To Grow a Heart

Ezekiel 11:19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

God is growing me back into my heart. He started by reintroducing me to joy. On Sunday, I escaped my rising sun-setting dread by accepting my friend's invitation to sleep over at her house. Like a Thomas Kincade painting, her house was bright and inviting inside when I arrived in the dark, and her two children in whom I delight came running to the door to see me the moment I stepped inside. They love me because I hold them by their ankles and swing them in the air, or fireman-carry them upstairs to bed, frequently (but accidentally) bumping them into walls and furniture on the way. It's amazing how this mild act of violence elicits such powerful mutual affection and joy. On Wednesday, I went out with my "French" friends, Jen and Stuart, to a Chinese restaurant where we shared some excellent Mandarin chicken. I (sort of) taught Jen how to use chop-sticks. Then we walked across the street to the Pages bookstore in Kensington for the poetry reading and celebration of Writing the Land's publication. Writing the Land is a collection of poems written by Albertan poets and collected by a brand new Albertan publishing company, called House of Blue Skies, about the land of Alberta and authors' connections to it. Jen's favourite poem by Stuart, Weaselhead Variations, which he read to her on their first date as they walked through Weaselhead Park (AWWWWW), is in the book, so he was invited to come read it aloud at the book launch. He did so proudly. Afterwards, Jen and I congregated to chat with a few other non-writers while Stuart, a social butterfly at heart, wandered around talking to the many people he knows at poetry readings. When most of the room had cleared out, Stuart returned and informed Jen that he and his friend Rob were going out to a pub for some male bonding time, so he'd walk her to her car and kiss her good-night. Then, as he wrapped his arm around her to steer her out, he turned to a woman we'd been chatting with and asked, "Want to come along?" While I silently started laughing my head off behind him, Jen and the other woman simultaneously dropped their jaws in shock, then verbally jumped him like the Papparrazi jumped on Princess Di with their cameras. I was still laughing when I left Jen and Stuart making out...I mean up...on a street corner to catch my train home. At the train station, I sat down in the shelter to begin recording this story in my journal, when a young man sitting across from me interrupted with, "Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but..." which is usually followed with either, "do you know which train I'd need to get to ____?" or "do you know what time it is?" I lifted my head from my writing to acknowledge him and was somewhat surprised when his question was "is it always like this?" I glanced around to try and get some clue as to what he was talking about. I didn't see anything unusual or alarming: a homeless man with a shopping cart walked resolutely down the sidewalk, a few teen-agers huddled together smoking cigarettes against the side of the graffitied convenience store, and the sound of sirens floated from somewhere in the distance. We were on the 8th Street down-town train platform at about 10:00 pm. "You mean like with the shopping carts and stuff?" I asked, examining him more carefully this time. He nodded. Outsider. "Um, yeah," I said, "We call this corner 'Crack Macs'." "Are you serious?!" he asked, paling. Definitely an outsider. Yet, I was surprised by his concern. Deep circles under his eyes indicated pro-longed sleep-deprivation; slightly dirty-looking loose jeans, faux-fur lined skater hoodie, and a faded black baseball cap with a silver spider web embroidered on the front suggested he was some sort of tradesman or construction worker. He blended right in. Curious now, I asked, "Where are you from?" So he told me his story. He'd recently moved to Red Deer from Ontario. He'd come to Calgary this week to do some sight-seeing of sorts. In his own words, "Worst two days of my life." Apparently, his very first day here he was beaten up and robbed of his wallet, which of course contained all his money, ID, credit cards, etc. He reported the crime to city police, but they weren't able to help him. Trying to remember what I'd suggest if I were at the DC, I asked if he'd tried calling Victim's Assistance. "Well," he said, "the police gave me this piece of paper with all these numbers on it. I don't know what they're all for. Man, I was so mad! They gave me the number for a homeless shelter. I went there and there were people sleeping all over the floor. I asked them if they could help me get bus money to go home, because the bus station said they'd sell me a ticket back to Red Deer for $18.50, but they were like, 'We don't do that here, but you can sleep on the floor if you like.' So I was like, 'F*** this, I'm leaving.' And I've been asking people for change for 12 hours, but all I've got is $2.60 so far." Wincing in sympathy, I acknowledged that Calgarians have become pretty closed-fisted since the city population exploded and housing costs shot up, leaving a lot of people homeless and the rest de-sensitized to their pain. "That's cold, man," he shook his head. A plan beginning to form in my head, I inquired when his bus was supposed to leave. "11:30. But there's no way I'll be able to get the money by then," he said glumly, "An' I feel so stupid asking people for change. I'm not a bum. I have a home. I have money. I just can't get to it." I stared off into space, thinking. He cocked his