every time there is a next time

Depression always sneaks up on her. Whenever she watches out for it, it is always no where to be found, hiding out in the shadows.  For awhile she is wary, vigilant of her surroundings, careful of choices to ensure
that she will stay out of it's snare.  But after so long of being fine, after so many sunshine-y days of blessing, she focuses her attention elsewhere.  She starts to notice shadows in her path and brushes them aside because not every day can be sunshine and roses.  When it's too late, she notices she is in it's wake, and it has stopped concealing itself, stopped crouching in the shadows.   It stands at full height, now baring down on her it's weight pressing her farther and farther into the ground so she can't rise from it.  After a time it leaves, and she's left shaking, curled in a ball, cold and sweaty from the struggle.

When she's back on solid ground again, she is wary once again, surely next time she will be prepared for the sneak attack.  Surely next time she won't be trapped, she will notice the signs of it creeping out of the shadows. Surely this time was the last time, surely this is all she has to endure, all she has to suffer.  Surely, it is over.

But that is what she says every time.  Every time, there is a next time.

Sunrise, Sunset

On April 18, 2013 shortly before I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I wrote a journal entry about what I felt as I neared the end of my college experience and prepared to enter the "real world."  The first line reads, "I feel as if I'm going into one of the sunset times of life.  Darkness is coming and morning is a long ways off."  I don't think I had thought of life in terms of sunsets and sunrises before I wrote that line, but that's how I was feeling at the time.  That set the tone for the rest of my journal.  I did talk about some of the positives of what had been in college, but most of the writing is gloomy.  Everything looking ahead to the future was gloomy.  I didn't have very much confidence in myself and my abilities. My feelings were that my degree, and the license I hoped to obtain would be just pieces of paper, and would hold no merit.  The last line says, "My fear is that it [the sun] will rise on a dreary morning, and I will discover I don't like teaching."

Thank goodness that didn't come true.  Today, February 9, 2015, nearly two years later, I have an entirely different outlook. I truly think that's what it is, an outlook.  Sunrises and sunsets look much the same, it's mostly in your perspective.  I'm convinced I have the best job in the world.  I have a really hard job, and more days than I'd like to admit I want to crawl in a hole and not come out.  But I have job in which I get to see people grow and change, and I get to be part of their enrichment process.  AND I get to do it with children!  Those are the best people to do that with!  The light in their eyes is greater, and they haven't been poisoned by most of the impurities in the world.

Now the sun has risen, and it's a bright happy morning.  Yeah there are clouds in the sky, but without clouds we would have no hope of rain, and less shade.  This may sound like a romanticized view of my job, and maybe it is.  Maybe I will leave work tomorrow feeling completely defeated.  Who knows?  But this is what I'm feeling in my heart now, and I decided to share this corner of it with you.