The Thanks Book

Part of me wants to use this space to rant again; spill out the self-piteous poetry of hurts and hope that it makes me feel better. But I’ve just realised something in these last few minutes waiting for my school computer to log on…

I woke up sad. I went to the doctors yesterday because I haven’t been feeling top. If you knew me, you’d know that’s a BIG thing for me because I hate the doctors. My doctor himself is lovely, but I panic going into the waiting room because I feel people’s eyes trying to suss you out and I freak out because I don’t know how you’re meant to behave in there. Anyway, I’m waiting for some bloods to come back and I’m a little scared because I know that there’s a strong possibility that all the physical symptoms I’m feeling are simply the manifestation of a ‘head-problem’.

Now please don’t get me wrong, I am not trivialising mental health conditions; I have struggled with the weight of the Greyness for a long time now. It comes and goes from me in seasons, so I’m not trying to demote its importance in any sense. Even still, part of me hopes and prays that there is a physically tangible explanation for how I’ve been feeling because I’m scared of the other thing.

Why is that? Maybe it’s the social stigma that keeps me trying desperately to hide it or the fear that medication might affect my job, mortgage, life insurance prospects.Or perhaps it’s because “the joy of the Lord” is meant to be my strength to get through each day, and I don’t feel much joy or strength these days. Either way I’m always conscious that this will consume me again – this gray nothingness that overpowers my natural optimism, my ‘quirkiness’, my joy and forces me to exhaust myself trying to pretend that I’m the same person. But I’m not, and in some ways, I think this has stolen a little bit of me that I might never get back fully. There are lots of reasons for all this that I don’t need to get into, but I’ve become a cautious person and that’s not who I used to be.

So as I waited this morning for my school computer to log on, I started thinking over the last few days, and I’ve realised that now is the time to live ‘intentionally’. That’s a stupid hipster word that Christians overuse to show that they’re living a good life, but that’s not how I mean it. I’m no psychologist, but I figure that mood has a lot to do with attitude. I see it in the kids I teach and I suppose I’ve just figured that it applies to me too. I’ve realised that I have a handful of reasons to wake up unhappy and a multitude more to wake up in joy. Without the clichéd speak of God-talk/motivational teachers, I have come to see that I am not awake to the little wonders that unfold around me every day and to the wonderful moments which I ought to acknowledge more fully.

I don’t know if this is a one-day phase but I’m trying to see the small things (and the big) that I should notice more often so I’ve started a thanks book full of things that should make me feel thankful (and hopefully in a better headspace). Maybe it’ll not do anything to help much but at least I can make a better effort at saying thanks.
So thanks for listening 🙂