Sadness

I have not written in a few days due to a deep sadness.  I am experiencing an overwhelming feeling of depression right now.  Normally I would not admit to something like this.  I definitely would not write about it.  I would worry that it would affect someone's perspective of me because it goes against my usually happy optimistic nature.  But guess what?  I am down right sad.

I know that it is a normal emotion brought about by normal circumstances.  Most of the time I can get a handle on it and it is usually over rather quickly, but I am having a harder time with this bout.  I do not like it.  This feeling of sadness.  I do not like it at all.

I have been suffering with it since last week.  My youngest son, his wife and their new little baby were coming for a visit.  I was really excited.  Cleaning, buying food, making plans--and then the day before they were due to arrive I got sad.  I thought this thought--they are coming tomorrow, but they are leaving Monday to go home.  When will I see them again?  And the sadness over that simple thought has not left me yet.  That was a week ago.  I wonder--when will I wake up and feel truly happy again?  When will my spark return?


It is not as if I am doing anything different though.  I am maintaining my current lifestyle.  I am getting up, getting ready, running errands, doing the daily things I always do--only I am doing them with a heavy heart.  However, I am not beating myself up over this.  I am dealing with it.  I am taking it out, looking at it, praying about it and analyzing it.  I want to learn something.

The bottom line is--I am missing my family.  They live too far away and there is not a thing I can do about it.  I do not want them to stop visiting just because I go through this emotional trauma every time I see them.   In fact, I would love for them to visit more often.  And I would love to visit them more often.  But sometimes I worry because I always cry when they leave or when I leave and I hope that it does not make them too uncomfortable.  But, it just breaks my heart to be torn away from them.  I wish I had a tougher heart.  That's the problem, I'm a softy.  I love my kids so much and then there are the grandchildren.  I wish I had been warned--danger, grandchildren coming in the future.  When they leave it'll feel like your heart is being ripped out.  But, would the warning have stopped me from ever having kids?  No, probably not.

The love that you feel for your family is unexplainable, and so is the pain, and the sadness when they leave.  I guess you have to be a mom or a grandmother or have your children live far away to understand.  I have no family here and it is hard.  I have more compassion now though for those without family members close by.  I think we need to take care of each other.  We need to lean on each other more.  Maybe we need to make little micro families with our friends and neighbors.  Surely I cannot be the only mom to feel this way.

So, I have analyzed this depression and I am hoping that within a few days I am OK again.  I will pray that the fog lifts.  I think it will as soon as I make some new plans to visit my family.  And then, the entire process will begin again.

And now I wonder--is this how God feels when we leave Him?