After reading some of my past posts, it would appear that I only write when having a difficult time. I suppose when things in life are going well for me, I am content to simply enjoy it without the need to express how I'm feeling. Today is one of the dark days. So here I sit to write about depression. It is a difficult affliction to deal with. It doesn't show on the outside. I'm not actually sick with accepted forms of illness. A cold or flu is easy to understand and treat. The symptoms of clinical depression are a bit more difficult to deal with. Today is January 4th, 2015. I have always struggled with the beginning of a new year. Everyone wishes us all a Happy New Year! The term is full of hope and promise. I only feel despair, grief and apprehension. What will life throw at me this year? What calamities will I have to overcome? Will I have the strength to deal with the terrible things that will happen? All I want to do is hide away in my room. I don't want to be around other people. It's the strangest feeling to be in a room full of people that I know care about me, and yet feel completely alone and hopeless. Exhaustion doesn't begin to cover how it feels to put on a happy face, and pretend for the world that all is well with me. People don't really want to know how terrible I truly feel. It's hard enough for me to face the reality of what I feel, so why on Earth would I burden someone else with it? Bobbie McGarey, a former Pastor of mine, told me to be gentle with myself. I didn't grasp what that meant until I started paying attention to what I was actually telling myself. Things like, "What's the matter with you?" or "Why don't you just snap out of it?" or "Look at all the wonderful things and blessings you have. You shouldn't feel this way!" I would NEVER say these things to another person, and yet it was okay for me to say them to myself. It's difficult to remember to be gentle with myself. Perhaps that's why I write when I hurt. It slows my thoughts down enough to pay attention to what I am saying inside, so that I can silence the critic and embrace the gentle mother instead. I still consider myself an optimist, but it is so difficult to overcome these dark, hopeless feelings. I know I won't always feel this way. I know that at some point I'll be able to reach down and find my hope, my light, my peace. Today I will be gentle with myself and allow myself to hurt. To miss my little boy. To feel sad that another year is over, and that another year is here, without some of my loved ones to share it with. Today I will write of pain. Today I will cry in despair. Today I will breathe deeply, and I will reach out to God, and I will run to Her, like a chick runs to her mother hen. I will allow God in, to cry with me, to wrap love around me and comfort me. I'm glad I slowed down enough to write today. It made it easier to feel God's love, and grasp onto hope. Amen.