head to the side and waved, "Hello-o." I shook my head, "Sorry. I was just thinking. You said the ticket costs $18?" When he nodded, I told him, "Wait here." Then I swung my bag over my shoulder and walked off. Since he didn't follow me, I walked the few blocks to my bank, listening to see if God would warn me off. Not at all. I withdrew $20 from my account and put it in my pocket. I generally don't carry much cash on me because it's not all that safe of a practice in Calgary...he's definitely an outsider. I walked back to the station and almost didn't see him, but he called to me from below where he was having a cigarette. Discretely pulling the bill from my pocket and handing it to him (it's a good thing no cops were around or it really would have looked like a drug deal), I told him to go home. His face visibly brightening, he said, "Hey, thanks! You have a good heart." Uncomfortable with praise, I shrugged, "Nobody wants to get stranded." Switching topics, I reminded him to make sure he had all his ID and credit cards, etc. canceled ASAP. Grinning, he told me he'd already gotten that done, then waved farewell and started to walk towards the bus depot. "God bless," I called out the abbreviated farewell blessing as an afterthought, and sat back down in the train shelter. A moment later, a knock on the shelter glass interrupted my journal writing a second time. I looked up and found the stranded Red Deerian staring back at me. I got up and went back out to the railing to see what he wanted. "Are you a Christian?" he asked without preamble. "Yes." I waited. "So am I," he said, then stared at his feet, "Well, I used to be, anyway." So then he told me more of his story- what had brought him to Alberta in the first place. He used to be a youth pastor in a very large and televised church in Ontario. "But I was a do-er, not a be-er," he admitted. Like so many church leaders set on a pedestal, he burned out fast and, as he put it, "I decided 'Screw it' and headed west." He was currently working his way back toward God. We talked about church structure leadership demands, about God's forgiveness and grace. As my train approached, he told me his name. "I'm David," he said, holding out his hand. "Faye," I responded, shaking his hand. It was cold. Then, waving farewell, I got on my train, and he walked away toward the bus depot. I wished I'd stayed a little longer to hear more of his story. I trust God got him to the bus depot safely. God spoke to both of us through our chance encounter. And I think the message was essentially the same; to David- "Come home. I'm still watching over you. I love you." To me- "Your heart is good. I'm still with you. I love you." I can love.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Sunday I drove to Dalhousie to visit my friend Dave at his new church, Harvest Christian Fellowship. Out of boredom or annoyance I've been skipping or ignoring sermons at my own church for months now. I was therefore not prepared when their worship service was interrupted by various church members who freely came to the front and read portions of scripture, devotionals, or sang on-the-spot prophesies and prayers over the group as they felt called by the Spirit. They spoke Ezekiel 11:19 over us, saying that some of us felt dry, dead, and unable to receive God's love, but God would give us new life again if we would prophecy over the deadness. I wouldn't do it, though I wanted to. A tension of opposites. I felt a sudden urge to escape or become invisible. Then they hang out chatting and drink coffee for a while. I escaped to the washroom while Dave went out for a smoke. Wow, it's like High School all over again. I've totally regressed to my previous level of social awkwardness. Rather than trying to talk to someone I didn't know, I sat back down and journaled until the sermon began. It was short- just a blessed 30 minutes- but impactful. The pastor preached on the story of Joseph, son of Israel. Point after point, I felt skewered. He spoke of how we are called to hear the word and to do. To take in and store, then to give to others what we've been given. He talked about how it appears that God in his mercy helped Joseph forget his dream for a time. When he was appointed second in command to pharaoh, he went immediately to work, trusting the authority given him by God and Pharaoh would be accepted wherever he went in Egypt. He forgot his father's house, married the daughter of a priest of Ra, had two sons. He was able to step back and focus on the tasks before him, let his past go, so that when his brothers arrived he was in the right place, the right heart, to live out his dream the way God planned it. I've never really heard Joseph's story like that. And it killed me. Which is good. You see, I've been feeling very stuck in many places in my life right now. Unable to find the motivation to get my school work done, stuck in oscillating states of apathy or depression, unable to stick it out with the young adults at my church after their new pastor quit and they reverted back to their safe weekly bible studies that make me want to scream. I know God told me to be there, told me I needed to teach them some new things, and I have felt no release to give up and go somewhere else. But since I joined the young adults group last winter, I have been completely unsuccessful in fitting in, making myself join them regularly, getting to know them as individuals, or allowing them to know me. I can't lead them, God. They don't trust me (understandably so). Why would they listen to me? They won't, God replied, but they will listen to me.

