on birthdays and floundering.

So, it’s my birthday. Most years this produces constant refreshing of Facebook to see who’s wished me a happy birthday and joyous celebrations. Last year on this day I graduated college and had a monster party and laughed.

Today I woke up depressed.

That’s a hard word for me to write down. It’s a hard reality to admit. It’s difficult to be vulnerable with that piece of information. It’s even more difficult to admit that this is not a passing phase, but a constant struggle over the past months.

This last year of life (and actually the year before it as well) has been the hardest. It has included the loss of friends (both through my own choice for my health and through being cut off and through the natural transitions of life), the death of my grandfather, the serious illness of my father-in-law, the loss of a job (much bigger story there), the worst period of financial struggle that Gil and I have ever known, and a deep spiritual crisis that has left me questioning all that I once held true.

I wish that I had the emotional strength today to celebrate with joy the loveliness of life despite the struggles it includes. Unfortunately I feel that I have depleted the reservoirs. Fear seems to abound. Fear that life will never get better. That I will never again find confidence to be myself. That faith and God and light will remain dark.

Rational, thinking, typical Candace sees all of this as shit. She says to get it together, buck up, be strong, pull yourself out of this funk. I kind of hate that Candace right now. She’s mean and cruel and forces a facade of happiness and strength on my face when all I really want to do is lay in bed. She tells me that writing this is a pathetic plea for assurances and sympathy from the world.

I don’t know how to silence her.

Maybe writing this blog, coming clean with myself and the world about my reality is a step towards silencing her. Towards accepting the place that I’m in and the place that I’m no longer in.

I think that’s been the hardest part of this last year. The lack of stability I feel in my soul caused by no longer being in the places that I used to be. For so long, my life was structured around church and school and ministry. And community. There was consistency and pattern, even if those patterns were unhealthy and manipulative. Structure and hierarchy and standards even if they were abusive and overwhelming. Having released myself from those things, I was hoping for freedom, for life, for healing. I’m finding that those things are more difficult to find and create than I expected. And that realization is depressing.

Most of my blogs follow a consistent pattern. Maybe one I’ve forced on myself without knowing it. I question and process and think on the page and then find resolution, hope, resolve.

I’m not there today.