“Waking up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and therefrom deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassuring; because here, this morning, is where it has expected to find itself: what’s called at home.”
I never feel that I put much emphasis into the importance of the changing of the calendar year. I probably do, just like most people who pretend they don’t make an emphasis about most calendar holidays. But last night, I felt true relief that was that 2013 was over. I could feel through my whole body like a pulse. The calendar year 2013 will stand out as a year of depression, disappointment, pain, and an overwhelming sense of disenchantment. I hope that when I look back, these are not the words I choose to focus on, and that instead I can see it as being a transitional period where in the midst of so many challenges I was able to stay afloat. I hope to God that is what I take from it.
I know that every single day is a new day, a new chance to begin. I can’t pretend things are suddenly new or different because of some arbitrary change in a made up way of measuring ‘days.’ But. It is so nice to have a point, a moment, to look on and say, “okay. I am done here. I am done with all of this. This is the newness. This is where I can stop.” Only maybe two weeks before this, I woke up one morning and found myself relieved of a depression I have been ‘battling’ or, living in, I guess, for about 10 months. But, if you have been depressed before, maybe this is familiar to you. It is like you wake up, realize you are out of the darkness, but now, you have to sort of dig your way out of a dark forest, so though you are hopeful you will find your way soon, you still have to dig. There is still a sense of confusion. There is still work to be done. But at least there is hope. The mark of a New Year was sort of the moment of determination: Get the heck out of that forest.
I worry that this is the grander pattern of my life, outside of people I choose to date or jobs I choose to take or foods I choose to eat. I worry that the grander pattern of my life is stitched with threads of depressive episodes and I worry about losing sight of the light during those periods. I worry I will continue ‘starting over’ because I can’t quite figure out the trick to making it out alive without a grand finale in which I just barely escape. But, to worry is to waste the precious time I have in the light, the moments of knowing that right now, RIGHT NOW, it is all so very sweet. I can’t keep myself from worrying or from getting depressed or from developing anxieties around being depressed, but I can wake up every day and pray and try and go on adventures and make healthy choices and cultivate as much positive energy as possible while I have the energy to do that. If you take care of the world, the world will take care of you. Rarely will it look the way you would want or expect, but I promise somewhere in the fabrics of your life, of the universe, somebody is looking out for you. In a song coming on the radio or that line in Harry Potter that reminded you of the truth of magic, the way your coworker always has like a super awesome hairstyle and you always look forward just to seeing them at work for that specific reason, in the way the grocery store clerk reminds you that God loves you even if you are uncomfortable hearing it, in the way the sun continues to come out, just every single day, because it never went anywhere. I hope you can find it in your heart to believe that. I hope you find your reason to wake up.
Shoe Bird. 