I've been under a cloud of inexplicable depression for the past few weeks.
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| Preparing candy packets for trick-or-treaters. |
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| Child labor + counting lesson, for the win. |
Encroaching darkness on both ends of the day, an extra 5 pounds from eating New York, the ominous signs of impending winter, a deep sense that my country is on a humiliating trajectory, struggling to keep up with school, a return to reality after a wonderful vacation, finding Halloween candy wrappers all over my already frustratingly messy house..... I'm sure these things have nothing to do with it.
Well.
Maybe those things do have something to do with it.
Six months ago President Obama pretty much summed up how many of us feel about this election:
"Just look at the confusion over the invitations to tonight's dinner. Guests were asked to check whether they wanted steak or fish, but instead, a whole bunch of you wrote in Paul Ryan. That's not an option, people. Steak or fish. You may not like steak or fish, but that's your choice."
Indeed, many of us don't like steak or fish. And when your two options are bad and worse, you leave the polling station thinking this or this, definitely this, and possibly this.
Whether "bad" or "worse" won yesterday is debatable, I suppose, but one silver lining is that there are no more debates.
I'm grieved to wake up in a nation where civil discourse is so appallingly uncivil, where foolishness reigns and gross immorality is a given.
Closer to home, wonderful vacations are always hard to come home from, especially if your work is now piled up, and you're a little pudgier to boot.
Our school days are longer and the extra schoolwork wears me out, so I'm even less motivated than usual to clean my house. Result: mess, grime, and a vague fear that if my mother dropped in unexpected she would disown me as her daughter.
Add to this your run-of-the-mill seasonal affective disorder, and we have a veritable salad of gloom.
It's embarrassing to know how easily my housekeeping could be judged. It's frustrating to collapse with fatigue when there's so much more to do.
And I wish my personality was characterized by joy instead of so frequently fighting against the gloom.
I long to be self-sufficient... but my Father has a better plan. "And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you.'"
Believe Me now
Believe Me here
Remember all the times I've told you loud and clear
I am with you
I am for you
So believe Me now
-Steven Curtis Chapman, "Believe Me Now"
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