It smells like fresh ground coffee.
I think fresh ground coffee must be one of the best smells in the universe. I am sitting here in the Mt. Vernon Starbucks on College Way; it’s 7:36am and I’ve been up for over an hour… and I’m happy.
There are a lot of people to whom this won’t come as a shock. These are the people who mostly knew me in my pre-college days when I was primarily cheerful (though my journals reflect that I regularly engaged in self-hatred), and there are the people who have not known me long, or do not know me well. But there are a lot of people who will be pleasantly surprised at my admission of happiness.
About a year and a half ago I was diagnosed with depression, and given medication to help treat the symptoms – you know, help me sleep better, give me more energy, allow me to stop thinking all the time about how much I didn’t like my life – and fortunately, the medication helped out for a time. It allowed me to come up from the depths for a breath of fresh air. And the air tasted good.
Besides my depression, the last two years have been rather horrible at times. Between having few friends, disliking my work environment, missing the church that formed much of who I’ve become (props to G&G!), getting shafted by Multnomah two days before graduation, my wife slowly progressing toward blindness, and a whole host of minor annoyances, well, my life kinda sucked at some points. It actually made it impossible for me to go to the dark and difficult places in my own soul and let God’s light illuminate them. And so the darkness continued.
Until now. In the past few months, I have begun to see myself again. As I’ve done so, I’ve seen a lot of things I don’t like, but instead of retreating into my self-hatred, instead of becoming overwhelmed to the point of despair, God has allowed me to embrace his cleansing light and start becoming a changed me.
And so today I’m happy. My mind and Spirit are full from the times I’ve spent with God in the last month, and my muscles ache from the time I spent in the gym yesterday, and I’m a little hungry from my change in diet… and I’m the happiest I’ve been in… well, I’m not sure, but it’s been a long time.
And now for some coffee.
I think fresh ground coffee must be one of the best smells in the universe. I am sitting here in the Mt. Vernon Starbucks on College Way; it’s 7:36am and I’ve been up for over an hour… and I’m happy.
There are a lot of people to whom this won’t come as a shock. These are the people who mostly knew me in my pre-college days when I was primarily cheerful (though my journals reflect that I regularly engaged in self-hatred), and there are the people who have not known me long, or do not know me well. But there are a lot of people who will be pleasantly surprised at my admission of happiness.
About a year and a half ago I was diagnosed with depression, and given medication to help treat the symptoms – you know, help me sleep better, give me more energy, allow me to stop thinking all the time about how much I didn’t like my life – and fortunately, the medication helped out for a time. It allowed me to come up from the depths for a breath of fresh air. And the air tasted good.
Besides my depression, the last two years have been rather horrible at times. Between having few friends, disliking my work environment, missing the church that formed much of who I’ve become (props to G&G!), getting shafted by Multnomah two days before graduation, my wife slowly progressing toward blindness, and a whole host of minor annoyances, well, my life kinda sucked at some points. It actually made it impossible for me to go to the dark and difficult places in my own soul and let God’s light illuminate them. And so the darkness continued.
Until now. In the past few months, I have begun to see myself again. As I’ve done so, I’ve seen a lot of things I don’t like, but instead of retreating into my self-hatred, instead of becoming overwhelmed to the point of despair, God has allowed me to embrace his cleansing light and start becoming a changed me.
And so today I’m happy. My mind and Spirit are full from the times I’ve spent with God in the last month, and my muscles ache from the time I spent in the gym yesterday, and I’m a little hungry from my change in diet… and I’m the happiest I’ve been in… well, I’m not sure, but it’s been a long time.
And now for some coffee.
posted by Joe P. @ 7:51 AM
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