I haven’t been able to write much for the blog of late. For the last few years, Advent has tended to be a season of spiritual and emotional doldrums: worry about January (consistently a bad month for me financially) and trying to get gifts taken care of tend to dampen my mood. Much more than that, the long series of holiday gatherings from Thanksgiving to New Year’s involves a lot of time spent with families with children, and, well, I wanted to have kids when I grew up and I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, and I haven’t yet made peace with that.
This year the doldrums have been particularly bad, because I’ve felt distant from God for the last few months. I have seasons of intimacy, and seasons of dejection, and this fall has been one of the latter. It’s terribly hard for me to see the point of chastity, let alone actively pursue it; that makes me feel guilty, which then puts me in a feedback loop of distracting myself from guilt with, haha, guess what.
I’ve clung to two things as a lifeline. One is something my friend Joey said once: “The only wrong way to pray is not to pray.” It’s the only reminder that gives me the nerve to pray some days. The other thing, building on this first, is the Rosary, every day. Guilty, worried, distracted, unsure, I pray it. It keeps me from turning my thoughts away from heaven completely; now and then, under Mary’s impetus, I even talk to God about what’s actually on my mind. My faith and hope limp, but they haven’t collapsed.
I guess I’m saying, if you find this season wearing and melancholy sometimes, you aren’t alone, and it isn’t a sign of failure. Being wounded, being tired, these are things Our Lord and Our Lady understand very well. Whatever you do, don’t stop talking to them, however feebly.
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