Philippians 4:13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

So here I am not. Because it's not I who lives, but Christ lives in me. And although I probably do not have the courage to face that whole group and ask their forgiveness for judging them and avoiding them, or to ask the leaders if they'd let me get involved in helping them in whatever God is leading them in, Christ has courage to spare. And although I don't deserve to be accepted to their group after the way I've behaved toward them, they love Christ and welcome him in their midst. And although I still don't know how to balance work, school, family, friends, and church demands, Christ has got rhythm and moves that would put Elvis Presley to shame. "I love you. I love you, do you hear me? Now GET UP!" Trinity commanded Neo, lying shot and bloody on the floor. Neo's eyes opened and he rose to his feet to crush his enemies and return to his heart, his home (Matrix, 1999, Warner Brothers Pictures).

I can love, and I can work.

Another Side of the Moon

Piece of Glass words and music by Derek Webb and Danielle Young, performed by Caedman's Call, Long Line of Leavers album. Can't believe that I did it again, wake me up from this nightmare 'Cause this monster is wasting me away and taking my days Every day I live a bit less, one night leads to another Even if I went back would they recognize me? or criticize me? Who are you that lies when you stare at my face? Telling me that I'm just a trace of the person I once was 'Cause I just can't tell if you're telling the truth or a lie On you I just can't rely, After all you're just a piece of glass Still I control this nightmare, when I call it answers But I can't tell it when to come or when to stay Don't talk, listen Hold me tighter Stay with me just for a while Until the sun shines stay with me Just give me one more day Who are you that lies when you stare at my face? Telling me that I'm just a trace of the person I once was 'Cause we're not the same, you're just a picture of me You're gone as soon as I leave, you've lived your life for me And you're no more than a piece of glass You're no more than just a piece of glass

