Cherry Tomatoes Popped Whole in My Mouth

falling out of love with the world

Happy July! This month, I’m taking a creative rest, and so I scheduled this post for you ahead of time. If I’m not as quick to respond to comments or messages as usual, that’s why. But please know that I love to hear from you, and I will respond at one point or another! Today’s article was originally published in the Home issue of the Truly Co. magazine, as “This World Won’t Satisfy.”

This falling out of love with the world has not been easy, but I’m learning that it was necessary. I would never have longed for heaven otherwise.

Photo by Zoe Schaeffer on Unsplash

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Dinner parties with sparkling champagne and tinkling glasses.

Tightly stretched flannel sheets on a winter evening.

Marshmallows twirling over the hot embers of a campfire.

Curled up dogs and kisses on baby bellies and cherry tomatoes popped whole in my mouth.

These are the things that make me feel alive in this dying world. For a long time, I thought they were enough. Enough to create a good life, to hold back the darkness, and to forget my own humanity. But this way of thinking—it never felt quite right. I wanted wholeness but could not ignore the ever-loudening fact that even life’s most beautiful offerings have a twinge of brokenness.

Champagne causes headaches.

We must sleep in the first place because we are weary.

Marshmallows are filled with preservatives.

Dogs get old and babies stop letting us kiss them and tomato plants die in the yard.

The truth is, even the things I love most are breaking and passing away before my very eyes. I cannot bear the heartache of counting on temporal things for my joy anymore, because even while I enjoy them, I know they are transient. And when they are absent? I tumble toward apathy.