Low on the Go!

because sometimes rainbows are made of sunshine and rain.

A week ago, i felt as though my world was slowly imploding.

Hyperbole, i know, but when you're clinically depressed, your whole world is filled with a preponderance of hyperboles and i know you can handle another one of my hyperboles. If you couldn't, you wouldn't be here reading, now would you?

i digress.

Throughout the course of my life, me and depression have made a great team. Many people have walked away from me, shaking their heads, and wondering why they had ever gotten involved with this mess of tears, kleenex, meanness and volatility. i don't blame them. It isn't easy to be my friend when depression is kicking around, as she often is. i'm the hedgehog that curls up and pricks people when they get too close. i say things i don't mean, and don't say the things i mean and want to say. Too much optimism makes me angry. When your whole world is grey, for anyone to say that colour exists brings up pain and shame. Why is everyone able to see beyond the bleakness except me?

So last week, when a friendship of mine "ended", i can't say that it was unexpected. It takes an extremely special kind of person to stick with someone who is clinically depressed. i mean, what kind of person actually likes being with a ticking time bomb? It certainly wasn't expected, and it wasn't undeserved either. i fully recognize that at times (read: many times) my sadness comes out as anger, bitterness, fear, (insert negative emotion here) and that depression and i have hurt many people and caused them to walk out of my life.

You see, often when you hear about depression, you hear about the person being sad or tired or indecisive, or incapacitated (or more likely, all four), but you don't hear about how the person is also extremely hard to be with. And i fully acknowledge what a prickly, self-consumed, prideful, stubborn person i am. i am a misery to be around, most days.

But while last week was hard, Sunday marked a new week, and i saw God's hand in so many things. i saw a ridiculous amount of support come in last week, when i hadn't even asked for it, from friends who saw unmet needs in my life, and decided to be the ones to meet my financial needs. In my loneliness, i saw my director and his wife open up their home and cook me dinner and watch a movie with me.
As i headed into staff training days, having had only 6 hours of sleep in three days, i anticipated five draining days. But instead of hating the large staff events like i usually do, this was probably my favourite week of this semester (even despite the ridiculously weird cold-ish virus thing i got..and then gave to wynja...). i took time to sleep. i had three meals a day. There was good training. But the best thing was being open about my depression. There were just so many people who were so real with me. People have always talked about how going to staff training is like going to a big family reunion. i've never understood that. But this time round, i really felt the "family vibe". People really met me where i was at. They shared their struggles with me and encouraged me. i didn't feel weird to have depression-- i felt understood. i loved how people i look up to were so raw; i felt as though i were accepted, with all my edges and flaws. We sat and played dutch blitz, made jewellry, talked about grade 9, sat around the fire joking with each other. In hearing testimonies, i cried, mostly out of sheer relief that i'm not the only depressed person whose walk with depression is also affecting relationships.

By God's grace, i was the happiest i have been this semester.

These days, i don't often see things in colour. Most of what i see is like the pale gray of a rainy day. But weeks like this remind me that sometimes you need those shades of pale gray. Sometimes, to see the vibrancy of a rainbow you need the rain and the sunshine. And against the backdrop of the grey sky, the rainbow looks that much more alive. Where i'm at isn't where i want to be, but weeks like this make me glad, because for a brief speck of time, my life had colour.