If I had the motivation to actually produce a self-portrait today, it would be on a square canvass, produced with watered-down acrylics and gold, silver, red, black, and grey pens. I would paint myself sitting alone, my face devoid of emotion. But no one but my artist would know that fact, because my features are hopelessly blurred and obscured by layers upon layers of words- the endless circling thoughts I can't purge from my mind, even when asleep. It's probably a good thing my thoughts are cyclical- they're the only part of me left that remains three dimensional. The rest of me is flat, faded, and parched- a sun-bleached poster facing out of a neglected shop window.... or one of those creepy spinning blocks at the Toronto Science Centre where four individuals' faces are pasted on four sides of a cube, then the cube is sliced into 3 layers so that eyebrows, eyes and nose, and mouth may be separated and recombined to form facial expressions of the basic human emotions according to the subjective whim of strangers. I don't think I can call this week "depression". The correct clinical term would characterize this short-term experience as "flat affect," which simply means "devoid of or lacking in emotion". "Zoe," Mel, Captain of the Serenity, looks at his second in command, "Are you here?" "To the job, sir," she replies stoically. "Hold, hold until I get back," he requests as much as commands. Her leaf on the wind is gone (Serenity, 2005, Universal Studios). Nothing was. She was not. There was no dark. There was no light. No sight nor sound nor touch nor smell nor taste. No sleeping nor waking. No dreaming, no knowing. Nothing. And then a surge of joy. All senses alive and awake and filled with joy. Darkness was, and darkness was good. As was light. Light and darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm. The morning stars sang together and the ancient harmonies were new and it was good. It was very good. And then a dazzling star turned its back on the dark, and it swallowed the dark, and in swallowing the dark it became dark, and there was something wrong with the dark, as there was something wrong with the light. And it was not good. The glory of the harmony was broken by screeching, by hissing, by laughter which held no merriment but was hideous, horrendous cacophony... "Where are we?" [Charles Wallace] asked, wanting Gaudior to tell him that they were not in his own Where, that this could not possibly be the place of the star-watching rock, of the woods, only a few minutes' walk from the house. Gaudior's words trembled with concern. "We're still here, in your own Where, although it is not yet a real When." "Will it be?" "It is one of the Projections we have been sent to try to prevent. The Echthroi will do everything in their power to make it real." A shudder shook the boy's slight frame as he looked around at the devastated landscape. "Gaudior- what do we do now?" "Nothing. You mustn't loosen your hold on my mane. They want us to do something, and anything we do might be what they need to make this Projection real." "Can't we get away?" The unicorn's ears flicked nervously. "It's very difficult to find a wind to ride when one has been blown into a Projection." -A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978) Madeleine L'Engle, pp. 49-50, 69.

My Many Colored Days (1996) Dr. Seuss, illustrations by Steve Johnson & Lou Fancher

Some days are yellow. Some are blue. On different days I'm different too. You'd be surprised how many ways I change on different colored days. On Bright Red Days how good it feels to be a horse and kick my heels! On other days I'm other things. On Bright Blue Days I flap my wings. Some days, of course, feel sort of brown. Then I feel slow and low, low down. Then comes a Yellow Day. And, WHEEEEEEEEEEE I am a busy, buzzy bee. Gray Day...Everything is gray. I watch. But nothing moves today. Then all of a sudden I'm a circus seal! On my Orange Days that's how I feel. Green Days. Deep deep in the sea. Cool and quiet fish. That's me. On Purple Days I'm sad. I groan. I drag my tail. I walk alone. But when my days are Happy Pink it's great to jump and just not think. Then comes my Black Days. MAD. And Loud. I howl. I growl at every cloud. Then comes a Mixed-Up Day. And WHAM! I doN't KNow wHo or WhaT i aM! But it all turns out all right, you see. And I go back to being...me.

