and gave it a good thump or two, but its nature seems more — but also less — like a mystery. This Holy Longing — yes, it’s for the Infinite. But I didn’t place it there with my insatiable nature or wanderlusting spirit.
When I beat my chest, this Great Cavern right below my sternum echoes back,
“See? I am the Deep, the Great Deep.
I am the Infinite within you,
the Holy making its Home.
Deep I am, and Deeper I can go still.
I resound in you like a sweet melody,
reverberating with every minor key, every cloudless sky, every empty, sleeping house.
No matter if you’re satisfied or searching,
I make my wake still.
So when you ache,
when you cry out …
when you long and long and long –
thump your chest if you must –
It’s Me inside.”
