Cogs
(printed with permission)
--
Have you ever missed someone so much it hurt? Not just emotionally, but physically. Where there's an ache in your stomach, and you feel your chest tighten when you see other people who are with their someone. Where your heart flutters, and not in a good way, when you are struck with how much you miss yours.
What if you don't have someone? How do you miss someone you don't know and have never met? Are you truly missing the person, or simply the idea of a person?
--
I open up my chest and examine the machinery inside. Cogs and wheels with spokes, bands and levers, all spinning and whirring and churning out my existence. If you look closely, you can see that there is a gap in the line of cogs. Its absence doesn't cause my life to grind to a halt because I've rigged a couple of extra bands and loops to connect the two ends. It's not as good as having the cog in place, but once I close my chest, no one's the wiser. I look just the same as everyone else, albeit as only half of a pair.
When it's quiet, though, I hear clanking and screeching from inside. No amount of spare parts or finesse will eliminate it completely. Sure, I can ignore it from time to time, like when there's a goal to work toward or a friend to focus on. But I can't distract every minute.
Sometimes people try to help.
They say, "Well, are you looking for the cog? You won't find it if you're busy doing other things."
I want to say, "Of course I'm looking. I have to keep busy with other things or I'll go crazy thinking about that cog. I can't afford to devote all of my time to searching for the cog - I have bills to pay and a career to build and friendships to maintain. Of course I'm looking. But I have to keep the other cogs in working condition too."
They say, "You'll find that cog when you stop looking. It'll show up when you least expect it."
I want to say, "How on earth does one least expect something?! And that first sentence makes zero point zero sense. In order to find something, I have to look. And if I stop looking, how can I expect to find it? That's not finding. That's having it land in your lap. And can you honestly tell me that you didn't find your cog by looking for it? Part of you must have been looking. If you weren't, you wouldn't even have noticed that it was missing in the first place."
They say, "You don't need a cog. You're a complete person already."
I want to say, "Yes, I know I'm a complete person. I know that I don't need that cog. I've rigged the spare parts and I'm functioning. But I want that cog. I want to have that cog in my chest, making the other cogs run better. I want the screeching to stop. I know I am complete, but I want to feel complete too."
They say, "How have you not found your cog yet? You have so much going for you and any cog would be lucky to be part of your machinery."
I want to say, "NO DUH, Sherlock. I'm not the one who needs convincing. I know that I have a lot going for me. But so far, that hasn't helped me find the cog. It hasn't seemed to improve my luck in searching, and it hasn't dropped the cog in my path. Thank you for the compliment, but it doesn't make me feel better."
They say, "God's timing is perfect."
I want to say, "My head knows that. My heart has trouble understanding that. Please, just allow me to feel frustrated and upset and sad that I have to jury-rig a cog until the other one shows up. I'm not asking to be talked out of it."
--
Most people who have all their cogs forget what it was like to be missing one (if they ever were missing one). They want to convince me that I'm fine without the cog, that other people have it worse, that I need to stop missing something I don't have and be content with what I do have. That the missing cog shouldn't matter as much as it does.
But it does. It does! It does matter.
That cog is in my heart and my heart is in that cog. That's just the way I was made. I wish I could be okay without that cog; that I could feel complete without that cog. It would make this all a lot easier, that's for sure. I'm sure there's a reason I haven't got this cog in place, but I don't see that reason right now and its absence makes me sad.
It's okay if you don't know how to help or how to it better. But please...please...don't tell me that this cog isn't important. I want that cog. In a way, I do need that cog. Not to be a complete person.
But to feel like a complete person.
----
