PREFACE: MY HOUSE IS A MESS, I'M A MESS, AND MY BILLS AREN'T PAID!!!

PREFACE:

My house is a mess, I'm a mess, and my bills aren't paid

AND THAT IS CALLED DEPRESSION.

February 15, 2010

"I BEGAN THIS JOURNEY THE BEGINNING OF 2010 - January 18th to be exact, and this journal soon after, with the thought in mind that it would only take a year to complete and then it would be over. How naive. I had no idea then where I was going or how long it would take to get there. I would love to say that this journey and my journal will be completed at the end of the year but I know that isn't true. The truth is it will never reach conclusion - not in my lifetime. I may fill on the pages of this journal and others may follow to take its place but the journals and the journey will never end, never be over. My heart tells me that and my mind understands it. Heart and mind are, for once, in agreement.

By necessity some journeys must be taken alone. Most journeys have a destination. The traveler knows that eventually they will "arrive". Even on those journeys that take time and take the traveler up and down the mountains and through the deepest, darkest valleys of life, he knows that the end is always just around the next bend.

This is not such a journey. Oh, yes, there is a goal but it is one that will never be totally successful. There will be no "arrival". No one waiting at the end with open arms and a warm bed. No welcome home parade. No celebration party.

There will be many small triumphs along the way but there will also be devastating defeats. A lot of starting over. A lot of waiting. A lot of standing still. But by taking tiny steps forward there will be growth and understanding also. And that will be my greatest success even though my goal will always be just beyond my finger tips. Often far, far away. And that is what this journey and my journal are all about - celebrating the small successes, accepting the defeats, and never staying down when life knocks me to the ground. I will tell myself to get back up on my feet and move forward one step at a time - regardless of how challenging it is and how hard I may want to give up.

One lesson I discovered quite early in my progress is that in order to move forward a lot of baggage must be left behind. I might have been tempted to drag it along, let it get in my way, stumble over it. I could have thought that I would need it, could have continued the battle of taking it with me. But I've come to know this, baggage of this type - anger, blame, guilt- only weighs me down and makes the journey far more difficult than it must be. And the journey is, and will continue to be, difficult enough even when the baggage is left on the side of the road. So I set it down and leave it there. I know there will be times that I want to go back and pick it up but I must struggle against it. This journey must be about moving forward and not going back. At least that, in my humanness, is what I will try to do.

There will be days when I'll be so weary of trying to continue on and I will think that if I just had that suitcase with me, I could sit down, open it, and wrap myself in its familiar contents. The contents may be ill fitting, the texture will scratch and irritate my skin, they'll be so tight, so suffocating that it will be almost impossible to walk but, still, isn't the familiar better than the unknown? A voice whispers in my ear that if I sit down and open that suitcase, I'll never get up again. No, its better to leave it behind on the side of the road. It stagnates the air. Ahead the air is fresh and clean even when the rain falls, the lightening flashes, and the thunder booms.

I shall stay on the curving, upward path. There will be obstacles on the path, in my way, to make me stumble. It will be a struggle to force myself up the hills. There will continue to be times when I want to surrender, to give up; but how can I not continue to try. I will do it for my son, my family, but most of all, I must do it for myself. I'll lean into the wind, hold onto the Hand of my God, and keep the forward momentum - one tiny step at a time.

And what is that elusive goal? To be delivered from my grief, my pain, my tears, my empty arms that once embraced my son. To be healed. But the only way for that to happen is if this loss of life had never occurred. And that cannot be so I'll struggle on one step at a time, one day at a time embracing my faith and with the knowledge that help is just a prayer away.