Confetti Guns in Office Buildings

This weekend I called three friends and FaceTimed two.

I finally took a shower. I washed my laundry. I cleaned my room.

I got out of bed and I was productive.

I managed to have more emotive thinking than apathetic thinking.

I watched the sunset and breathed a little deeper.

This weekend, I began to process what I have been avoiding for months now.

And you may not care.

You may say, "Wow, good for you. You're a grown adult doing the bare minimum of what grown female adults are supposed to be doing. Cool."

But I'm proud of me.

I'm proud that in the midst of a depressive episode, I'm not fixated on death.

I'm proud that as someone who has struggled with self-harm, I've not reached for physical pain to numb my emotional pain.

I'm proud that I've had more days out of bed than in bed during this season.

I'm proud of myself for taking vitamins and my medicine when my immune system is responding to this bout of depression with fever blisters and swollen lymph nodes.

I'm proud of myself for setting boundaries with those who are asking more from me than I can give them in this moment.

I haven't lost hope.

I know that this too will pass.

But I also am well aware that it typically takes a minimum of six months to fully grieve.

I don't think I'm an anomaly.

I just don't think people are going to know how to handle me when I finally open up.

So I pray.

Because the One who has conquered emotion has a better idea of what I'm feeling than a humanity led by emotion.

The Creator of the Universe will be able to hold all the mess I release better than a finite friend.

The Man who has experienced the highest degree of rejection, abandonment, and heartache can listen without judgment in ways no sinful being can.

So, I'm taking time to shut out the world and to not share how I'm feeling, except in small excerpts.

You know — the kind of excerpts we read online when we have a book report due and don't care to read the entire book.

I'm feeding the obligation that people feel they need when attempting to be available.

Because if I shared this entire book of information on what is occurring in my life, how I feel about it, how I don't feel about, how I think it affects my future, how I think it is an effect from my past, and so on and so forth, I know that this 140-character society wouldn't have the attention span or the care to keep up.

And that's okay, mostly because I don't owe my story or an explanation of my feelings to anyone.

That's freeing.

It would be unacceptable to shoot a confetti gun in the middle of a very professional and serious workplace.

Not only would it make a huge mess, but it would also disrupt busy people doing important things.

My processing life right now is a confetti gun and my surroundings are an office space.

I'm going to go find an open space, where I don't have to worry about this confetti gun firing off at random.

I'm going to make sure I'm in an area that can both contain and welcome this mess, not as an inconvenience but as normalcy.

And I'm going to let myself enjoy the colors the float on down from the sky as my thoughts, feelings, and heartaches paint the sky with pieces of shiny, glittery paper.

Because it's not shameful to feel.

And these pieces of confetti become part of the collage of wisdom and experience reminding us of the lessons we've learned, growing pains we've endured, and hoped we've allowed to forge within us, as we know depression doesn't last forever.

So I'm headed to an open space with One who can hear the sound of the confetti gun fire without jumping.

And on the journey there, He takes me through the roads He walked and the Gardens He knelt in as He found Himself in need of an open space to process and grieve the greatest heartaches and most profound suffering.

And I can remind myself: Be still my soul, He knows your needs, and He will fill all the many longings in between.