Coming out.

I always thought by the time I reached age 25 I’d have more figured out. That maybe I would be in the career I wanted, or married and having the ‘let’s start to have kids’ discussion. I thought if anything I’d be a fearless traveler, trekking my way across Antarctica by now. (Yes, it’s a real dream. More so to go kayaking either around there or Greenland. Random, I know, but real.)

Yet life. Yet loss. Yet disappointments.

There are moments where I second guess choices I have made, wondering if at my core I regret certain decisions.

As much as there are changes I would make if given the impossible chance of time travel I choose to say I regret nothing. Because I know by changing those things I would not know many of the people I know today. By living the life I would have thought was expected of me based on societal norms - graduate highschool and immediately get a degree and get married and have two and a half kids  - I would not know my creative side like I do now. I could honestly list out details of what each of my “life decisions” has brought to me - both good and bad, but focusing on the good.

Yet, for right now, I choose to talk about one thing in particular. For me it is something that has allowed me to step into fear and discouragement as far as living my best life goes. It has allowed what I consider to be a prison to be built around me. My fear of facing its truth in its entirety, always needing to come across a certain way to everyone around me has stopped me from just fully being. Not only that, but it has slowed my healing process in general as I’ve always been in some sort of denial about it.

And as much as I am very frustrated at this as it has been 10 very long years of ups and downs, I also know it is just my story. It is my journey and I’m owning up to it.

I’m owning up to my battle with anxiety that started when I was 14. I’m owning up to depression which has not left my side for the last 10 years. I’m owning up to feeling like I would not make it past a certain age because of my struggle with these things. I’m owning up to years of shame and self hatred, obsessed with everything that I felt I wasn’t.

For me, it is years of holding my breath until that final moment where I am no longer “struggling”. It’s been years of pretending that everything was fine when they clearly weren’t. It’s been years of believing that I need to be fully fixed in order for God to use me - compartmentalizing myself. Believing that as long as depression was present, I was no good. That in what feels like my failure I have closed the door to my house, drawing the curtains closed and turning out the lights willing myself to do better - to be better.

A few weeks ago I found myself in a deep fog. I couldn’t concentrate. I barely had any energy. The thought of leaving my house was overwhelming. Actually, the very thought of life was overwhelming.

I felt like a stranger in my own body, frustrated at my lack and my brokeness. And once again, I felt myself rushing through, thinking too many steps ahead instead of focusing on the moments in front of me.

Those thoughts of “once I’m better” were running through my mind as I thought about sharing my struggles. Not only that, but the frustration of feeling like I had gotten over all this, only to find myself back in the thick of it seemingly worse off than before.

In the meantime I knew of two different people who had taken their own lives. So I thought, once I’m through to the other side I will open up and break the stigma off of depression and suicide. I’ll speak out and shine a light into the darkness that lingers, especially within the church. This only put a false pressure on myself, and I found I only wanted to crawl deeper into the darkness.

That’s when I had this thought: what am I waiting for?

For that perfect moment that would never come?

For the perfect me that does not exist?

I am simply me. (Duh.) I’m going through the thick of my own struggles and I know that even though it feels like it’s been a lifetime of just that, I know they have helped shape me into who I am today. And not only that but they have only brought me deeper into my relationship with God.

Not to say that I have it all figured out, or that all the difficult moments have passed. Because they haven’t. It honestly feels impossible at times. My current life looks like too many hours on Netflix as a lot of other simple life tasks feel overwhelming, although these days I have been stepping out more and more. But I find that all I can do is focus on this moment, being at peace with the reality of depression maybe being here for years to come. (Not to say I don’t hope to one day be healed from this, but also being at peace with it existing in my life.)

It’s in this moment where I find peace in sharing my story as I go through it. Because really, none of us have it figured out. None of us are perfect. We all struggle. We all have difficulty. We all face things in our day to day life that cause us to scratch our heads. None of us are immune to loss, or broken hearts, or emotional trauma. While some of us may have a “buck up” attitude about it, some of us feel a little too much sometimes. Both are okay.

As long as we are being honest with ourselves. And with the people who matter most in our lives. Even though it’s hard. Even if our voice shakes at times, what matters is being real. (Also, shout out to therapy and my amazing psychologist - therapy is great people. Find yourself a good therapist and do that hard work, cause it’s worth it.)

I have taken this on as what feels like my life’s calling. To be brutally honest. Because as soon as I begin to draw those curtains closed, even if it’s only slightly, my world spins out from beneath me.

I have struggled over the last couple weeks as I attempted to write my heart flow. Part of the battle was the struggle to come out of the darkness long enough to write with hopefulness. But more and more I’m learning to just write through it. Not waiting for that perfect moment of creative flow, but just going for it - finding that hope as I do it.

I don’t want to be afraid of living, which is what I have felt for the last few years of my life. Afraid of taking a wrong step, sharing too much or not saying enough. I spend too much time thinking instead of doing.

I’m coming out. Out of the shadows I’ve hidden in for the last few years. Out of the shadows of fear and into the light of simply just being and not caring so much. Which, for me that’s harder said than done. (Shout out to all of us overthinkers.)

But from my heart to yours, here’s to finally just being and not thinking too much about it. Here’s to being maybe a bit too honest, but being totally okay with it because it’s something I feel is necessary in order to be me, as God has designed me.

Here’s to the struggle, for those of us who feel to be in the thick of it. Hope does exist, even though it seems impossible at times. It exists and even though we may not feel it, it’s here.

Hope is here, with us in the shadows of our struggle. It’s cheering us on, while also not rushing us. For me, hope is the person of Jesus, while I may not feel Him, or see how He could be here in the midst of so much confusion and general feelings of being overwhelmed, I know He is here. It’s faith that carries me even though that faith doesn’t look like a lot some days. It’s choosing to believe this is just the beginning.

The thing I keep hearing is this: in order for light to truly shine, there needs to be some darkness. To me that means embracing the mess, and the pain, as it is the thing that separates us from heaven. Pain. Sorrow. Loss. We won’t know that when we get there. But I wonder if we’ll remember it, as something beautiful? Redeemed?

Because, it is…. Call me crazy, but it is - as I said before - the thing that has brought me to where I am today. Walking through loss has forced me to only step further into knowing the goodness of God. Walking through depression and suicidal thoughts has brought me that much closer to the Father heart of God, stepping deeper into His love and the comfort of it- leading me deeper into the meaning of grace.

I’m undone by this very thing - grace and redemption.

And so there it is. I’m out, and I don’t plan on going back in to that place of pretending and hiding.

And finally, to quote a song I’ve been listening to over the last few weeks:

What hell meant to break me has failed,

Now nothing will silence my praise.

- Victory is Yours, Bethel Music.