Letters to Angels: Anticipation

I know the feeling with Christmas & how as I got older the whole Christmas thing became a big let down... mostly for me it was the anticipation - that when I was little, Christmas was a major event that took tons of time to prepare for. There was present shopping of course, but then there was the ritual of finding a tree, cutting it down, setting it up at home, decorating it. There was lots & lots of christmas baking from mom that we'd sometimes assist with. There were presents to rattle & shake & contemplate... school christmas pageants to prepare for... all this stuff that took up nearly the entire month of december... and yeah, it was a huge let down the 1st time I was at an engineering job & worked until Dec 24, drove home & voila, slam-bam, there was Christmas & it happened in a moment - the tree was up, stuff baked, presents opened.... no preparation, no ritual of getting you ready for it all - it just happened & then vanished & I was left going, 'wow, is this it?'....

and yeah, maybe the reasons why our days go so fast as adults is that we don't have things to anticipate, things to look forward to.... or maybe it's that we have things to look forward to & then we live for the anticipated moments - we rush all of our other days to get to the 'big' moments & then find they vanish too quickly & we can't hold on to them... maybe as kids there was the potential that every day could be an adventure & that's why it felt longer... maybe not though...

.....

I'm really not sure how I'm doing. I'm randomly depressed a lot more than normal (maybe - maybe not, it's hard to measure 'normal' depression levels for me). It's nothing super serious. I just feel empty inside most days. Nothing to look forward to really..... one of the things I have to work through is a low self image thing.. but yeah, been struggling with not having a 'purpose' in life.... and yeah, thought about doing ministry stuff again, but realized that was 'addiction' talking - that I wanted to do ministry not 'cause I wanted to do ministry, but 'cause I love that feeling of being helpful/useful. But I've seen how that gets hollow eventually 'cause I've realized the being wanted/loved/friend means more than the being useful does....

So yeah, two saturday's ago, I had an epiphany about the verse in Matthew 6 where Jesus goes, "don't worry about tomorrow, today has enough worries of it's own - you can't change anything (add an inch, etc.)"... the epiphany lasted for 45 minutes & then vanished. It was this amazing moment of where I felt 100% free to be myself & was all happy & contented that I could be me without having to change/figure out the world/figure out how to save the world or figure out what my next 20 years was going to look like... It was fantastic & then yeah, it sort of went away.

So I've been trying not to worry, but I feel randomly bummed out & am just not sure why. There's nothing wrong, but maybe nothing super right either. I don't want to hang out with people so much, but the times that I do spend with people in places where I feel 'connection' then I get all greedy & want to hang on & make each moment last....

I think it's like the Christmas stuff for me - I had stuff to look forward to in life & that kept things going & made me feel happy. Now I'm just living in the moments and it's not so exciting....