Day one on the Alien Planet

There was a glass of water sitting on my bed stand that was just bound to cause trouble.  Funny how I ended up being the one who knocked it over onto... well everything.

It's the first real day of the New Year.  Y'know with working and school and all the usuals.  It has officially begun.  And there's... well a ton going on in our lives that makes starting anew so much different than it's ever been.  We're dog paddling for our lives here, people.

I am starting 2010 coming to terms with the fact that I am a person with depression.  Frankly, I thought I would be past this by now; I thought I could outsmart this thing and move on.  Tricky disease, that depression, though - I'm doing the absolute best that I know how - and I've come a long way - but this keeps on following me around.  It's a fight, and a really tiring one at that.  I know a few people who have dealt with depression for years, and I hate to think that maybe this is my trial from here on out, but I've seen that it's possible.  Everyone gets their own burdens, right?  I'm beginning to see that this is mine.

The kids and I watched a "Jesus movie" on Sunday (one of those animated stories from the scriptures.)  It happened to be the story of Samuel the prophet and the sign of Christ's birth.  The believers were waiting for the sign, the night with no darkness, and the non-believers were threatening to kill them if it didn't happen.  But the believers prayed and had faith - a TON of faith in my opinion.  They just knelt there and said, I'm paraphrasing, "If it comes, great, but if not, we will die knowing that we were true to our God."  Ben and I are reaching for this kind of faith.

He's self-employed.  He's the whole company.  There is no back up plan.  And here we are kneeling and praying that we will survive paying our bills this month, and doubting oh so much.  I remember from when I was a kid, though, that even a desire to believe is better than nothing.  Ben's working so hard.

Maybe it sounds like puny stuff to some, but our lives are so different this January; I feel like I'm walking through uncharted land.  But the journey has been successful so far.  Day one is coming to an end.  The moments to hang on to:

We all got ready today,
Canon buckled his own carseat (the top buckle at least) once,
Taesya got to and from preschool,
we made pizza together without yelling,
Ben got in a full day's work,
dishes got done,
a load of laundry was put away,
instead of giving up on the day, I helped the kids with an art project
we sang songs together,
I didn't spend any unnecessary money at Harmons,
Keller walked greater distances than ever before.

Truly it was a monumental day.  I found this really great quote in a book I'm reading.  The book is called Life of Pi, and the main character says this of life:

"I speak in all modesty as I say this, but I discovered at that moment that I have a fierce will to live.  It's not something evident, in my experience.  Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh.  Others fight a little, then lose hope.  Still others--and I am one of those--never give up.  We fight and fight and fight.  We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success.  We fight to the very end.  It's not a question of courage.  It's something constitutional, an inability to let go."

We can do this.