This post is becoming exceedingly long, I know. I won't apologize. I needed to process. But you are permitted to take breaks when your eyes are burning from staring at a glowing screen. A song, a movie, a book, a poem, borrowed words, stolen time. Concentrate. You can do it. It's just a three page paper. And you love thematic analysis. You've had harder assignments in High School. But it has to be perfect and I'm flawed and I'm tired and I can't focus and I'm scared of failing and I can't I can't I can't. It's just...a three...page...paper!!! You're not expected to find every last theme in the book, just the obvious ones. Come on, it's due by the end of the week and you need to be moving onto other things. Jen wants you to come out to the book publishing party tomorrow night. GET IT DONE! Television. I watched five episodes of Hogan's Heroes on Monday night with my parents to honour the war Veterans. Neither my mom nor I had it in us to watch something realistic like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. We roared with laughter then it was over, my parents went to bed, and I felt empty again. I sat on the floor with my dog; petted him a long time with Chasey sitting on the floor across from me, doing our best to say good-bye in a language he could understand. He's gone now. My ambivalence about going along for the last ride to the farm was taken out of my hands- my dad took him after work today, while I was at school writing another physiological psychology exam. My mom and I kept asking You to just let him die in his sleep. He wouldn't, despite his inability to swallow water without choking, despite being nothing but bones, oozing slime, and sweaty fur. Dad, Melanie, and Chasey waited out of respect for our wishes, but the hour glass sand poured out in deadly silence. Her leaf on the wind is gone. Maybe it's better this way. I didn't want my last memory of him to be watching his final breath, or touching him in a state of rigor mortise first thing in the morning on my way to breakfast. Still, it seems cowardly to want death so far removed and sterile. It's just an inevitable part of being corporal. You're just a piece of glass... "Faye, let me know ahead of time when you're going to leave. I want to pray for you before you go," Lisa requests. "All right," I agree congenially. I knew she would. That's why I came. Sindy was my prophet before, but now she lives far away and I need someone to hear for me and to tell me what they hear; no coddling, softening, or warping. Because I can't I can't I can't... First she probes my mood. She's checking to make sure there's still a range into the positive. Oddly rapid cycles of emotion for me, but, Yes. It's like a Monet- splatters of blurry colours everywhere, but there is range, I assure her. She smiles and I smile back. Messy is her word. Silence. She listens. I'm trying to do the same, I really am. Why did I write Joshua 7:13 on the wall? What's causing this fatigue? What if I'm re-living Amy's journey of visiting endless streams of doctors who all tell her the same thing: it's stress-related and really there's nothing wrong with me and I'm becoming a hypochondriac when I just need to trust God more? What if I have brain cancer and God tells me I can't seek medical treatment- I just need to have faith that He'll remove it? What if I'm supposed to be following that British spiritual teacher's advice (what is his name again? Nolan would know. Nolan has his instructional c-ds) and giving away whatever it is I need so God can play a one-up game with me and give me even more back and the only reason I'm feeling and doing so poorly is because I'm not playing right? I can't I can't I can't At last, the verdict: "I'm seeing a picture of...confusion. Your mind: a dark, swirling mass of...thoughts. But not in a healthy, processing way- chaotic." She