Full of Grace....And Depression

The winter is cold, and bitter,

It's chilled us to the bone,

I haven’t seen the sun for weeks,

Too long, too far from home.

I feel just like I’m sinking,

And I claw for solid ground,

I’m pulled down by the undertow,

I never thought I could feel so low,

And oh darkness I feel like letting go.

“Full of Grace” -Sarah McLachlan

As I was cleaning the house on Sunday, this song came up on my iPod. I was dusting, but my pace slowed down when I heard the opening verses of this song. While I know that Sarah McLachlan wasn‘t speaking literally in the above verses, I interpreted it in my own way….and it hurt….and I started crying.

This winter, besides being cold and bitter, with hardly a trace of sunlight, has been pretty sucky. My family has had a ton of problems crop up, some of which have chilled me to the bone. I’m in no position to help them because I am so far from home, and I‘ve been gone from there for what seems like forever. There are so many things I want to do to make it all better, but I can’t always fix things, and this distance creates a giant emotional gap between my family and myself. It makes me feel sad and guilty, like I’ve abandoned my parents and sister and left them to fight it out on their own while I live it up in Chi-Town. Every day that I talk to my mom is like a knife twisting in my heart, because I’m not there to ease some of the burdens.

When you combine those feelings with my instability and Seasonal Affective Disorder, you get a very emotionally drained Jess. I DO feel like I’m sinking, like there is no escape from this apathy or this wretched depression. Every day sees me clawing for stable ground, and I’m not finding it. I’m not. The hours pass, full of uphill battles that are rarely won.

I’m not asking for much. I try not to. That’s not my way. All I want is to be happy, to be fulfilled, to shake these feelings, to not be in pain every day from the tendonitis in my ankle. I want to know that I can get up each morning and meet the day head on, with no fears that I won’t live up to the meager goals I set for myself. I want to wake up and know that each day brings me closer to June, when we will hopefully get to go back home. These are dreams, however, and sometimes they don’t come true.

As the verse ends, I feel like letting go, but I don’t know which way I will drift. Will it be towards the good stuff in my life, or will I sink further down, down so far that I can’t get back?