“I know you.
You think I don’t know you?
I know you”, she said.
I’d been waiting and waiting for decades.
Winter, summer, winter, summer.
It really seemed like it was never going to happen.
I’d started to feel like a prostitute just waiting for my payment.
I’d given up years ago on having any type of breakthrough connection.
Any type of acknowledgment, especially like this.
But here it was. It was harder to take it in than I expected.
“I know you,” she said.
These simple words carried so much with them.
My walls were finally penetrated.
I was that puddle on the floor I had just walked over.
“I know you”.
At this point, it didn’t even matter if it was completely true.
The significance was beyond true or false.
It was beyond right or wrong.
It showed me what I needed to see.
It meant exactly what I needed it to mean.
I had an ally. A sister.
The space in me was no longer private.
That which I thought was lost in the void.
An absence of being.
My insides suddenly felt like I’d swallowed a flashlight.
A rescue mission, recovering that which seemed to have no more chances left at recovery.
“Hello in there! It appears you’ve been lost down here for a long time. Finally, someone has come for you. You’re not alone anymore.”
And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere I am angry at my rescuer.
It is beyond my own understanding.
How dare you rescue me!
The audacity: to put me in a position where I need to feel grateful!
Know me, will you? What a load!
At the same time, my world is breaking.
The intensity of the light is pouring in.
Thank you, God! Thank you to me for having faith, for staying alive!
How dare you!
Thank you!
How dare you!
Thank you!
Until finally…POP.
I can see.
I was not this void I’d thought I was.
This was all just an experiment.
It is all so much simpler than I’d been able to grasp.
The self-myths were intoxicating.
I had been drunk on them for years.
The rope found me deep in the well.
Grabbing it meant I had to let go of my safe footing.
I am not the footing.
It all felt so real.
I am not the water I was swimming in.
I am not “the well”.
I did not deserve what I thought I deserved.
I am up and out.
Everything is new.
Okay. One step at a time now.
One moment at a time.
I know you.
Lead Storyweaver
Joshua Edjida is a multidimensional artist, experience designer, author, public speaker/comedian, and transformational leadership facilitator. Originally from California, he currently lives in Colorado, and also enjoys traveling in Thailand, Bali, or in Europe.