looks at me for confirmation. "Yes!" I said, surprised and relieved. Not surprised that God told her, surprised at his answer. One sentence to sum up what I took at least ten minutes trying to describe without knowing what it really was. Normally I'm so good at sorting, labelling, and summarizing my internal being, but this time I couldn't. Lisa commands the chaos to still, to rest, to quiet. It sort of does. Lisa and Angie together: getting a sense of how much God adores you. You're so beautiful, so cherished by Him. He doesn't want anything of you, he just wants you to be still in his presence, to rest and be healed. Angie instructs me to lie down on a pillow, listen to a song she has in her head from God for me. Usually it skips but we'll see what happens. No skippage. No idea who the artist was, or what album it came off of, or the title of the song...but the chorus skips on in my head, "You are the pearl He came to find. You are the pearl He came to find." A single tear slips down my cheek and I stare at the ceiling. Why am I always the one in need of healing? Why can't I be done with this and stop wasting people's time and energy? I hate making people worry about me, hate always taking, hate being the joy sucker. I'm a black hole in space. You are the pearl He came to find. You are my treasure. The gates of heaven will be made of pearls. I was incredulous when I first read that. I couldn't understand why. There are so many prettier gems God could use for the giant gates to His city. "Pearls are formed through the suffering of an innocent," Pastor Mark informed his congregation back in the days when there still was one to preach to. "They're pieces of gravel or dirt that are stuck in the shell of an oyster, who is unsuccessful at spitting them out. The gravel gets rolled over and over in the oyster's mouth, getting coated in the same phosphorescent white coating as the inside of the oyster's shell. Sometimes the dirt or gravel gets in accidentally, other times humans 'plant' the particles in the oyster intentionally so they can later 'harvest' pearls for retail." Christ is our oyster. Sounds like a t-shirt motto. You are the pearl He came to find. I don't know what to do with that. "Basically, praise God for who He is, and come before Him. Let Him sit on your praises. Let Him be crowned King over all of you, your mind, time, emotions, your heart. The door will open, and then cry out to Him, and he will hear you. Have faith and claim the promises He's given you in His Word. Don't let Satan tempt you to despair. Don't believe any lies. Find the Truth and claim it because Jesus died for you to live in freedom. Don't let anything pull you away from reading the Living Word every day, no matter what you feel like," Amy wrote the same week. And again, "Christ needs to dwell in our hearts through faith. Everything you are doing is out of love. When that love [is absent from?] your heart, your spirit is detroned by your mind [and] we so quickly get stressed and wonder 'what is all this for?' And we are such creative people...and very special. You are very important to God, Faye, and you have something very important to do for His glory. Pray what this means: Trust the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. I just hear God saying...be in tune with your spirit. Do not look to the world, but to God's heart. He's given you an amazing mind to grasp things, but your heart must come first or else you will fall. And just remember the first commandment: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength soul mind. But pray about what exactly this means. Surrender to his presence. The Holy Spirit is with you right now. He is as much God as the Father and the Son seated in heaven. God is with you! And He wants you to know Him more and discover who He is and to make your heart like His."

