Worthless

I hate that feeling of being kind of tired, but not wanting to sleep. Possibly because it normally means I have something on my mind that I don't actually want to think about. Possibly because half the time it indicates a tic towards the spiral I spend my better days not thinking about and my off days dreading.

Depression sucks. Mostly because there's simultaneously a lot and nothing you can do about it. I could work out. I could choose to do things with friends. I could choose to initiate contact with people I would like to take to coffee and get to know. But the longer I don't do those things the less I want to do them. And the less I want to do them the more time I spend in my room by myself thinking about how lame I am for not working out or having friends. Thus, spiral.

I was rewatching Digimon about a month ago (because it's awesome, that's why) and I realized that the reason 9 (12, 16, 24) year old me liked the character, Matt, so much is because he deals with depression. I don't know how well the English version translated it because they tended to keep it kind of fluffy, but the kid goes into a cave/pit thing and gets surrounded by this crazy darkness that makes him think he's a horrible friend and a worse person until his digimon companion reminds him of all the people he cares about who care about and need him. Never has there been a more perfect metaphor for my life. I'm 99% sure it's subconsciously where I got my image for dealing with the spiraling. Ahh childhood.

The thing is I've been really good lately. Despite being currently unemployed (which, let's face, just means it's my turn since all my friends did this job search thing for a long time while I was happily interning) I'm relatively fine financially so I'm choosing to see this as an opportunity to look into fields I'm interested in and find something I want to do that's not going to burn me out the way 3 years of ministry did.  I'm getting to a somewhat happy place in other areas of my life after the mayhem that was February and March. And I'm determined to get my act together scholastically so I can up my GPA. I have plenty of people to hang out with, including a friend from college/high school who just moved to the area, so things are looking up in pretty much all the areas of my life.

And then the weather had to go and get crappy. Not that the weather effects my mood completely. I still get to choose the person I feel like being. It just makes it a little harder to do the things that help me feel better. Running's a hassle. If I'm still honest I'm still kind of scared to go to my perfectly nice gym classes by myself. And then I stop wanting to do other stuff. And then I sit in my room by myself. And then...you get the idea.

I just wish there was a way to turn it off. Like, nope, don't feel like feeling like crap today. Maybe come back tomorrow and I'll wallow in self pity then. kthanx.

But alas, that's not how it works. I mean, yeah, I do things to counteract it. And I don't stop living my life because of it most of the time. It's just tiring to have to listen to a voices in your head tell you you're bad at everything all the time. Second guessing yourself on every big decision because even though you know they're wrong sometimes they get too loud to ignore. Wishing that just once asking someone you'd love to get to know out for drinks or coffee wasn't asthma inducing when you don't even have asthma. Or that panic attacks weren't an imminent part of any encounter where you had to engage in conflict with someone in authority.

But tiring or not, it's what I live with. I walk through life wondering why anyone would bother giving me the time of day and then forcing myself to remember that I'm a strong, courageous, sometimes outgoing woman who loves working with kids, and is good at art, and cares for the communities that she's a part of. And most days I believe it. Because most days it's true.

But then there are days where things don't go right. And I mess up, or don't make the progress I wish I'd made. Something ends but nothing else starts. Everyone else seems to be competent, and functioning, and qualified, and I don't. I pass up things I shouldn't cause I don't feel worthwhile. And just for a minute I forget that I was beautifully and wonderfully made. And I feel worthless.

And the hardest part is knowing, somewhere in my soul, that it's not true and being completely unable to make myself believe it.

Luckily for me, I am the daughter of a God who refuses to let me forget completely. There's always a song, a person, a project, a word spoken by someone I trust, that reminds me. That my worth is great. That my knowledge is vast. And that, despite being terrified of it most of the time, my call is big. And important. Even on the days that I don't feel big and important.

So for now I'll post this, even though it feels angsty, and hope that it gives someone insight on something happening in their life, since God works like that. And I'll try to sleep, or maybe write something slightly less depressing. And I'll continue to pretend I'm fine until I am. And I'll put on wings and fly out of the dark creepy cave I've somehow found my way back into again and find the morning sun.