Long Dark Night

I don't understand sometimes why breathing seems such a chore. Why is waking up and getting out of bed is so difficult? There is an expression that came to my mind while I was writing that: the long dark night of the soul. I looked it up. Although I've heard it for years, I realized that I didn't really understand what it meant. I do now.

There were several places that described it. Wiki says, "a phase in a person's spiritual life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation." Another site that I believe has something to do with eastern religion said, "It is a feeling of having been abandoned by God, characterized by an extreme sense of loneliness, and often a sense of futility and an experience of all efforts coming out the opposite of what is expected." (http://www.kundalini-teacher.com/symptoms/darknight.php)

I actually read the page where that was found because it seemed to fit several periods in my own life where things just didn't make sense and melted away to a kind of blackness. It is where I reside at the moment. Abandonment, desolation, loneliness, everything you attempt fails. . . pretty much sums it up. A long dark night.

I wrote the preceding at 9:33 this morning. The day degenerated from that point, a spiral into an abyss. I fell apart around 2 p.m. A coworker came to my office and found me. After failing to find a way to help me the boss came in and sent me home for the day. Probably for the best. When I got to the house I was basically an emotional train wreck. Took nearly two hours to get to the point I could get out of bed.

I asked to get Sarah earlier in the day and I went and got her and spent the rest of the evening trying to stay focused on blue eyes, blond hair and gamin grins. We made supper together, ate, played with the doll house, watched Barney, played with some other toys, read about four Curious George stories (she has a huge book of about eight).

A few times she caught me upset and said, "Don't be sad Mawmaw, I'm here." Once she said, "Don't be afraid. I'm right here Mawmaw. I not gone leave you." I wanted to smile but couldn't quite pull it off. She has gone home now and I'm on my way to shower and to bed. I feel as if I've run 50 miles. I've been sleepy for hours.

But a long dark night of the soul. I experienced such a thing once years ago. I didn't know that is what it was then but after reading the explanation, I'm certain of it. And this is another version. You would think, after all this time, I'd be used to it. I'd just straighten up, wash my face and get on with my life. And it sounds like a good idea. If I thought I had a life. If I thought it matter, or if I cared. I'm finding it harder and harder to find something that would make me care.

Maybe I want life easy. I probably do. Jerry and I made our plans. We knew what life would be. We loved our church and little family. We didn't have anything else. But it was just enough to keep us happy. We were happy, for a little while. We would work. Our sons would grow up to be productive men, honest, Godly men who loved God and who would have good jobs and families of their own. We'd have grandchildren, several, just down the road where we could be surrounded on holidays with those who meant the most to us and that we could see in church on Sunday carrying on the faith we had tried to instill. And we'd grow old together and watch their children have children and we would leave a legacy behind of, not money, but character and dedication and devotion.

The last month of his life I watched my husband lose all those dreams at once. I watched him let go of them and weep for his life. I listened to him talk about the disappointment he felt at all of it. I didn't know I was getting a last confession. But I tried to reassure and absolve him, I hope. At least I told him it wasn't his fault. He did the best he could to see that it all happened. I have hoped every day since January 29th that he found some comfort in those things. That he did not die feeling like a failure because of what was around him. People should not die with no sense of achieving something good. I think he did. I'm certain he did.

Now, I am not sure it is possible to ever feel like I did the right things. I am sure that there is nothing anyone can say or do to change that. Truth cannot be changed.