A Bushel and a Peck

It's a depression day. I'm stuffing my face with junk food, staring at my phone, sleeping whenever I can, all to fill this painful hollow in my chest. It's not filling up at all - it's like a cup with a hole in it. On "good" days, the hole is sealed and the cup easily filled. On depression days, something (I'm not always sure what) has ripped open the hole in the bottom of the cup and I'm scrambling to plug the hole and fill the cup again. I can't seem to do either successfully. "Read your scriptures, Kara. Pray. Look on the bright side. Go for a walk. Blah blah blah." Oh right. I forgot. Those things always work, right? No, they don't always work. They don't always seal the hole. In fact, just contemplating them while in the midst of depression can send a searing pain through my chest and I sometimes physically shudder. My shoulders and chest cave in and I have to resist the urge to curl up in the fetal position. A nast...

In January of this year, I made a New Year's resolution that I would have no romantic relationships in 2017. I knew (in some vague sense) that I wasn't ready and needed to focus on myself. About two weeks later, I started talking to a man I came to care about very much. I also knew, from the beginning, that I wouldn't be able to take this relationship anywhere close to marriage (which is sort of a deal-breaker for Mormons), though I was afraid to tell him that until we'd been talking for almost two months. I finally told him what I felt and it was over. In a lot of ways, that break was more painful than the split from my ex-husband, likely because my divorce was coming on for a long time and I'd numbed myself to the pain long before we actually separated. This new break, however, happened when I was opening my heart back up. The new pain burned like fire through my heart and veins, rekindling the old pain and doubling my suffering. Ouch. Almost four months later...