no matter how hard this gets.

Dear you,

I can’t seem to escape the overhead speakers that play loudly the all too familiar Christmas songs that sing loud and proud of “the most wonderful time of the year”, which means that you too have been bombarded with these melodies. I get it. I really do. This time of year, for many, isn’t the most wonderful time.

I am sorry.

This is the holiday season. It is here and Christmas is next week. This is supposed to be the time for “holly jolly” and “joy to the world” and “peace on earth”. So why is it that most of us feel all of everything except for that overwhelming peace and joy? Somewhere along the line everything shattered. I am sure that at some point we beheld the magic of the season. I am certain that we once had the twinkle of wonder in our eyes. But it is gone now, and I am so sorry.

These days we are forced to sit across the table from brokenness. As we drive down streets that are covered in lights and nativities and jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, we are reminded. As we walk through crowded hallways where families walk hand in hand, we are reminded. We can’t even buy groceries without being reminded of the something missing. And I am so sorry.

For some of us, the depression that seems to hold us in a chokehold for most of the year only tightens its grip during this last month. I hear you and I see you and I am with you. And I am so sorry.

I don’t have answers. I don’t have words that could possibly make any of this less shitty than it is. But I can and will say that I am with you. I will hold your hand until January rolls around and I will hold your hand long after then as well.

I see you.
I hear you.
I am with you.
I am for you.
And I am not going anywhere.

No matter how hard this gets.

Love,
Alison

pain compounds the problem.

Numb.

I am so numb lately. I want to feel something. Anything.

And I am so frustrated. So today I wrote about it. Loud.

Frustration looks like slamming your bloody fists
on the hood of the locked car holding your keys hostage.
Not again, you idiot. Now what?
Tastes like chalk, sticking to the roof of your mouth,
an attempt to settle your soul-sick stomach.
Smells like burning. Toast burning for the 507^th time
or maybe your whole fucking world is burning to ashes around you. Again.
You can hear it.
Cries echoing through empty hallways
and shouting words and all the swears.
It sounds loud. And forceful. Relentless, even.
Blisters on your fingers. Broken toes.
Important things lost. Loved things missing.
You feel the raw and tender places more vividly
and the pain only compounds the problem.

whispers. the first night of advent

“I know, I know. I am coming…I’m coming”

Again today I was confronted with the brokenness of the world.

I came home from holidays where brokenness filled the empty spaces where hope and joy and laughter should have been. I am no stranger to disappointment and fear. Worry runs most of my days and the bills keep piling up. Tangible things remind me often that this world is busted up and not at all the way things were intended to be.

But also, the depression that lingers, the unexplained sadness, the anger and the fear – these too are companions that whisper in the night, reminders of the broken and missing things. Oh…the missing. Missing a thing you never had is a different sort of missing. The missing screams that once we had and now we don’t. The echo of something not right.

I long for someone to show up; to make sense of all this madness. I long for someone to step in and set all the broken things right. I long for someone to step in and make the worry stop and the depression flee. I long for someone who can and will wipe every tear from my face. I long for someone to show up and shine light in the dark places. I long for someone to spit in the dry earth and rub mud in my eyes so that I can see. I long for someone to bandage wounds and raise the dead. I long for someone to take me home.

So, tonight, this first day of advent, instead of listening to the whispers that remind me of the missing and broken things, I will choose to listen for another whisper. I will press my ear against the darkness of night and the silence of these four walls, and I will listen. I will not move until I am sure that I have heard correctly…

“I know, I know. I am coming…I’m coming”