Voice....."From a Notebook"

So. Here I am again, posting after a really dark spell. I’ve changed my mind about this entry, after sitting down to start writing it. I was going to write some clever and urbane thoughts about getting past a bout of depression and how my personality type is interacting with the uncertain period of life I’m swimming in and other stuff that makes me sound smart and analytical and together, like I’ve overcome a challenge and aren’t I grand? Listen to me, because I’ve got important things to say.
I changed my mind. I’m not going to do that.
Last evening I took myself to bed in the early evening, physically and mentally finished (immediately after I posted yesterday’s entry, in fact). I didn’t realize it consciously, but I needed silence and rest, and time to let my heart be what it was and feel what was in there to be felt. After a while, not sleeping but being quiet, I pulled out my scribbledy notebook, my journaling/note-taking/write-stuff-here-whenever notebook, and wrote some stuff. Several pages worth of what was in me to say. I opened it back up this morning, sitting with my computer and getting ready to write, and read what I had written about myself.
The following are direct excerpts from what I wrote in my scribbledy notebook, unedited except for clarity and to protect the innocent (marked with brackets). This isn’t me, clever. It’s me, real. I’m offering it in hopes that it will enable someone else to be themself, real. To maybe not feel as alone in the midst of confusion and depression and hurt. Because someone else has experienced those things too.
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“I’m tired. I don’t know why. I just am. I don’t want to have to justify myself in order to have permission to feel bad.
“I don’t wanna need permission to feel bad. To be depressed. To be sad. I would like for it to be just accepted for what it is and move on. I would like for that to be true of me, for me [toward myself] too. To be able to accept it as a state of being that just is and is temporary and to let it pass through me as long as it needs to and then go. And not to try to cling to it or to push it away and struggle.
“I would like for it not to be a cause for comment among my family and friends — to be able to just ask for help with what I need, and the why not to be dwelt on. And then to be able to give them my thanks and we all just move on.”
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“I don’t want to get stuck here, but I don’t want to have to feel like I have to fight either, like I’m even more wrong if I’m not fighting with my mood. Right now what I want is to rest. Just rest. For it to be legitimate to just rest. To have enough space and grace to rest in. For time to leave me alone for a while.”
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“Do your work, and then you get a rest. Don’t be sad. Just get on with it. Don’t be confused. You should know how to do this. You should see more of the world. You should notice more. You should understand more. You shouldn’t be afraid. At least, not a crippling fear. You should very calmly and rationally work through this and come to a logical conclusion that can be steadily worked at until successful. There might be some problems on the way, but you should be able to work them out if you don’t get upset and keep working at it.
“Yeah. Should. Whatever.”
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“I don’t know what I’m capable of. I don’t know what’s the right size of challenge to take on next.”
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“I [really badly] want for everything to be settled and decided, so I treat my day to day ideas as The Thing, and present it that way to other people. And then it feels catastrophic when the next piece of information wrecks it. I’m really not okay with living with uncertainty. And it takes so much energy every time I have to wrench my mind/heart onto something different. I feel like an idiot telling people ‘sorry, no, changed my mind. Pay no attention to my OMG CERTAINTY, I was wrong.’ And then do it again and again. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
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“I’m glad to have the chance to write this stuff down…. I feel like I’m going to get my energy back. Like this quieted space is a rest and not doom. I feel my spirits lift as the words flow over the page. My spirit is calmer and lighter. I will move on. For the first time in two days, I feel like I will move on from here.”