it's been a long night

One day you wake up and want to smile at the whole world. You reel into giggles at the antics of your friends and find yourself unable to stop laughing. When the sun rises, you see the whole world afresh. Memories and pleasant incidents make your eyes sparkle in the middle of the morning, and after a long weary day full of cares you find yourself smiling for no reason and heaving a sigh of content. You look forward to the future, but not because now isn't okay.
Because life is more than okay.

Trenches are real. They're dark and treacherous, and sometimes very, very long. But that's all they are, just trenches. You may find a way to climb out the side, you may slide back in occasionally. And sometimes you trudge faithfully along it as little by little the walls at your sides get lower and lower. Until one day at twilight you find yourself in a meadow. And the trenches behind you feel both less important and less meaningless than you ever thought possible. It really doesn't matter because now you're enjoying the grass underfoot, and the flowers on either side.

You find yourself giddy with gratitude over your friends, your days, the things you have to look forward to. You have a beautiful life. It's quite different to feel this in your bones than to know it intellectually. The strangest thing is when you stop being afraid of the return of darkness. Perhaps it is the unquantifiable strength of knowing for certain, and from personal experience, that the light comes back too. Not just in a lifting of a little of the weight, or a bearability. But in the true unbridled joy type. The shrug of peace. The sigh of contentment. They can come back too.
Running through the streets. Walking in the rain. Waiting for the sun to come up.

Depression is a little like being in a coma. Life goes on around you in a seemingly normal state, but you feel a complete inability to interact with it. You may even be aware that the sun rises, and birthdays and good news happen, and your friends still love you, but nothing seems to matter or have any effect on your condition. Some of your friends, in fact, and most of your family, spend a good deal of time keeping you company and checking in on you when they can. They talk to you and tell you good things, and to be strong. And you want to answer them. To reach out and appreciate them and connect. But it seems you have no means to do so.

Most present of all, of course, constantly at your bedside, is another. One who refuses to leave you alone, and so spends his time talking to you, and listening. And when he listens, other people only hear your breathing, but you are sure he hears your rampaging and confused thoughts. Your pain and need, your feeling of entrapment, and the guilt you feel for not simply waking up, as everyone urges you to do. And still this companionship is lost on you because you lay motionless and silent. You feel sure that if your senses weren't dull and dead that his presence in the room would fill it to bursting. That if you didn't feel so dim and distant that his voice would bring you out of the depths. You can tell he's there somehow, but all you can see is the back of your eyelids. You can tell he's talking but can't seem to catch any of the words, or make them stick in your brain with any meaning. You know this is your friend, but try as you might, you can't quite remember what friend means.

But no amount of numbness could rule any of it inconsequential. Not one gentle word spoken in that room failed to do it's part in sustaining you. And, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. One morning you feel his hand touch yours, and are vividly aware of him. Not long after, slow deep breaths break the usual rhythm. Your eyes flutter open. And there they are. The people who love you.

The sun shines in at the window. Friends and family go about their ordinary lives, and you marvel at it, and them, with childlike wonder. The world seems brand-new. And wonderfully ancient and full of history and philosophy and endless wonders and beauties to pursue if only you're gifted with enough energy and time. You're content to wait until you get your sea-legs back. You're willing to husband your strength and not try to bite off the whole loaf at one go.

You talk with Jesus now, out loud, although he still hears your roaming thoughts. They are weary sometimes, your thoughts; perplexed, distracted, frustrated perhaps; but no longer raging with those emotions of pain and despair, like before. There is a new ease knowing that all the violence of those dark thoughts did nothing to chase this companion away, nor will they ever. They have no power against him. His friendship is even warmer and more humorous than you remembered.

After what you've been through, you might well wonder if you're dreaming. But somehow, conversation with the Almighty, which could seem the most phantom-like of all, is what decides it. This is real, and all other considerations are irrelevant, because this is home.

I know. Because it happened to me.