Lately it’s been a struggle to make it through an entire day without crying. Or becoming frustrated. Or in one piece. There seems to be so many things going on around me. So many variables that negatively affect my day. Everything is spinning and crumbling around me and it feels like the debris is suffocating me. 

I realized last night it’s another bout of depression. That empty feeling of sadness that just weighs heavily on our chest. That feeling of brokenness that you can’t necessarily explain because it’s all emotions mixed into one that makes no sense to “normal” people. Depression knows how to kill the mood.

I’ve noticed when I’m depressed work seems like it becomes a war to show face, to manage a group of people who have little disregard for you as a manager, to work on the same management team that depends on you but doesn’t respect you. My vacation is in less then 24 hours and I’m already completely checked out – for the last three days. I’m ready to return to Hawaii for a true mental break.

And then there is this….

That is the reason I keep pushing on because all I want is for everyone to be happy. I fight for the happiness of others because I want to protect them from feeling this feeling that I feel. I want to fight for their happiness even if it means giving up on mine. I don’t want them broken. I fight for them because it allows me to focus on something other than the raw, unadultered sadness in my heart. I paste on the smile for the world to see, pretend like I have it all together and get it done. Because that is what I do. To the world I’m a fighter. My persona. I’m super girl. Little do the know what happens in darkness.

The above picture depicts why Hummingbird House means the world to me. A place for youth to know that they aren’t broken. For a place for the youth to feel heard, to feel validated, to feel loved and cherished. To feel human. To grow and be nurtured by people who really understand what it feels like to be in darkness, knows how it feels like to be in the system, knows how it feels like to be unwanted. Depression or not, the only reason I haven’t given up is because I know that God, as little of a relationship I have with Him, still has instilled in my heart the love I have to help people. God has walked me through the darkest times of my life, the times that I was so broken that I had no strength to do it on my own. Now, I pray that God uses those times in my life to touch the lives of people who see themselves as broken. I am praying that God uses me to show the youth they aren’t broken, just a flower waiting to blossom. As broken as I feel, depression and anxiety won’t take that away from me. That will break my bouts of depression, touching lives.