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@emgc, @sageinthemeadow, @taylor-clogston, @princess-foo, @daeus-lamb, @anybody, @everybody

I question myself posting this and question that too, but here we are. I apologize in advance for this gloomy vent and its lack of conciseness.

I feel brutally depressed. Apathetic. Hopeless to the point of inactivity. And it’s only Tuesday. Sunday I was fine, happy enough, hosted a great D&D session, then screwed myself up staying up till 5am looking at things I can only pray I’ll forget. Yesterday I went to bed early, determined to avoid repeating the same sin, and succeeded well enough – apart from randomly crying as I realized how long I had been out of the loop with regards to my classwork, how much time I had squandered over this week and a half of extended break that I could have more effectively invested in either study or writing and now that time cannot be reclaimed. Woke up early, went for a walk. Posted some things here, made myself useful.

Then went and did it again because I just stopped caring. No rise. No feeling. Doing it doesn’t raise my spirits or make me feel better, it just reminds me how soul-crushingly stupid, undisciplined, and self-destructive I am.

I don’t know what I want. I don’t want anything, best as I can tell. I don’t care to figure out what I have to do for school even though I know that I need to. I don’t care to work on my novel even as my spirit cries out in torment over my delinquency in tending it. I know there’s a thousand and one promises I’ve made to read people’s work here on Story Embers and another Christian friend whom I’m pen-pals with and I just can’t be bothered even as guilt hovers over me like a storm cloud.

I don’t even care to indulge in the mediocre banes of my existence, video games and YouTube. I’m hungry and I don’t feel like eating.

It’s a beautiful day outside by the way. Stunning blue skies, brilliant green grass, and a sun like a great golden mirror. Nothing terrible has happened to me; the consequences have not yet come in for school, and most likely if I put peddle to the metal I can probably salvage my lack of studying and come out with the grades I need – perhaps even the grades I want. God has oft-times blessed me before with that sort of mental afterburner in order to perform under terminal pressure.

I’m disappointed in myself.

I feel like I’ve wasted the half of my last seven years, as a writer, as a son, as a worker, as a student, as a man. I’m less athletic than I was when I was cloistered in a college-prep program with no time to exercise. Even though my skill as a writer has improved dramatically, my output has shriveled to a trickle. My discipline in school-work has decayed as outlined above, and I’m struggling to keep myself even remotely enthusiastic for the editing ‘job’ I started so eagerly in October of 2018. I’m weak, disorganized, feeble-minded, and relapsing into the same blasted sins that compelled me to flee to Christ, and it’s all too often that I doubt my faith. Not the truth of it, never – I doubt my salvation. I know God is true, and it seems all too often that I am not. I know He is merciful and kind upon those who appeal to His grace in sincerity, and that He is endlessly loving and generous to give to all those who will ask of Him all that they need. This is His story, not mine, and accordingly He has the power of the Hero. It is not by my strength that I will triumph, but His.

I fear that He is disappointed in me. That for all the wonderful things He has shown me and given me, for all His Word that He has placed in my life that I might be raised from foolish ignorance into righteous faith, I am an ignoramus, a stubborn goat, and a serpent so deceitful I even have myself fooled. Where is my growth? Where are even the little victories? Where is my joy? Why do I keep looking to worldly, even sinful things for pleasure when I am FULLY aware of how abjectly unsatisfying they are – even in the moment of sin? What is wrong with me? Can I really blame my ADHD (even partially) for so many things which are obviously weaknesses of character?

How long must this go on? My life I suppose. Only in death does the struggle against sin end with the final victory of sanctification by the Holy Spirit. And how glorious that day will be – if I can see it.

I’m just so tired. I’m tired of fighting. And I can’t bear to give into the world. I feel like the world is on my shoulders (though it’s bloody well not) and even knowing God is at my back I don’t know how to start – or maybe more frankly, I’m a lazy philistine who can’t even be arsed to get up and cook for himself (and too stingy to order delivery) when his stomach’s growling – let alone do anything significant with his life.

I miss my church. I want to see their faces. I want to be in the pews. I want to sing with them again. I want to hear God when I pray. Not literally (though that would be a pleasant surprise) – I want to feel again, to feel something besides utter apathy or paralyzing grief. I want to know, not just with my head which is fully cognizant of the situation – but with this stupid muscle of a heart – God’s love. I want to be with Him. I want this poor excuse for a life to be done with, but I want it to have meant something before it’s done – and woe betide that accursed pride, I’m afraid of the possibility that God has not intended my life to go that way – at least not as I hope (this being a writer’s forum after all).

I’ve come this far. I’m tempted to delete this, nonsense that it is. Forgive me the pungent refrain of fetid self-pity. I don’t know how else to express myself right now. I find even my prayers strangled. This is the best I could do.