stormy weather

Well, today was one of those days where I just felt like everything was hopeless. I'm never going to find a job. I will always be alone and I'm never going to meet a good man and get married. I'm never going to have my own kids. I'm never going to find an apartment all my own again. I will always feel like I missed out on life in some way because nothing turned out the way I thought it should have. You know...completely self-focused and depressed about my whole situation. It was the type of day where when I got in my car, I immediately began crying and yelling at God for not making my life easier right now, only to feel guilty immediately after because actually, I have a pretty blessed life. I'm not living on the streets, I'm not starving somewhere, and I'm not Lindsay Lohan (although, we do have the same birthday). So, I don't have a job. But I do have parents who love me and who have a house where they can take me back in while I continue to wade through the complications of the counseling world. So, I'm not married. But I'm also not married to the jerk who hits his wife or is emotionally abusive. I also have a wonderful support system in my friends and family and I know that there are people in this world who love me and think that I am deserving of love in my life. So, I'm not having my own kids right now. That doesn't mean that I won't someday. Although, watching so many of my friends go through this stage in life right now makes this desire grow all that much stronger and increases the pain and fear that this may actually never happen for me. Even if I have to wait until I'm 45 to get married, I could have marriage in my life, but probably never biological children. It hurts, but...well, someday I'll come up with a silver lining for this one.

My point is that while life feels really hard and painful for me right now, I do have so many good things going on as well. It is so hard to truly realize the good things and the blessings in life when it feels like Satan keeps chipping away at all the things we think give us value and meaning. Of course it doesn't lessen the fact that these things are hard for me right now. I am a mostly cheery and positive person who loves singing, dancing, laughing, and finding the sparkle in life, but I also don't want to gloss over the fact that this transition is hard. This is harder than transitioning to adult life after college. This is harder than transitioning to living in Colorado. The reason I think this is just so hard is that I know what I want in life. I figured out what career path I feel God has called me to. I was made to be in deep, meaningful, and intimate relationships and I believe that marriage is the ultimate experience of that. I love children and I just cannot wait to name, nurture, and raise one or two or five of my own. I want to live out east and be near to family and within driving distance of the ocean. I know I want all these things and yet, like many things that I do, I seem to be taking the longest and hardest route to get there...wherever there may be.

To go back to the analogy, I knew that when I got back here, home, this side of the rainbow, that it would be gray for a while. That all that brilliance of color in the adventure would disappear and life would seem to stand still for a bit in the grayness. I knew that even though I had gotten through some storms to get here, that there would still be more before the sun would shine. I knew it just wouldn't all come together. But even when it's expected, going through the storm and sitting in the grayness is difficult.

They say that it's darkest before the dawn. I hope the storm is strongest before the sun comes out too. Because I am so ready for that sun.