Okay, I'm Ready to Talk About it Now

A while back people were posting on their facebook status a certain year, and what was happening with them then, like their favorite song, what they were wearing, how old they were, etc. If you "liked" their post they would give you a year. Seemed fun, until I got my year, 1975. That was not a good year for me.

Recently, two of my (new) friends have actually published novels (!) which of course I immediately read--well, one I am still reading. Interestingly, they are both about 13 year-old girls. Though the stories are vastly different, they are both dredging up for me some pretty untidy emotions. I was 13 in 1975.

I am not going to lie, it is not all better yet. What I am talking about is that there has been a lot of "working through" things in my life...Thought I was all done with that. When given the year 1975 on facebook, I quickly shut the door on that festering little pocket and did not expect it to come up again--so soon.

I don't even read novels. If these ladies weren't my (new) friends I never would have picked up these books. And really 1975 is just representative of the years surrounding it--between one horrible situation and the next. I actually don't even remember too much of that year. On one side of it I was a dorky kid who was so depressed with my home, my school--thank goodness for the one light in my life, my siblings. I was the oldest.

But then there was the divorce, and we were split up. They stayed with their mom; I went with my dad. I was on my own. Ironically, at around that time I was reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time, which so effectively dug around in my soul and reflected the horror of the situation I was actually going through. I don't even remember the story, just the feeling.

My second (new) friend's novel, Whitestone, deals largely with the huge themes of loss, sanity, and God. I can hardly say how gut-wrenching it is for me. And I'm still not done with the book, so maybe it will help in the end.

But the title of this blog refers to this: I am depressed, again. And sometimes I feel like I almost choose to be this way because it's somewhat of an escape; only it doesn't work very well. I mean, I know how to deal with depression, having had the disposition since third grade. The hardest thing is getting out of bed in the morning.

And then there's the shell. I sometimes think back to that nerdy pre-divorce period of my childhood when I had these three really sweet friends: Gina, Indriati, and Debbie. They descended into my gloomy life like angels sent from heaven. But I blew them off. And of course after the divorce I never saw them again.

Many times I have thought what a shame it was that I hid from those nice girls. One of my best memories of that time was a sleepover at Gina's where we watched cheesy old black-and-white horror movies late into the night. But then I shut them out. I just couldn't deal with anything. I felt so raw.

I have three nice girlfriends here in the neighborhood now. (Funny how history repeats itself). I find myself pulling inward. There is a lot of pain. I'm sorry. I know there shouldn't be. Life is great, and I'm a Christian. But that's just the way it is right now.