Garden Variety Neurosis

I woke up feeling sad today. I had no reason to wake up feeling so sad. I had no sad dreams just before waking up. I have had nothing horribly sad happen in the last couple of days that would leave me feeling so sad. Still, I woke up sad.

It did not take me long to attach reasons to why I am feeling so sad. I feel sad because my life is nothing like I want it to be. I think I have failed...again. I think that, no matter I do or how hard I try, failure is part of my destiny. My style, if you will.

I feel sad because I cannot seem to do even the most basic things that adults do to live independently. I think about others I know who are my age, or even younger, and they seem to land on their feet every time. Every time I attempt to do what adults do...find a decent job, move out of my parents house, maintain a place of my own, and so forth...I seem to fail, miserably. Whether it is due to my own actions, or circumstances beyond my control, failure seems to find me. Before too long, I am living with my family again, because I could not make it on my own. I am tired of feeling like the perpetually lost sheep.

I feel sad because I want to work, and I am not physically able to do that yet. I want to earn money so I can go out and go to a movie without feeling like I am slowly draining the life out of what little money I have in reserve. I am still in a lot of pain, I still feel very tired most of the time, I still feel nauseated a lot of the time, I still feel like exactly what I am...not healthy enough yet to go back to work. I have been sick for about two months solid now, and it has cost me dearly. I am tired.

I found myself thinking today that if only I was smarter, gifted, more talented, more whatever people need to be in order to be successful or at least not needy and dependent...if only I were more of those things, maybe then I wouldn't feel like such a loser most of the time. If only I were more of those things, my life would be more together, and I would be somebody God could really use to do something that matters.

Of course, I recognize that these are just feelings, and they do not reflect truth or reality. I recognize that, in the only reality that matters, I am complete, I am perfect, I am exactly where God needs me to be right now, exactly as He wants me to be right now. I will not become somebody God can use someday, when I get my act together and can live the life I want. I am somebody God can use right now, living the life I live right now. Even if my life never changed (which it will, someday, but even if it didn't...), God sees me as whole, holy, complete, irreproachable, blameless...right now. I am already all of those things in my spirit, because my spirit is united with Christ's. The experience of my soul, which lives in this temporal world, is in becoming all of those things. I know all of that.

But this still really stinks. To add insult to injury, this is the second time I've written all of this out, as it got erased the first time. Man, today is just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.