When I took a peek at my Facebook memories today, I saw a post that I re-shared back in 2020. It was right before the pandemic struck, and during that time, I was somewhat near the end of a stage of depression, hence the post.
It said, “Picture this, 5 years from now, tatawanan mo na lang lahat ng setbacks at failures mo, and realize that God’s always been with you through ups and downs kaya mo kinakaya. He’s faithful even when we’re not.”
Very interesting.
How timely to come across that because it reminded me of a book that I read when I was in my early years of high school. The book was written as if you were reading the diary of a girl–written in first person, dates instead of chapters, and the font was like the girl’s handwriting. If you’re familiar with The Baby-Sitters Club book series in the 1990s, this was a spin-off series called The California Diaries.
Anyway, I digress. I remember that in one of the books, the main character said that journals are important to her. You write about your experiences, your feelings, everything that had happened. True, it felt like the end of the world while something bad was happening at that moment, and you wished that it would all just go away, and disappear. Or sometimes, you would wish that you could immediately get over that. Then years later, when you read what you’ve written, you’ll realize that you eventually survived those bad things that happened to you.
Going back to that Facebook post that I re-shared, it also reminded me of what I did last Friday when I had a lot of downtime at work. For some reason, I found myself looking at my old blogs from many many years ago. I found funny anecdotes with friends, my life in theater, love, heartache, and the best part of it all was closure, peace, and contentment.
For years, even prior to the pandemic, I prayed for peace of mind. And just last Friday, that was when I realized that I finally got that answered prayer. I didn’t realize that I’ve had that for months now, and I was already laughing with some friends about old issues that I now finally let go of.
So yes, friends, if you’re stuck in a rut right now, that is perfectly okay. Acknowledge any pain or other negative emotions. Don’t rush into feeling better, because you’ll just end up feeling impatient and frustrated. Give it time, and eventually, you’ll get there.
It feels really great to write things down again.
