“Being Somewhere”
When I was a little girl, I didn't know what to call the feelings I'd sometimes get, which adults call depressed or maybe the “blues”. I told my dad “I just don't feel like being anywhere”. He thought that was pretty cute, and he still refers to my creative title and it's sort of a real thing now, for us. Not exactly a clinical diagnosis, but from a kid, a pretty close, and pronounceable label.
Most people who “don't feel like being anywhere”, drown the feelings in sleep, movies, books, chocolate, booze or work. But we are still somewhere. After the movie credits finish rolling, the alarm sounds or the last drop is savoured, we must BE. Being is a gift. Breathing, deciding and moving are precious, even when we feel bad. The trick is to move yourself out of that awful moment and into the next, where the sky is clear and the canvas is white. The moment before any drop of color is applied and nothing is yet a mistake nor a success. What an opportunity! And when you regret the next application, there is yet another, right in front of you. Nothing is ever really done, until that Divine appointment.
If we can make those moments into something, not necessarily fun, but good...somewhere we can handle being for awhile...depression might just take a hike. It doesn't have to be that happy place everyone visualizes. It can just be a place of strength and contentment. Somewhere we've determined could always be worse, so we will endure. Endurance is an admirable thing. Marathon runners don't always feel great, but they still choose to run...because it produce strength, patience and a whole host of other things that make for good character, and in the end...feel good.
Maybe we're constantly disappointed, because we constantly go to that happy place rather than that hopeful place. Is it not babies that cry and scream when they don't get what they want? When they are not happy? I want to be happy. Yes, I do. But more than that, I want to be ok...content...full of hope...when that happy place is not surfacing.
I will always be somewhere.
I want to quit running away from hardship.
I will move forward and paddle my way into the next hopeful place.
“...I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:11-13
16x20...“Being Somewhere”