Joshua 7:13 "Get up! Command the people to purify themselves in preparation for tomorrow. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Hidden among you, O Israel, are things set apart for the LORD. You will never defeat your enemies until you remove these things from among you."

The Moment

"Upon pinching our pale skin, a barely audible question escapes from our mouth: 'How are we doing?' Silence. We listen to our breathing- it is shallow and pathetic. 'Are we all right?' Slowly we shake our head. We don't want to speak- not today anyway. 'Morning,' we whisper. The word flickers in our consciousness. 'How are we feeling today?' 'Not the best,' is the apathetic reply. 'Today's going to be another bad one,' we say stoically. We feel the violence of the vortex gather pace as it screams inside our body. We twist through its complexity and pound on our corporal self. As usual, questions concerning its authenticity bob up and down in our sea of pain. How do we really feel? The word doesn't describe our feelings- does it? Surely it's unimaginable to those who have not suffered with it? People walking down the street, students, friends-whatever-nonchalantly spew it out. It seems that the word, like a slug slithering innocuously through language and culture, leaves little trace of its intrinsic malevolence. Has it become so common in everyday language? Has it lost its depth, its meaning, and its feeling? Has it been hammered into banality? we think. As always, however, we struggle for answers while our mind becomes a cesspool of ominous thoughts. We become swamped in our(selves). The torture continues in our head. How can life be filled with such torpid indifference? The little things like taking our dog for a walk in the park on a warm spring day or playing football with our friends just aren't fun anymore. We breathe and walk, we just don't live. We are detached and hollow. Under our blanket of suffocating darkness, we pretend that everything is fine, yet, we rot away from the inside. At times it spews bits out. At times it swallows us whole. At times both. No warning, bang! We move from pain to pain. We have only one future. Please God, help, we plead as our huddled body rocks back and forth. Confused and afraid, we don't want to talk anymore. 'Please leave,' we gently sob." -The Abyss: Exploring Depression Through a Narrative of the Self (1999) Brett Smith, in Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 265. "I got the letter," said Marcus flatly, "Thanks." Marcus' mother covered her mouth in embarrassment: "I forgot." "You forgot?! You wrote a suicide letter!" Marcus exploded incredulously. "Well," Marcus mother threw a furtive glance in his direction, "I didn't think I'd have to remember it, did I?" Breaking the ensuing awkward silence, Marcus mother inquired tentatively, "Did you read the part where I said I'd always love you?" "It's a bit hard to love me when you're dead, isn't it?!" "Sorry." Coming to sit across from him, she said, "I can understand why you're angry, Marcus...but," she shrugged, "I don't feel the same as I did yesterday, or the day before that." "What? It's all just gone away? All that?" Marcus' eyebrow lifted in disbelief. "Well, no," admitted Marcus' mother gently, "But, at the moment, I feel better." "The moment's no good to me," exclaimed Marcus angrily, "I can see you're better at the moment. But what happens when you finish your tea?" -About a Boy (2002) Universal Pictures, starring Hugh Grant. So, God granted my wish this time. Please, please don't let anyone find me. I swear I'm not suicidal, I'm just depressed... and crying so hard that every dead leaf and blade of grass surrounding my hidden sanctuary along the river bank is slimy with tears and snot... and I would totally call EMS immediately if I found someone in my present emotional state sitting alone this close to the Bow River... Weird. I can see the bridge where my High School art teacher stopped a woman from drowning herself in the night from here. She wasn't especially grateful for the intervention. I wasn't even there and I can hear her screaming for him to leave her alone, pushing away rescue, fighting for freedom from another day spent in the Abyss. "How are you doing, Faye?" my professor asked at our meeting that afternoon. I don't want to answer that question. Not to her. Not to myself. Not to anyone. Not again. In most urban places in North America, when someone asks, "What's up?" or "How're you doing?" the standard, polite response is: "Fine" or "All right" or "Okay." In the university culture, we don't like to stoop to such trite and mindless responses. Instead, our sophisticated and suave automatic responses include complicated combinations of: "Tired" and/or "Busy," smoothly expressed with either a hint of amused self-recrimination or martyr-like patience. Particularly in the small Christian college I attend, we're a sleep-deprived, financially-strapped, stressed-out lot. And proud of it. Among our favourite pass-times, we like to have one-up competitions to see who is writing the most papers, has the hardest professor to please, is working the most volunteer and part-time (or full-time) jobs on the side, taking the most courses simultaneously, borrowing the most money from the government, surviving on the most free coffee and bread hand-outs at school, dealing with the worst personal crises, etc. Then we roll our eyes at each other, laugh, and go check our cell-phone messages, e-mail, MSN, blog-site, or facebook account to do the same thing over again. The U of C is selling brilliant minds to deserving corporations right now, did you notice? But my professor looks at me when she asks that question. "I'm...tired." I look down at the floor and try to will my throat not to close on me. She's still looking at me. I don't want to shatter I don't want to shatter I don't want to shatter. She gets up, closes the door to her office, returns her seat, looks at me. "Ok, so what's really going on?"

My throat closes and I shatter.

