Let It All Come Out

Lift yourself out of it all
Come out from the shadows to the sun
Oh you gotta lift yourself out of it all
Yesterday’s over, a new day’s begun
You’re only sick as all your secrets
Let them all come out, let them come
This devil came to steal your name away
This devil came to give your name away

OH LET, LET IT ALL COME OUT
LET, LET IT ALL COME OUT
LET, LET IT ALL COME OUT
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW

Newsboys, from the song Let It All Come Out.

What's more self centered than a blog? What is it about blogs?

I know that I have loved, hated, and dreaded blogging. But it's also the first time since I was in college, took photography classes and had to show my work, that I've shown any of my photographs to anyone other than my family. So that's cool.

But right now, I'm in a rather dark place. As a Christian, I know that I have hope. I know that I'm blessed, but it doesn't prevent the darkness from descending from time to time.

I talked on here one day about how as kids my classmates and I had "seasons" at school where we would bring and play with certain items at recess. Marbles for a while, yo-yos for a while, and things like that.

A curious thing about my life has been that just like made up seasons for toys, or even the real climatic seasons on the earth, I go through periods of moods.

I've had a lifelong tendency toward depression and seeing the glass as half empty, but with the onset of chronic back pain, my life is pretty much upside down.

My back has been hurting a good bit lately, and as the darkness follows the setting of the sun, depression follows the unrelenting periods of pain.

I am doing ok, but one of the worst side effects of the chronic pain and depression is that I feel as if I lose about 50 I.Q. points.

My work as an engineer can be damanding on the intellectual side of me, but in periods like I'm in right now, I struggle. A lot. Things that I can remember off the top of my head on a good day, send me scrambling for my engineering books to look up formulas and things because my mind is being dragged down by the pain.

Again, I'm doing ok, but where this blog is so incredibly easy to write for on a good day, I honestly and truly draw a blank when the darkness descends. I DREAD writing, the self imposed deadline of posting every morning, yet the compulsion to write never abates, but my personal standards of what I want to put out there via this blog makes the effort a chore.

Normally something on the news, something someone says, anything really, can remind me of a childhood or youth story, and I write myself a note, and when I can, write that story out and post it here.

Right now I'm in a personal drought. I actually have any number of posts that I could write, but the flair and humor I like to sprinkle within them is just not there. In those cases where I write anyway, the writing seems completely dead.

It's as if the pain robs me of much of my sense of humor, and the joy of telling a story, no matter mundane, comes alive. The deadness of my writing reflects the deadness I feel inside at times, and I hate it. I know I can do better, but not until I wait it out, or put in huge amounts of thought, energy, and caring to make what should be an easy post to write, to at least show a weak heartbeat.

These are the times where I can usually throw in a good batch of pictures and let it go at that. But lately even that has taken monumental effort; just to resize, upload and write brief descriptions for the photos is a challenge.

Don't get me wrong, I love blogging, the reason I started it in the first place was because I KNOW I'm supposed to write, it's a compulsion. But I wasn't writing and I was about to blow a gasket. So I started this blog as a vent in the true sense, a pressure valve. Not necessarily as a place TO vent, as in ranting and anger, but to relieve pressure within me. I felt I had some stories to tell.

On another level, I don't think that there is a human alive that doesn't feel, regardless of how introverted, that they would like to put something "out there" to prove that they're alive. That's what this blog is for me; a way of saying, Hey! I'm alive! I'm here! even if no one reads or cares.

It's the modern version of putting notes in a bottle and setting them out on the waves of the ocean.

Bear with me. I'll get back to some stories when I can.

I just have some issues to work out, along with some kinks in my back.

Thank you to all who read, and especially the ones who take the time to de-lurk and to comment. You don't know what it means to be one of 6 billion or so people on the earth and have a few folks say, hey, I hear ya or I know you're there.