So I cry a lot. Not lately or anything, just in general. It is my firm belief that God created my mother, sister, and I with an extra set of tear ducts because He knew how much we'd use the first set.
I also firmly believe that cats are furry little hugs from God, and better represent loyalty than dogs do. Billy (my bffc) does this trick that is JUST amazing. And it isn't when he fetches, or when he sits, or when he picks which hand I've got the treat in. No, nothing so shallow. My favorite trick of his is when he just sits nexts to me and purrs. He doesn't try to interfere with the task at hand or get in my face. He simply snuggles in right next to me and spends time there, reminding me that our relationship isn't just about me feeding him scraps from the dinner table so that he jump up on my lap at inconvenient times for attention. He is a real deep example of love, pure love for the sake of loving.
I am a college graduate. And let me say that since that over-ceremonied day in May, the rest has been rather anti-climactic. I am a Spanish teacher................... without a job. So am I really a Spanish teacher? My degree says so. My teaching license says so. But is a teacher without students really a teacher? My mom definitely is, even after five years of retirement. It's a quandry to me.
I like faith. I'm a big supporter of faith. I talk about it all the time. My faith... And why other people should have faith... and how other people can do things to strengthen their faith, etc. There are some days, though, where I know that I am pretending that my faith is stronger than it is. Hypocritical? You be the judge. If these last few months have taught me anything, it's that faith without action is nothing.
I applied (yesterday) to about 8 or 10 jobs over the course of an afternoon. That day, the 23rd of July, I managed to accomplish something I haven't been able to do all summer. I don't have a job (foolish). I don't volunteer. I don't baby-sit for my family. I sit on my arse and I play stupid games and I watch soap operas and every few days I start an application to some random school in one of the random states where I think I want to live, for no apparent reason. I've always been good at faking progress. If college and depression has taught me anything it's how to fake progress and convince myself and everyone around me how INCREDIBLE my fake progress is.
So often I feel like a fraud in multiple ways.
Back before I graduated, I made a choice led by faith to make that decision. I decided to focus my energy on teaching, instead of mission work or some other use of my Spanish speaking ability. I believed (and some small part of me right now still does believe) that after making that decision, everything would begin to fall into place. Senior year of college is HARD. This past spring may have been my most challenging semester academically. I couldn't focus on job searching when I had daily homework, reading, weekly essays, and research all in Spanish.
No one held my hand, no one guided me to where I needed to be. Nothing clicked into place. I had vague plans to make it to and through graduation, and then come home and live in my childhood home while I constantly looked for a job.
And so I find myself completely lost in this situation. Jobless, income-less, and direction-less.
I spend most of my energy putting up a front to my family, the world, and myself that I neither have the energy to be the actual person that I am nor do I know who the actual person that I am is.
To my family I am a diligent, dutiful, hard working daughter/sister/niece/cousin; to my friends I am calm, full of good advice, under control, wise, a problem solver, and the one with all the answers; to myself I am simultaneously a complete failure and sham/trendy, loving, wise, the one with all the answers, always right, always perfect, always what each person in my life wants me to be for them.
It's
exhausting.
And yet I can't sleep, because my mind keeps going on and on thinking about all of the things wrong with my life currently. All of the exact reasons, causes and effects, for my complete and utter failure at life.
Honestly, I am EXTREMELY blessed. Honestly, I need to focus on the positive aspects of my life. I need to choose to see hope. I need hope. If only for this reason:
Romans 5:3-5 - "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
That is truth. And while I know that, believe that, and trust in that; tonight my fear got the best of me. And maybe it will tomorrow, maybe it won't. The point is that I have HOPE that tomorrow my fear of not getting a job AND of getting a job AND of disappointing my family, myself, and my God might be nothing but background noise when the sun peeks over the horizon to bring a new day. That hope is enough to get me through. And I will keep hoping that it always will be.
On a final note, I would like to say how much I
despise the commercials that sell anti-depressants. Not because I am against those, but because of the completely cheesy and theatrical version of depression portrayed both before AND after the people take the drug.
I
am depressed. I have been for FIVE years. Those commercials make me ashamed to be depressed, to have depression, to battle with it daily, however one admits that they are "clinically depressed". I miss the Zoloft commercial with the little white stone that hopped around, and came out of his cave after taking the medication to appreciate the butterfly. That is a MUCH better picture of the nature of depression. Because while I do sit around on the couch in my pajamas for a few days at a time occasionally, looking frumpy, and uncomfortable; when my depression hits me hardest I hide and I don't go out or take calls from people that I love. When I do come out of that valley in the landscape of depression, it's true that I appreciate the small joys again; like a butterfly. When will we learn that simplicity is so much better ALL THE TIME? Soon, I hope.
Stay classy, world.
"But as for me I watch in HOPE for the LORD. I wait for God my Savior. My God will hear me." - Micah 7:7