She offers me a box of kleenex. She gives me a three week extension on the next part of my research project, and gives me pointers on how to succeed on assignments and exams for my other classes. She wants me to see the school counsellor, book an appointment with my GP- maybe I'm depressed or maybe I have low vitamin B, take the night off and spend some quality time with a good friend- tell them how I'm doing over some really good cheesecake. She reminds me of the importance of "self-care". I know this stuff. I give nearly identical variations of it to family members, friends, and complete strangers every week when we talk about anxiety, stress, loneliness, or the "d" word. "Your work is excellent, Faye," she says emphatically, waving the third draft of my research proposal to be submitted to the ethics review board at me. "You have a natural ability. I look at you and I see a young woman who, for the first time in the five years I've known her, is defeated: you're defeated in your own mind." I nod. I know she's right. I came to the same conclusion the day before while walking home alone from the c-train. In psychology, we call it "learned helplessness," which is the belief that no matter what you do (or don't do) you can't avoid failure. You have no control over your future. This is not a normal pattern of thinking for me. But this time, I just don't see a way out. I can't concentrate to do my work because I'm exhausted and I'm too afraid of failing at anything I actually start. I've already cut back on pretty much everything there is to cut from one's social life: I go to work for one shift a month and I volunteer for 2 shifts per month. I've stopped going to church, I choose one friend to hang out with for an evening every two weeks. I don't bother eating lunch. My exercise has been reduced to a 4 block daily walk with my arthritic and cancer-ridden dog who frequently needs to stop for rests. I'm perfectly aware that it is illogical for me to be so panicked about doing poorly on my assignments: I can count on one hand (a genetically modified hand with six or seven fingers instead of five) the number of instances I have scored less than 80% on something. It's just that 4 of those times occurred within the last year, and two of those within the last two months of my life, after I studied my heart out. I failed my first attempt at a driver's license a year ago (which tends to happen when you nearly mow down pedestrians and can't remember what to do at a four way stop), failed to make the school soccer team last year, barely passed the GRE, and barely passed my first unit exam in physiological psychology. Now, some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking of all sorts of geeky losers who claim to have done "terribly" on an exam, which for them means 70%. While I understand how this is ludicrous (and rude) to someone who feels fortunate if they can get a 70%, you need to understand that (1) psychology is easy and everyone in the program has a minimum average of 78% and (2) because psychology is easy and tends to pay a great deal, graduate programs weed out the students they don't have enough room for by demanding extremely high academic scores and practical experience. It's all or nothing stakes for geeks not quite smart enough for engineering, computer programming, astrophysics, or the biological sciences. And I realized suddenly that although my long-term life plans remain desirable to me, I really don't want to live through the next five years to get there. I also suddenly realized that I didn't have anyone to talk to- at least, no one available on the spur of the moment to just go for a two hour walk, chat, and a mocha (I work once a month- I can't afford cheesecake:). And I'm lonely. Which I feel ashamed to say, because for the first time in my life I have really loyal, genuine friends who are always asking me when we can hang out next and genuinely want to know how I'm doing. If I'm lonely this time, it's my own fault. And I'm ashamed of my fear. My head knows that God will be with me wherever I go, that I'm never alone, that God will give me what I need to be, go, and do what he wants. My head knows he wants more than just "fine," "okay," "tired," "busy," or the dreaded "depressed" for me. But I can't envision it in my future. And I sure as hell can't feel it in the present moment, though not for lack of effort on God's part to get it through to me: he had my friend Jen W. send me an email telling me I'd been on her mind and prayers lately and inviting me out to a nerdy artists fest (artists are great fun and I admit I really miss that scene), he had Amy send me a card and a carefully chosen assortment of gifts all the way from Scotland, he reminded me that these phases don't last forever by crossing my path with other people even more depressed than I am who felt encouraged after talking to me, he gave my mom time to go out for ice-cream with me, he gave me a phone call from Val, and a mid-night logical but sympathetic chat with my sister Melanie, and countless on-line gifts and hellos from friends like Jen F, Melanie Roe, Lisa, and others wondering where the duece I've gone. He gave me a tender moment while hugging my borrowed niece, Rylee, and a pretty sunset tonight before the familiar feelings of dread and hopelessness took me over in the sun-light's absence. He gave me an "I'm sorry to hear that" from Jordan, who really meant it, when I gave him the abbreviated version at Trevor and Melissa's wedding (which was incredibly entertaining, by the way). Actually, God regularly gives me beautiful and fun moments with my siblings, parents, and friends. And I appreciate them and am trying really hard to live in those moments when they come my way. They're just hard to hold on to while the rest of me reads the newspaper and nearly pukes because some cocaine addicted prostitutes in Vancouver decided to torture their friend for hours with a box cutter until she died. At this moment, I'm tired, I have a head-ache, I feel melancholy, and I'm disappointed with myself for not getting more accomplished today. My thoughts seem sluggish, fragmented, and ambivalent. But it's just a moment, and maybe the next one will be different.