Emancipation. The freeing of someone from slavery.

My failures. My fears. My scars. My failure scarred me and made me a slave within my own body, life, and hope. They were as reliable as a bank shot, as painful as stitch, and as quick as a shot. When I slipped and screwed up, it was like I was skinning my knee on blacktop. Like a scar with stitches, my failures would fade but never go away. These failures lead to an ultimate hurt, an uneasy feeling I couldn’t shake, was I real or was I fake? Was I worthy, or worthless?

My life was anything but painless. My name wasn’t based on my first name, but my last. People liked to remind me of my past. Remind me that my brother was better than I. This pain and shame, like a stye grew bigger and bigger and became more and more evident as time passed.

I was caught in a duality of living a grim reality that I, Ilya Maro was not good enough. This I realized and thought like a balloon in the wind everyone would remember me for a bit, but then forget about me quick. I would be six feet under because I finally couldn’t take the lightning and thunder.

No one would miss me, I would be like that pine tree you grow. People would dabble for a bit but then realize nothing had changed in their flow. I remember as a I wanted it to end, I had no more bend, I finally wanted myself to break. I wanted to send myself in the ground, where my emotions felt found, and you would not hear from me another sound.

As my fit of depression grew like a kid does in height, my anxiety also grew and I couldn’t fight. I locked myself away from the outside. The only place I could find happiness was alone outside. Like the last set of squats in a set, I could not push on any longer, my money was out and I couldn’t pay the debt. The debt that the devil says is you. My sin, my pain, my shame, was all a realization that I was not allowed to gain.

Not allowed to gain joy and an inner peace. Stripped from me, like an opponent in a war, the goal of Satan was to seize. To seize anything I held dear to my soul, robbing me of a pursuit of happiness was his goal. It worked. It worked for awhile, Satan took my everything, locked it up and stored in a file.

But then the boss of the company came and took out that file. This boss was with me every mile. This boss is not just my boss but yours. He has been there the whole time like a doorman opening doors. I was so blind to it, I was too caught in a commotion and fit. I realized that like in a riot, there was a true battle of grit.

My boss won against Satan, he caught my heart, like in the basketball world with Jeremy Lin. My boss is God. He is as strong as a rod. When I was weak and failed, his signed loved letter was stamped and mailed. Mailed to me individually.

His love so appropriately allowed me to love freely. I am flawed and have had my own battles. But my leader, his armor of love and grace rattles. My past is painful and dark, I do have this blood stained mark where my pain and hatred is in park. I will move forward and find light in all of the caves. After all, my boss forgives and saves.

Emancipation. The freeing of someone from slavery.