That Glass Holds How Much?

I'm usually not just a "Glass-Half-Full" person but an "I-Drank-The-First-Half-Myself-And-It-Was Delicious-And-I'm-Expecting-A-Refill-Any-Minute" person.  If I believe Romans 8:28, which says "For all things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose," there is no reason for me to be depressed, is there?  So it is really easy to look down on all those people who let themselves get depressed.  Whoops, I may see a little flaw here.

Nobody ever said God doesn't have a sense of humor.  I obviously needed to be taught to look at both sides.  Accordingly, it seems that a few months ago, okay, probably nine, I started seeing less and less in the proverbial glass. Don't ask me for specifics; I'm not sure I could enumerate, or even recognize them.

Actually, I've been there before.  Within one month in 1994 our youngest son graduated from high school and got ready to leave home for college, our oldest son got married, and Dennis' mother, for whom I had been caring in her last illness, died.  Plus I hated my job but felt I was trapped there because we had to have the insurance.  I think I cried every day for about a year and probably should have had some medication. And about fifteen years before that when we were experiencing some severe financial problems I sank in into a pretty deep funk. (Aren't you glad you tuned in today to get a little humor ?)

But there's the difference.  Back then I could point to legitimate reasons to be down.  Norman Vincent Peale, the "Power of Positive Thinking" guy, might have gotten depressed if I had spent enough time explaining it to him at the time.  But, things changed, I got through it.

It's the elusive, something's not quite rosy, you can't put your finger on it, feeling that has been wearing on me lately.  Maybe it's that the bucket holding my Bucket List appears to have a slow leak.  Or it's that the sand in the hour glass and the shape of my body are more and more in sync:  most of it is at the bottom. 

I'm trying to work through it.  When I wake up at three in the morning I start thanking God for all the things that make my life great, right down to toothbrushes and indoor plumbing, and Facebook.  (Yes, you made the list.)  I can look at the clock and it is after five a.m.  and I still haven't run out.  But then there is a lady on the morning news who is standing in front of her burned-out house, who has absolutely nothing left, and she says "Every day it gets better," and I start talking to myself "You ungrateful WRETCH!" and multiply everything I'm feeling with a mega-dose of guilt.

So, there you have it.  I could find an expensive therapist and feel guilty about not being able to pay her, or I could blab all this to you, dear reader, probably accomplishing the same thing.  If you've been following awhile you probably already know much more about me than you ever wanted to, like how I inadvertently gave a dog shock treatments, or bared more than my soul at my high school graduation, and all about my mastectomy, and I could go on and on. (Oh, yeah. I have gone on and on. That's what I do in my blog.)  How much more can you stand?

I have to admit, nothing makes me feel more alive than writing. I'm chopping away at the Writer's Block.  So, I'm starting to look at the glass from different angles these days.  I'm thinking it is going to start sparkling any day now.  Yeah, it does look like it's getting fuller and fuller.